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March 18, 2025 17 mins

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. 

Send us a text

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.

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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jimmy (00:00):
What's happening.
It's your boy, jimmy, withanother 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 usagain, jenny.

Jenny (00:16):
Hi everybody.

Jimmy (00:18):
So today we're going to talk about nomenclature.
We're going to talk aboutnomenclature so we've done a
podcast about acronyms likeresponse, like ABC, CBS, IBS,
March, all kinds of crazy things.
So today we're going to talkabout nomenclature and why

(00:46):
that's important.
So I bring this up a lot in mybuilding evacuation class.
I bring it up a lot when I'mreminding people how to call 911
.
Lots of times people forget howto call 911, and you're all
thinking what, how does thathappen?
Well, it happens to the best ofus If you don't use it, you
lose it.

(01:08):
Right what.

Jenny (01:13):
Yeah, how do you forget?

Jimmy (01:16):
You'd be surprised.

Jenny (01:18):
I'm sure you have some stories for us.

Jimmy (01:20):
Well, it's not the how to dial 911.
It's the what do you tellpeople when you call 911?

Jenny (01:29):
Absolutely right, because we're all in our heads thinking
about it before.

Jimmy (01:31):
What do I say?

Jenny (01:32):
when I call, I dial 911, and then what happens?

Jimmy (01:35):
Exactly, and if you're like I'm at work at the street
and nobody's breathing, can weget some more information please
?

Jenny (01:48):
Or where do you work?
At the sandwich place.

Jimmy (01:52):
Yes, exactly, you know something like that's going to
happen.
So I always teach talk aboutthat and it's delayed response,
right Times of the essence.
We got to get that person tothe hospital as fast as we can.
We got to get that fire engineto the fire as fast as we can.

(02:15):
And if we're talking, we're atthe circle building or at the
spaceship or we're at the ringor we're at the building on the
corner, that does not help,right?
So just because you haveinternal nomenclature of what
you call your building, itdoesn't mean everybody

(02:38):
understands what that means,right?
So if you're at work or on yourway to work and you're thinking
and you're looking at somethingI want you to kind of think
about look at a building, lookat a statue, look at the
conference room and ask what'sthat conference room called?
If I had to describe how to getthere, how would I do that?

(03:00):
Right?
So every second counts in this.
Like I mentioned and I'm justgonna kind of put this out there
jenny and I got to go to um aclient's house, and when I go to

(03:20):
my client's house it's a veryum to do and they take safety
super serious and we're justvery fortunate enough to be that
safety provider for them in thetraining side of things.
And we got to go there and thishouse, for lack of a better word

(03:41):
, was ginormous.

Jenny (03:43):
Yes, you could get lost if you did not know where you
were going.

Jimmy (03:48):
Yes, On 11 acres, huge house, lots of people working
there and it was just quitebeautiful on top of everything
else we're talking about and wecan go on and on about how
beautiful it was, but we'redoing my class and this should

(04:11):
come up into one of my wherehave you taught classes podcast.
Was it a strange spot?
It was.
I would call it a patio.

Jenny (04:21):
Yeah, some people would call it a patio.

Jimmy (04:23):
Yeah, Some people would call it a courtyard possibly.

Jenny (04:28):
Outdoor covered patio, like it was part of the building
and covered it wasn't like atent over it, or you know what I
mean Right.
Like that.

Jimmy (04:39):
it was yeah, I don't know what I would call that, because
we don't have a lot of themLike a breezeway kind of a thing
, because it was likeinterlocked like a.
It was like the passagewaybetween the garage, the guest
house and the main house, but itwas furnished and behind it

(04:59):
there was a small kitchen foroutdoor cooking and it was
definitely set up to entertain.
And we decided to run somescenarios with the team.
Right, let's, let's practicewhat we've been taught today.
So you start doing it and Jennydoesn't.

