Alarming Failure

[Randomosity]

So today I had a bit of an issue. I'd been planning something all week for today. I was excited for this and had done everything in preparation. I set my alarm the night before and went to bed. This morning comes and I find my alarm decided not to go off. I overslept by nearly three hours. Plans ruined, day ruined, no hope to salvage. Been in a bad mood because of it.

So escapist, I'm here to ask you if you've ever had an alarm fail on you and been screwed over as a result?

 

[NPC009]

Never. If there's a Big Thing the next day, my body will automatically wake up hours before I actually need to get out of bed. It may not let me sleep at all. Fun.

 

[tippy2k2]

Maybe because I'm stupid paranoid but I actually set two alarms to wake up to. One goes off with my Jawbone (one of those exercise tracking devices that go on your wrist; it's super awesome and I would highly recommend one for the sleep function) and the other is set on my phone. Both are also automatically set to go off Monday through Friday (normal work week) so I don't even have to worry about forgetting to set them. There's the chance that I will accidentally have an alarm go off on a non-work day (like if the 4th of July is on a weekday and I forget to turn them off) but I'd rather wake up on a day I didn't have to and go back to sleep rather than risk not waking up when I need to.

Back in the high school day, the occasional day was missed when the power goes out in the home overnight and kills the alarm clock but with the setup I have now, there would have to be something catastrophic (like my house burning down in which case, sorry work, I have bigger problems to deal with right now) happen for my alarms to fail me.

 

[IceForce]

This happened to me a couple of times back when I used to rely on a mains-power alarm clock radio thingy for my wake up alarm. If the power goes off in the night, it's bye-bye time and bye-bye alarm.

Doesn't happen anymore since getting a smartphone. The power can go out all it likes, and as long as my phone is charged I'm unaffected.

 

[Zhukov]

Yeah, I've been there.

Thing is, I'm never sure whether the alarm actually failed to go off or if I woke up, silenced it and went back to sleep then completely forgot about it. Which is a thing that can happen. I've been known to turn off alarms without even waking up fully then have no memory of it later on.

 

[Zontar]

My first semester I had a French exam worth about 10% at the end of the semester. It was at 8a.m. because luck hates me, which means 6a.m. wakeup call for me. Alarm didn't go off, woke up at 9a.m. and ended the semester with a 58%. Pissed me off to no end.

 

[Fox12]

Yeah. It was for my first day of work. Thankfully I still managed to make it in time.

I was using my kindle alarm, since I'd lost my phone. I though maybe I'd set it to PM by mistake, but Nope. It just didn't work. I tested it a few times, with mixed results. Sometimes it worked fine. Sometimes it made one small sound, then died. Never made that mistake again.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

Never. If there's a Big Thing the next day, my body will automatically wake up hours before I actually need to get out of bed. It may not let me sleep at all. Fun.

I have that exact same thing! Every few hours my body jerks awake, almost always in a panic, as if my brain is afraid I've overslept. Even when I'm like 4 hours awake from my alarm going off, let alone sleeping past whatever it is I'm supposed to be doing.

 

[CeeBod]

Years ago I went on a long weekend trip to Amsterdam with a group of friends. I decided to join them very last minute, and so was actually booked on a different flight to everyone else. My flight back was at something like 10:30am, and so I decided to stay up all the previous night and party, then go straight to the airport, rather than sleep. By 4:00am-ish everyone else had given up and gone to bed so that plan went south and I decided instead to set an alarm, get 3-4 hours sleep, and that'd still give me plenty of time to get to the airport.

My alarm didn't go off (setting an alarm when drunk etc, doesn't have a great success rate!), and I didn't wake up until sometime after 9:00. By the time I got to the airport my plane had already started boarding. Extremely fortunately for me the airport was quiet, I only had hand luggage, this was pre-9/11 security days and a very cool security guy at Schiphol decided to do his nice deed for the day and he personally walked me through from desk to gate in less than 10 minutes, so I amazingly made the flight! I still favour transfer flights through Schiphol in preference to anywhere else in Europe because of that one experience! )

 

[Scarim Coral]

Never. If there's a Big Thing the next day, my body will automatically wake up hours before I actually need to get out of bed. It may not let me sleep at all. Fun.

Same except my body does it everyday (I missed my uni days when I naturally wake up).

The only time when the alarm screwed me over is only when there was a power out and the backup battery inside is dead. How am I suppose to know the battery get used up or not if it's backup?

 

[Beffudled Sheep_v1legacy]

I've had my alarms fail to go off, but my body always somehow manages to wake itself up about 10 minutes before my alarm would have woken me up.
That peculiar little function has saved my ass many times.

 

[Randomosity]

Well, to give a bit of context to my situation, my alarm is my smart phone. I use an app called "I can't wake up" I have been using it for a while now (Maybe 1-2 years) and it has never failed me until today. I know I didn't shut it off in my sleep because my phone is kept on the opposite side of the room from me (Well out of arms reach. I need to physically get out of bed and walk across the room to get to it.) I didn't wake up until I heard the sound of my dog barking. It was then I looked at the clock in a panic and realized it was too late.

Needless to say, I have changed alarm apps. Probably also going to buy a back up alarm.

 

[Palpatin93]

I think it happened maybe... two or three times in my school days? And I remember only one time at university, but as it is no big deal to miss a lecture, or miss a seminar (up to two times), it wasn't catastrophic. When I have an exam, or need to catch a very early bus or train (that will have been very expensive, because if it's early, I probably need to travel far), I make absolutely sure to set a working alarm, and a failsafe second alarm. And a third and fourth one, for good measure. And then I wake up an hour prior to the first alarm - a handy body function others have mentioned already...

 

[JohnnyDelRay]

Well I go through this nearly every morning. I'm a heavy snoozer, so usually I set at least 2 alarms. I'm never out of bed exactly at the time I want, but it usually varies from 5-15 minutes after. I've been pretty late for work on occasion though which is more embarrassing than anything else, since I'm in a pretty..."responsible" higher position. The guilt-ridden sprint through the shower and making coffee to sling out the door with my keys and everything else is hoooorrrrible.

I do have the inner anxious meter which saved my skin on more than one occasion, and it usually jerks me out of bed before the alarm even goes off. For big events that I'd rather die than miss or be late, or catching a plane for example, I'm usually up on time. What state of mind I am in is a whole different matter though.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

Unfortunately phone alarms no longer have the capacity to wake me up.

So that is me every morning.

Unless it is super, duper important, then my internal clock wakes me up. Usually.

 

[sageoftruth]

Yep. I've even caught the little bastard in the act of not going off when it was supposed to. Thankfully, it hasn't happened in awhile.

 

[maninahat]

It happened last week when my wife convinced me that alarms are for squares, and that I was sure to wake up in time for work.

I woke up 10 minutes before my shift was due to start.

 

[Pyrian]

I used to be able to get up, cross the room, turn off the alarm, go back to bed, fall asleep, and have no recollection of it when I finally woke up. :\

 

[SweetShark]

Yeah, I've been there.

Thing is, I'm never sure whether the alarm actually failed to go off or if I woke up, silenced it and went back to sleep then completely forgot about it. Which is a thing that can happen. I've been known to turn off alarms without even waking up fully then have no memory of it later on.

Yep.......that why I make sure I don't put my phone away so I can stand up and turn off my alarm.
Every single time I had the phone close to me, my reflexes close the alarm and go to sleep again like a moron......