Where Even Are We? Why Bad Directions Matter

Picture this: there’s an emergency, someone dials 911, and the dispatcher asks for the location. But instead of a clear answer, they get: “Uh… we’re in the Fishbowl?” Or maybe, “We’re by the thing, you know, near the back door?”

Not exactly helpful.

In this episode, we tackle one of the sneakiest yet most preventable dangers in workplace safety—bad location names. Whether it’s confusing conference room names, vague directions, or internal lingo that makes no sense to anyone outside your office, miscommunication can delay emergency response when time is of the essence.

Jimmy shares some personal stories from workplaces that had no rhyme or reason to their room names—like the time he worked security at a giant corporate campus where the stairwells had no names or numbers (guess how well that went during an emergency). We also talk about the importance of clear, standardized language when calling for help and how something as simple as consistent signage can make a huge difference.

So if you’ve ever been lost in your own building or wasted time figuring out whether you’re in “The Redwood Room” or “The Sequoia Suite,” this episode is for you. Stick around for easy ways to fix these problems before they become actual emergencies.

Because in a crisis, “Meet me by the big plant” just isn’t gonna cut it. 

Life Safety Associates specializes in emergency response training for corporate ERT Teams. We help businesses create competent and confident first responders who are ready to handle unexpected emergencies. For more information you find us @lifesafetyassoc or email@lifesafety.com.

Chapters

• 0:46 Episode Introduction
• 1:33 Understanding Nomenclature Importance
• 3:02 Real-World Example at Client's House
• 7:32 Different Names, Dangerous Confusion
• 10:43 Security Job Lessons Learned
• 14:49 Standardizing Names Saves Lives

Transcript

Jimmy: 0:23

What's happening. It's your boy, jimmy, with another life and safety podcast. Today. Meg's is away. She's at school doing her thing, getting her big brain on, so we got the boss lady with us again, jenny.

Jenny: 0:40

Hi everybody.

Jimmy: 0:42

So today we're going to talk about nomenclature. We're going to talk about nomenclature so we've done a podcast about acronyms like response, like ABC, CBS, IBS, March, all kinds of crazy things. So today we're going to talk about nomenclature and why that's important. So I bring this up a lot in my building evacuation class. I bring it up a lot when I'm reminding people how to call 911. Lots of times people forget how to call 911, and you're all thinking what, how does that happen? Well, it happens to the best of us If you don't use it, you lose it.

Jimmy: 1:31

Right what.

Jenny: 1:37

Yeah, how do you forget?

Jimmy: 1:40

You'd be surprised.

Jenny: 1:41

I'm sure you have some stories for us.

Jimmy: 1:43

Well, it's not the how to dial 911. It's the what do you tell people when you call 911?

Jenny: 1:52

Absolutely right, because we're all in our heads thinking about it before.

Jimmy: 1:55

What do I say?

Jenny: 1:55

when I call, I dial 911, and then what happens?

Jimmy: 1:58

Exactly, and if you're like I'm at work at the street and nobody's breathing, can we get some more information please?

Jenny: 2:11

Or where do you work? At the sandwich place.

Jimmy: 2:15

Yes, exactly, you know something like that's going to happen. So I always teach talk about that and it's delayed response, right Times of the essence. We got to get that person to the hospital as fast as we can. We got to get that fire engine to the fire as fast as we can.

Jimmy: 2:39

And if we're talking, we're at the circle building or at the spaceship or we're at the ring or we're at the building on the corner, that does not help, right? So just because you have internal nomenclature of what you call your building, it doesn't mean everybody understands what that means, right? So if you're at work or on your way to work and you're thinking and you're looking at something I want you to kind of think about look at a building, look at a statue, look at the conference room and ask what's that conference room called? If I had to describe how to get there, how would I do that? Right? So every second counts in this. Like I mentioned and I'm just gonna kind of put this out there jenny and I got to go to um a client's house, and when I go to my client's house it's a very um to do and they take safety super serious and we're just very fortunate enough to be that safety provider for them in the training side of things.

Jimmy: 3:59

And we got to go there and this house, for lack of a better word, was ginormous.

Jenny: 4:06

Yes, you could get lost if you did not know where you were going.

