Ames Bomb Threat Checklist

[TheFugitive]

One of the strangest pieces of paperwork I recall from my time in management with Ames was
the Ames Bomb Threat Checklist.

This was a pad of forms that was distributed by the home office in Rocky Hill to all the stores.
We were supposed to keep one at the service desk at all times.  It was for use by the service
desk associate if she ever answered the phone and it turned out to be a bomb threat.

This form read like a bad skit from Saturday Night Live.  It contained such pointless questions as:

Where is the bomb?
Why did you plant the bomb?
Who are you?
Where are you?
etc.

As if a terrorist bomber is ever going to answer ANY questions like that!
Not to mention, if the girl at the desk ever did receive a bomb threat her first instinct
would be to try and get everyone she could out of the building before running away herself.
Not play twenty questions with the bomber on the phone.

We used to joke that you'd hear her on the intercom saying "Mr. Fugitive, pick-up the
bomb threat on line one."

The company used to produce enough of these forms to supply an 800 store chain at peak.
I highly doubt that any of them were ever actually used at any time.  I had once included it in
an employee suggestion of forms that should be eliminated to save cost and paperwork.  That
suggestion was dismissed, with extreme prejudice.

I made a point of saving some of these for posterity, but danged if I can find them
in my attic now.

[NJxxJon]

ahhhhh the 90s.....lol

[deerwrecker2017]

Trying to ask anyone who calls in a bomb threat such questions regarding the details of the bomb and the bomber in my opinion is pointless since such callers will likely hang up immediately after the bomb threat is made. The immediate evacuation of a store after a bomb threat is called in would be the likely first instinct that any service desk associate would have as well as contacting the police.

[TheFugitive]

Trying to ask anyone who calls in a bomb threat such questions regarding the details of the bomb and the bomber in my opinion is pointless since such callers will likely hang up immediately after the bomb threat is made. The immediate evacuation of a store after a bomb threat is called in would be the likely first instinct that any service desk associate would have as well as contacting the police.

Bingo.  You get it.

For some reason scores of executives in Rocky Hill who were pulling down top-dollar salaries
did not.

[busman_49]

Trying to ask anyone who calls in a bomb threat such questions regarding the details of the bomb and the bomber in my opinion is pointless since such callers will likely hang up immediately after the bomb threat is made. The immediate evacuation of a store after a bomb threat is called in would be the likely first instinct that any service desk associate would have as well as contacting the police.

Bingo.  You get it.

For some reason scores of executives in Rocky Hill who were pulling down top-dollar salaries
did not.

Book smarts and street smarts are apparently inversely proportional...