We recently had a fire drill at Refugee Resettlement. This was the first fire drill since I started working there in August of last year. This drill taught me that after ten months of working with refugees, I still assume a few things I should not (or maybe a lot of things).
I did not realize that the clients who were in my office during the fire drill wouldn’t know to leave the building (but really, why would they know what it was and what to do?). I our defense (mine and the client’s), no actual alarm was going off--someone was blowing a whistle. After the person blowing the whistle was someone else saying “this is a fire drill.”
I got up to leave the room, but my clients did not. I stepped into the hall and was about to start walking to the door, but then realize my clients were still sitting in my office. I had to tell them a couple of times that we had to leave the building before they got up and followed me to the hall.
Had there been an actual fire alarm going off, I would have known what to do, but would my clients? And if I simply assumed they knew what a fire drill was, what else am I still assuming after ten months?
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