Jimmy: 4:11

Yes, On 11 acres, huge house, lots of people working there and it was just quite beautiful on top of everything else we're talking about and we can go on and on about how beautiful it was, but we're doing my class and this should come up into one of my where have you taught classes podcast. Was it a strange spot? It was. I would call it a patio.

Jenny: 4:45

Yeah, some people would call it a patio.

Jimmy: 4:47

Yeah, Some people would call it a courtyard possibly.

Jenny: 4:51

Outdoor covered patio, like it was part of the building and covered it wasn't like a tent over it, or you know what I mean Right. Like that.

Jimmy: 5:02

it was yeah, I don't know what I would call that, because we don't have a lot of them Like a breezeway kind of a thing, because it was like interlocked like a. It was like the passageway between the garage, the guest house and the main house, but it was furnished and behind it there was a small kitchen for outdoor cooking and it was definitely set up to entertain. And we decided to run some scenarios with the team. Right, let's, let's practice what we've been taught today. So you start doing it and Jenny doesn't. She hears the stories and she hears the commotion in the office and stuff like that, but she doesn't actually get to sit and watch me teach very often. And she got to be there for this part and she got to watch me teach. So I'm going to let her kind of explain what she saw during the scenario as far as locations and communication goes, and then I'll kind of explain where I was coming from.

Jenny: 6:11

so go ahead and if you remember, well, I'm not really sure exactly what you want me to explain here, but so I had shown up to pick you up yep um, because we had traveled to the location and I was cruising around in the car and so I come to get you and I got to see the end tail, end of the class. I didn't want to be late to bring you back. And here you guys are running the scenarios and you know like it is here at the office chaos, noise, people, whatever but it was very clear that they didn't know what to call the space, whether it was right, the kitchen, the patio, and there was a couple other names and different people all called it different things and I could hear them all right.

Jimmy: 6:58

Using all of the different words.

Jenny: 6:59

And I'm just thinking to myself this is really confusing, this isn't good. And then it was fun to listen to the conversation afterwards that you had with them, which you'll get to share, about how you helped them agree on what to call the space and that it was important that they did have a common name for the space, because they didn't call it the same thing and I think there was even like one name that different people used for two different places in the house, so they were talking about completely different places but using the same word.

Jenny: 7:36

So that could be really bad in an emergency.

Jimmy: 7:39

Absolutely, absolutely. So this place is so large. They had landscapers there, they had the general service workers there that work inside the building, outside the buildings, it's just you name it. They were there and it was interesting because two of the people that were there were actually the property managers, the people that kind of ran the business and the properties for this family. And I said so what do you guys call it? And they said we call it X, whatever their name was. And the other company and one of the general service worker guys was like we call it this. And I said we call this the patio, the garage patio. And then the other person goes no, right, when you walk two more feet of past, that that's the garage patio. Once you pass this line, it's this.

Jimmy: 8:39

And I was like okay, well, I think we're splitting hairs here, but that's fine. But I can go on and on about this. The big thing is is we're not talking the same language. As far as plain English, I need you to go to the corner of A Street and First Street. I need you to go to the Sequoia Conference Room. We're going to get lost, we're not going to know. So I'll share another anecdote Not an anecdote, it's more of a story. After I left the fire department I worked contract security for a year before I started working for life safety. Not the best time of my life, I'll say. As far as work goes, it was a really cool time in my life. Because I'll say, as far as work goes, it was a really cool time of my life because Jenny and I had just gotten married and we started our life together, so that part was really cool.

Jenny: 9:41

The work part just wasn't the business. Not your favorite, most favorite job you've ever had.

Jimmy: 9:44

No, definitely not the most favorite job I've ever had and I think Jenny might have even been pregnant with Jameson at the time. But I was working on this campus that had four buildings to it that connected, plus two outer buildings, and there's no rhyme or reason of like where things were at and coming from a fire department and off a fire engine, people would say go to room blah 123. Not north 123. Or they might say building B 123.

Jenny: 10:30

But 123 might be on the second floor, so you have no clue, no clue.

Jimmy: 10:35

So I brought it up and I got in big trouble because I was causing problems.

