Alarming Failure

[Fractral]

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.

I think if you wake up about the same time every day then after a while your body starts waking you up just before then automatically. I set my alarm for 7:30 every morning but I'm always awake (if not very inclined to get up) about 7:15.

I don't think I've personally ever missed something due to my alarm not going off; I'm usually awake early anyway if it's something important. Though it's gotten to the point now where hearing my phone alarm (the default samsung one) is enough to send me into a panic 'cause I reflexively assume I'm missing something.

 

[FPLOON]

Fuck my alarm clock! No matter how loud it gets, I can never hear it in my sleep!! Bullshit advertising!!

*ahem* I try to never plan for anything during the "wee" hours in the morning otherwise I'm letting my insomnia handle that shit... Other than that, the worse was when the alarm was directly near my right ear... I still didn't wake up until 4 hours afterwards and my body was finally starting to feel the pain that was coming from said right ear...

 

[teqrevisited]

Usually I can get up if I need to but a couple of months ago my alarm failed to go off and I woke up 5 minutes before my shift was due to start. I got there 45 minutes late. Thankfully being on good terms with the manager she didn't care and just signed me in for usual hours. About a week later someone else was late by 2 minutes and he lost 15 minutes pay.

Since then I set 2 alarms just in case.

I have been known, when people are away and I'm not obliged to be anywhere, to be woken by my alarm, stagger downstairs, let the dog out & feed it and then go back upstairs, faceplant the bed and fall asleep.

 

[FirstNameLastName]

Have you considered that maybe you merely slept through it? If you slept for three more hours rather than waking up at that time, alarm or not, then it seems you probably got to sleep too late.

 

[Drops a Sweet Katana]

Usually if I set an early or important alarm I'll end up either not be able to fall asleep until 3am, wake up at least an hour before the alarm goes off (thereby ensuring I have no time to actually sleep), or both, because fuck you body clock. This happened the night before me and my friends were going to catch the coach for a London day trip the next day. Since we wanted to make a day of it, we had to leave Bristol around 7 in the morning, which meant getting up at half 5/6 in the morning to get ready and make the walk to the bus stop. Naturally my body decides it would be a stellar plan to keep me up until 1 and wake me up at 4. I finally understood why all those Elder gods got their nark on after being awoken. I was less than impressed that morning, but I ended up feeling fairly alright throughout the day.

One of my worst alarm-related experiences was a couple years back in my first year of uni. The morning before my very last exam (I think it was Dynamics) I woke up to my alarm only to fall straight back asleep until 45 minutes before exam start, when I woke up to about 15 messages from about 4 people asking where the fuck I was. Bearing in mind I lived a 30 minute walk from campus and the exam was being held on the far side, another 5 or so minutes, and had to be ready to got into town straight after. I had 5 minutes to get as ready as humanly possible, so I had to choose between breakfast and a shower. Due to the fact that I was going out with friends straight after, I chose the shower since I could just eat after the exam. After the world's fastest shower I peg it to the bus stop to find traffic at a crawl and no bus in sight. I ran the 1 and a half miles from my flat to uni, in the rain, and made it in no more than 5 minutes before the start, panting, wheezing and wanting to throw up due to the lack of food and the impromptu 1.5mi run. I ended up getting 70% on that exam, which was my highest exam result that year.

If I'm honest, I can't really blame the alarm for that. Shouldn't have to bed so late.

 

[Captain Marvelous_v1legacy]

I've never had much trouble with alarms. Then again, I have three different devices dedicated to waking me up and an alarm set ten minutes before I want to wake up and more alarms set five minutes after the last on each device. So, If I need to wake up at 5, I have three alarms go off at 4:50, 4:55, 5:00, and so on. I do this because I am very paranoid. When I'm really paranoid I wake up almost every hour and check the time, afraid that my three devices and some odd 15 alarms failed me.

 

[The Almighty Aardvark]

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. :\

Me too, I have no idea how I managed it. I'd keep the alarm on the opposite side of my room from me to avoid turning it off in my sleep, yet I still managed to cross my clothes infested floor to turn it off. When I have something important I need to wake up for I always set at least 2 alarms.

Fortunately enough, I've never missed an exam because of this. Unfortunately, that isn't to say I've never missed an exam before, I have, but it was instead due to reading the wrong date on every of the 20 times I neurotically checked it

 

[lacktheknack]

Luckily, no. My alarm rarely fails, and when it does, it's on days that I have nothing on.

I did get really paranoid after the first failure, though, and now sleep with three alarms.

EDIT: Unlike others here, I don't sleep through my alarm. Google "Aphex Twin Come To Daddy" to find out why.

 

[Secondhand Revenant]

I put my phone under my bed. I'm not usually one to be able to turn off my alarm then go back to sleep without noticing. I have several alarms as time gets closer and closer to when I need to be up at the bare minimum to be in time for stuff. So I've almost never slept too late due to alarms. Like just once I was late to work because of it. I think I called in sick out of embarassment.

I have forgotten dates for things though. That's a problem...

 

[MysticSlayer]

For my first job, it was very common for me to work night shifts during the weekday and, at least at the start, morning shifts on Saturday. A week or two after starting, I had a situation where I was scheduled to work until 11 P.M. on Friday night and had to be back in at 8 A.M. Saturday morning. This was also a physical job, meaning that I was absolutely exhausted by the time I got home. So I set my alarm, went to bed, slept through my alarm, and woke up at 8:45! Thankfully, my managers were really nice, so it didn't create much of a problem.