This is somewhat amusing to hear for someone who lived in an area with recurring earth quakes :)
It reminds me a bit of having visitors from Israel in Berlin - in Israel when it rains beyond a trickle everyone goes inside to wait it out. This works because it doesn't rain very often and when it does it doesn't usually last very long.
Of course the same behavior in Berlin would mean you can't leave your home for half the year, and my visitors were astound to see stuff like mothers walking their baby strollers in the rain & general "normal life" activities taking place during medium-intensity rain.
It was quite amusing to the others present too ;). I had the reverse happen in IJmuiden, the Netherlands when some of the people from the Canadian office were visiting and someone set off some fire-crackers. The Canadians hit the deck as one and shouted 'drive-by, get down, drive-by!'...
People who live in places that actually have drive-by shootings (note: probably does not include Canada) do not shout "hit the deck! drive-by!" when they hear loud popping.
Gunshots don't really sound like fireworks. If you've ever been near angry gunfire (even from a safe distance), you probably don't forget the difference.
My money remains on "they're fucking with you" but with the bruises added to my priors, my backup is "you were hanging out with really dumb people".
I've lived in those places and agree. If anything, we'd have "wtf" looks on our face trying to figure out what the sound was and which idiot was doing it. If we hear gunshots, we make ourselves invisible while carefully assessing source, distance, and whether we're the target. It's usually over before we even do, we roll our eyes, and go back out our business. Sometimes, you'll see such people mock suburban type's chaotic reactions to situations that normally don't happen in their sleepy towns. Mostly, we just don't care if gunfire is happening so long as the bullets aren't coming at us.
Now, moving from an area with lots of drive-by's to an area with redneck neighbors spontaneously shooting in their backyards was an adjustment. Lol...
Far as shooting, there was little danger from either so long as you don't antagonize them. The drive-by's were more dangerous in terms of stray bullets given rednecks were in rural areas and tended to shoot in directions without many homes. In terms of face-to-face, rednecks are worse as I've never had a drive-by targeted at me but plenty of rednecks made up a reason in their head to start some stuff. And they're usually tough and have back-up with more than 9's. Fortunately, they'll shout or fight 10x more often than they'd shoot so I've never had to use a weapon on them other than these knuckles.
Best to avoid the worst of both rednecks and people in the hood. That said, plenty of rednecks and people in the hood are alright day-to-day. Some are pretty awesome. I had plenty of fun with and learned plenty from both types of people. Hood rats taught how to hustle better. Rednecks taught me how to shoot more interesting guns. ;)
I love it how on HN you can get down-voted for a personal experience with you then adding insult to injury with slurs against my former employees, who did not strike me as 'dumb people' by any stretch of the imagination.
You weren't present, you don't know these people and you know better?
And when you think you may be under fire you're going to go all cool and composed and reason out that this can't possibly be gunfire and so you stand around rather than to panic first and think later?
Sorry about that. I don't really think your coworkers were dumb; I just chose a snarky way to re-assert my belief that they were messing with you. I certainly didn't downvote you.
It reminds me a bit of having visitors from Israel in Berlin - in Israel when it rains beyond a trickle everyone goes inside to wait it out. This works because it doesn't rain very often and when it does it doesn't usually last very long.
Of course the same behavior in Berlin would mean you can't leave your home for half the year, and my visitors were astound to see stuff like mothers walking their baby strollers in the rain & general "normal life" activities taking place during medium-intensity rain.