Just another day at my office!?

Yesterday morning started out as any other day at work. After being ill for a week I had plenty of things to catch up on and was busy as a bee in the morning. Suddenly I can see that my colleagues are starting to look out through the windows and discussing something. As we look down into the shopping mall on the floor below our office, we can see that security guard and police are evakuating customers from the local book store, and all other stores in the building as well. After listening to the radio for a while, we discover that someone has tried to rob a bank accross the street. Apparantly he smashed a window with a sledgehammer, managed to get some money and then ran into the guard. When the guy disappeared from the scene of the crime he left a box on the sidewalk, marked BOMB!.

As we kept looking out the window we could see the police cars arrive in abundance, nice blue and white plastic ribbons being put up to seal off the streets surrounding the nearby blocks. One of my colleagues went down and talked to the security guys but was told they didnt know anything. The only restrictions we were given, were that we should not use the elevator...that felt safe!? O well, we stayed in the office for another hour. Suddenly, the lady listening to the radio announced that they had ceased radio transmissions on the local radio station, that as it happens is located in a building directly opposite my window. Looking out I could see the police evacuating the entire building. This was getting a bit too exciting for comfort. That building is actually further away from the bank than our office building.

After approximately 1.5-2 hours the police finally realised (or decided) that also all the people on the higher floors in our builiding should be evacuated...how considerate. It was upon arriving outside that we all realised the extent of the evacuation and the size of the are that they had actually sealed of while waiting for the bomb squad to arrive.

In the end they shot a hole through the box and shipped it off to Stockholm for analysis. My assistant and I got a nice quiet 2 hour lunch break whilst waiting to be let back into the building.

All and all. Another day at the office:P Just hope this day turns out a little less exciting.

Mara