A heart attack waiting to happen

Despite my aversion to soft sounds, normally my mantra is "the louder the better." (Give me Lita Ford or Def Leppard any day of the week!) Of course, a little while ago, my heart nearly jumped out of my chest when someone banged the gong that my coworkers brought back to the office last Friday after the

mandatory staff outing (that I didn't attend). Evidently someone won a new project for the company and decided to let the whole office know by banging on the gong. Unfortunately, the news didn't stay internal for long.

Rumor has it that when my coworkers came back Friday night, several people hung out in the office way past 11 p.m. to play pool (we have a pool table in the office) and enjoy the evening. From what I understand, someone banged the gong that night, which set off the (silent) alarm. The police called one of the principals to come into the office to see what happened. Well, even though the office is open right now, the alarm must still be activated because when someone hit the gong a little while ago, the police again called the office to find out what was going on.

All I can say is it's probably a good thing people now know that hitting the gong will alert the police. I think I'd go nuts if people were hitting the gong all day to celebrate project wins.

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