(05:22):
She hears the stories and shehears the commotion in the
office and stuff like that, butshe doesn't actually get to sit
and watch me teach very often.
And she got to be there forthis part and she got to watch
me teach.
So I'm going to let her kind ofexplain what she saw during the
scenario as far as locationsand communication goes, and then

(05:44):
I'll kind of explain where Iwas coming from.

Jenny (05:47):
so go ahead and if you remember, well, I'm not really
sure exactly what you want me toexplain here, but so I had
shown up to pick you up yep um,because we had traveled to the
location and I was cruisingaround in the car and so I come
to get you and I got to see theend tail, end of the class.
I didn't want to be late tobring you back.

(06:09):
And here you guys are runningthe scenarios and you know like
it is here at the office chaos,noise, people, whatever but it
was very clear that they didn'tknow what to call the space,
whether it was right, thekitchen, the patio, and there

(06:30):
was a couple other names anddifferent people all called it
different things and I couldhear them all right.

Jimmy (06:35):
Using all of the different words.

Jenny (06:36):
And I'm just thinking to myself this is really confusing,
this isn't good.
And then it was fun to listento the conversation afterwards
that you had with them, whichyou'll get to share, about how
you helped them agree on what tocall the space and that it was
important that they did have acommon name for the space,

(06:58):
because they didn't call it thesame thing and I think there was
even like one name thatdifferent people used for two
different places in the house,so they were talking about
completely different places butusing the same word.
So that could be really bad inan emergency.

Jimmy (07:15):
Absolutely, absolutely.
So this place is so large.
They had landscapers there,they had the general service
workers there that work insidethe building, outside the
buildings, it's just you name it.
They were there and it wasinteresting because two of the

(07:42):
people that were there wereactually the property managers,
the people that kind of ran thebusiness and the properties for
this family.
And I said so what do you guyscall it?
And they said we call it X,whatever their name was.
And the other company and oneof the general service worker
guys was like we call it this.
And I said we call this thepatio, the garage patio.

(08:04):
And then the other person goesno, right, when you walk two
more feet of past, that that'sthe garage patio.
Once you pass this line, it'sthis.
And I was like okay, well, Ithink we're splitting hairs here
, but that's fine.
But I can go on and on aboutthis.
The big thing is is we're nottalking the same language.

(08:27):
As far as plain English, I needyou to go to the corner of A
Street and First Street.
I need you to go to the SequoiaConference Room.
We're going to get lost, we'renot going to know.
So I'll share another anecdoteNot an anecdote, it's more of a

(08:51):
story.
After I left the firedepartment I worked contract
security for a year before Istarted working for life safety.
Not the best time of my life,I'll say.
As far as work goes, it was areally cool time in my life.
Because I'll say, as far aswork goes, it was a really cool
time of my life because Jennyand I had just gotten married

(09:12):
and we started our life together, so that part was really cool.

Jenny (09:17):
The work part just wasn't the business.
Not your favorite, mostfavorite job you've ever had.

Jimmy (09:20):
No, definitely not the most favorite job I've ever had
and I think Jenny might haveeven been pregnant with Jameson
at the time.
But I was working on thiscampus that had four buildings
to it that connected, plus twoouter buildings, and there's no

(09:42):
rhyme or reason of like wherethings were at and coming from a
fire department and off a fireengine, people would say go to
room blah 123.
Not north 123.
Or they might say building B123.

Jenny (10:07):
But 123 might be on the second floor, so you have no
clue, no clue.

Jimmy (10:11):
So I brought it up and I got in big trouble because I was
causing problems.
This was part of one of thereasons why I really did not
like working there, and itwasn't causing trouble, it was
hey, let's figure this out andmake it more efficient for us,

(10:37):
especially if you expect me andmy teammates to be more
responsible for the medicalresponses here.
And my boss was kind of like myway, or the highway kid, get
out of here.
And it just caused rifts.
But inevitably somethinghappened, and I am not really

(10:57):
one of those guys that tells you, I told you so, but me and this
person did not get along, so Itold him so and it didn't go
over well, but what it did do ismake it really prevalent and
eye-opening to everybody else inthe business, so to speak, that
we did need to have somecommonality of where things were

(11:19):
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 stairwellsweren't even numbered.

