Please evacuate the building … once you’ve finished your lunch, of course

It’s an emergency!
Whatever – I’m having my lunch.

While eating at one of Collins Street West’s finer dining establishments yesterday, we heard the alert siren go off over the PA system. (The one they always use for the tests.)
Hmmm, a test. The alarm seemed barely to register with the throng. Staff kept serving. Hungry office workers kept consuming. No one missed a beat.
Then the alarm changed to the evacuation siren. Some heads raised. But it, too, was largely ignored.
Then a loud message accompanied the evacuation siren: “Please evacuate the building”. A slow trickle heads towards the door. Clearly taking the advice to calmly exit the building. Meanwhile more hungry office workers continue to crowd in through the doors. Including a bloke on crunches with a leg covered in plaster.
Three large and noisy fire trucks pull up at the front of the building.
OK. Maybe this is the real thing.
A crowd starts to assemble out the front of the building as people eventually decide to exit. Firemen stomp around in big hats and yellow trousers.
Without the sound of an explosion, the crackle of flames or the smell of smoke the masses seemed very hard to convince that they should abandon their lunches for a safer place outside the building.
It might have been a different story if the sirens had gone off in an office building. (Ooooh, a legit excuse to skive off work!)
But to interrupt one’s lunch time for an emergency. That’s beyond the pale!