Jimmy: 10:44

This was part of one of the reasons why I really did not like working there, and it wasn't causing trouble, it was hey, let's figure this out and make it more efficient for us, especially if you expect me and my teammates to be more responsible for the medical responses here. And my boss was kind of like my way, or the highway kid, get out of here. And it just caused rifts. But inevitably something happened, and I am not really one of those guys that tells you, I told you so, but me and this person did not get along, so I told him so and it didn't go over well, but what it did do is make it really prevalent and eye-opening to everybody else in the business, so to speak, that we did need to have some commonality of where things were at and things started to change, and it was just a really good lesson to be learned. Unfortunately, unfortunately, we learned the lesson the hard way. Somebody had gotten hurt, somebody had fallen down some stairs and the stairwells weren't even numbered.

Jenny: 12:00

So is that like the straw that broke the camel's back? Is that the turning point when they actually started being willing to?

Jimmy: 12:09

do some of those names or?

Jenny: 12:10

consider that or make it easier.

Jimmy: 12:13

Yeah, and it was now. It was the building C, stairwell, one on the second floor. I know where to go there, but if you're like it's in the stairwell in that third building over that level, what? From where? Which orientation point, so stuff like that happened. And that's just one of those training. You know training things and learning things the hard way, you know you don't need to do that. So what I really want folks to take away from in this podcast and this lesson is find commonalities and if somebody says go to the fish side or the fish bowl of the building or go to the lake side of the building, that's another one.

Jimmy: 13:04

I worked in a building that people say go to the lake side versus the bay side and it really came down to if you were able to go to the lakeside versus the bayside. And it really came down to if you were able to get to the windows and you looked outside and if you saw the bay that's the bayside of the building and if you looked at side of the other building you would see the lake. And I was like, okay, but why don't you just say the men's room and the women's room, cause they're on opposite sides of the building and everybody knew where the restrooms were and you couldn't see outside of the building, so the other things didn't work. So be practical, yeah, be flexible and have a communication about this. Have open communication and don't be afraid to ask. Go towards the flagpole. What flagpole are we talking about?

Jenny: 13:59

Right, if you're in the building, you're not going to be able to see the flagpole.

Jimmy: 14:03

Yeah, well, everybody knows the flagpole is at the front of the building, is it, though? It may not be. So all these conversations, know where your assembly areas are. Have same nomenclature for your assembly areas. Don't say, go sets of solar panels out in the parking lot. Which solar panels am I supposed to go under? Right, and these are things that I actually have dealt with and talked about that and had these issues. So standardizing or making this a standard, I should say it that way really helps and it could potentially save lives. Really helps and it could potentially save lives. So thanks for listening to me kind of gripe and tell a couple stories, but it's a big deal and it's that's a little bit of a I don't know, it's a little stickler for me. It gets me a little annoyed, riled up a little bit.

Jenny: 15:03

Okay, so maybe to lighten it up a little bit, yeah, or maybe not, we'll see where this goes.

Jenny: 15:05

But Okay, so maybe to lighten it up a little bit, yeah, or maybe not, we'll see where this goes. But as an instructor you go to lots of different buildings at lots of different clients and I don't remember any specific instances. But I know sometimes you guys have trouble finding out where you're supposed to be for class because of the directions that you've received or you know, getting into the building, getting access, they've changed the name of the conference room, whatever. How often does that happen?

Jimmy: 15:39

Um, it definitely happens with newer clients. But a good way to defeat that is, you know, google maps, apple maps, they all street views look and try to find the obvious entrance or exit kind of a thing to get into that building. And then you know, get there early, we try to get there as early as we can and ask, and then I always look at maps. Lots of times they'll put a map that is labeled with that stuff on there and I said, hey, we're supposed to go to this. And they're like, oh, it's actually, we call it this. And it's like, okay, well, if I'm in an emergency, what do I call it? And they always go, I don't't know, or call it this Because I'm with security or I'm with health and safety or whatever that person's role is, and that's what we call it, you know.

Jimmy: 16:36

So as long as there is and I don't care what you call it, especially because I'm leaving. Just everybody, when I leave, should be on the same page, and that's my goal. That's my goal, yeah. So thanks for listening to another Life and Safety podcast. Be safe and peace.