Jenny (11:36):
So is that like the straw that broke the camel's back?
Is that the turning point whenthey actually started being
willing to?

Jimmy (11:45):
do some of those names or ?

Jenny (11:47):
consider that or make it easier.

Jimmy (11:50):
Yeah, and it was now.
It was the building C,stairwell, one on the second
floor.
I know where to go there, butif you're like it's in the
stairwell in that third buildingover that level, what?
From where?

(12:10):
Which orientation point, sostuff like that happened.
And that's just one of thosetraining.
You know training things andlearning things the hard way,
you know you don't need to dothat.
So what I really want folks totake away from in this podcast
and this lesson is findcommonalities and if somebody

(12:31):
says go to the fish side or thefish bowl of the building or go
to the lake side of the building, that's another one.
I worked in a building thatpeople say go to the lake side
versus the bay side and itreally came down to if you were
able to go to the lakesideversus the bayside.
And it really came down to ifyou were able to get to the

(12:52):
windows and you looked outsideand if you saw the bay that's
the bayside of the building andif you looked at side of the
other building you would see thelake.
And I was like, okay, but whydon't you just say the men's
room and the women's room, causethey're on opposite sides of
the building and everybody knewwhere the restrooms were and you
couldn't see outside of thebuilding, so the other things

(13:14):
didn't work.
So be practical, yeah, beflexible and have a
communication about this.
Have open communication anddon't be afraid to ask.
Go towards the flagpole.
What flagpole are we talkingabout?

Jenny (13:36):
Right, if you're in the building, you're not going to be
able to see the flagpole.

Jimmy (13:39):
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 yourassembly areas.

(14:00):
Don't say, go sets of solarpanels out in the parking lot.
Which solar panels am Isupposed to go under?
Right, and these are thingsthat I actually have dealt with
and talked about that and hadthese issues.
So standardizing or making thisa standard, I should say it
that way really helps and itcould potentially save lives.

(14:22):
Really helps and it couldpotentially save lives.
So thanks for listening to mekind of gripe and tell a couple
stories, but it's a big deal andit's that's a little bit of a I
don't know, it's a littlestickler for me.
It gets me a little annoyed,riled up a little bit.

Jenny (14:39):
Okay, so maybe to lighten it up a little bit, yeah, or
maybe not, we'll see where thisgoes.
But Okay, so maybe to lighten itup a little bit, yeah, or maybe
not, we'll see where this goes.
But as an instructor you go tolots of different buildings at
lots of different clients and Idon't remember any specific
instances.
But I know sometimes you guyshave trouble finding out where
you're supposed to be for classbecause of the directions that

(15:03):
you've received or you know,getting into the building,
getting access, they've changedthe name of the conference room,
whatever.
How often does that happen?

Jimmy (15:15):
Um, it definitely happens with newer clients.
But a good way to defeat thatis, you know, google maps, apple
maps, they all street viewslook and try to find the obvious
entrance or exit kind of athing to get into that building.
And then you know, get thereearly, we try to get there as

(15:40):
early as we can and ask, andthen I always look at maps.
Lots of times they'll put a mapthat is labeled with that stuff
on there and I said, hey, we'resupposed to go to this.
And they're like, oh, it'sactually, we call it this.
And it's like, okay, well, ifI'm in an emergency, what do I
call it?
And they always go, I don't'tknow, or call it this Because

(16:05):
I'm with security or I'm withhealth and safety or whatever
that person's role is, andthat's what we call it, you know
.
So as long as there is and Idon'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.

(16:26):
So thanks for listening toanother Life and Safety podcast.
Be safe and peace.
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