Being the only teacher at school with major amounts of tools, I am the one they come to rather than the maintenance man, It only takes me a couple of weeks to build something rather than 3-4 months. I don't loan out my personal tools, but out of the shop. I keep my own flashlights, 2 way radios, FAK, cord/rope, etc.where we can get to them if need be.

Ah...learn to live with it. Being the "Go-To" guy with the knife is not such a bad thing.
I'm the "equipped" guy at family and freind events - and I revel in it!
True story:
We had a picnic for an organization to which my wife belongs this past summer. We needed to hang a sign near the parking lot. I had some rope to hand between trees.
At the picnic, a kid fell - hard - on his head. I had the instant ice-pack in my backpack.
The kids wanted to play Tug-Of-War, I had 100' of Rope in the car.
Well, by now, I'm the "go-to" guy for the event, and as the picnic started to get rained on, people looked to me for a suggestions - and of course, we rigged up a tarp and canopy out of some tree branches and a nylon tarp I keep in my bag in the car.
Now I'm known as the gadget guy, and that's a good thing for me and my freinds. I enjoy it and so do they.

I hold the same distinction in my office. We are in a two story building, second floor, not too large, lots of glass windows. During one of our famous rolling blackouts here in So Cal, we lost our power. All lights, computers, etc were out, but we did not know how long it would last. No problem, all the offices had windows, plenty of light. I might add, no emergency lighting was needed due to the building design(?).
But, I became very popular for the flashlight in my desk as well as those I brought in from my car when people started to realize that the bathrooms had no windows and absolutley no light.

I had the last laugh.

here in the lab that i work in, i have a small knife that is always clipped to the pocket of my lab coat, most people who have had want of a knife in the past know that thats its permant location. and that they can borrow it if they like, they normally ask first though which is nice, appart from that i don't lend my stuff out, i ususally go with them sort out the broblem and then go back to what i was doing. that way if anything gets broken, its my fault and i'm not going to have problems with the peoplei work with. allthough it would be nice if they went and asked someone else for a change!!
steve

well as i student i'm the go-to person at school. Ranging from a pen to ducttape, and even once a teacher borowed a p-38 from me, he didn't get the can open, though... amateurs i tell ya <img src="images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> he end up using the big stuff...

General office environment preparedness

FAK
A good bandaids & aspirin FAK for a small office shouldn't cost more than $300. Keeping it stocked might cost around $30 / month. You will be replacing antacids and aspirin way more than bandages. An advanced FAK isn't indicated unless you have some CPR trained folks and they are designated by and known to the entire office as the GO-TO medic. That title should come with perks if not pay. The advanced FAK might add cpr mask, Ambu-Bag, BP Cuff, Stethescope, AED, Oxygen and trauma bandages. The most likely use of the advanced FAK in the environment you describe would be for heart attack.

FIRE
You might want to supply yourself if not everyone with evac-u8 hoods. Fire would seem the most probable large-scale event you would want to prepare for. If there are openable windows (often there are in older buildings) you might think of storing escape ladders near the openable windows. You are only on the second floor and that would provide extra evacuation routes if the stairs are blocked by fire or smoke. These are fairly cheap insurance ~ $50 each.

Power Outage
Some of those plug-in emergency lights that store in the plug socket and light up when they aren't getting any power from the plug are cheap and very useful. If there is no emergency lighting already installed then these would be a decent item to place in each hallway or office for ~$20 per. Recommending flashlights to the residents is a waste of air. Often promotional gadget vendors will offer samples in the effort to get you to get something imprinted for mass mailing. There are cheap led keychain lights available throught that approach. If you had one for each employee they might put them on their keychain or they may throw them in their desk drawer - eitherway they might have one when the need it at work.
If you have battery backed UPS's for your PC's then someone needs to take the duty of checking the batteries once a month. If this isn't being done you probably don't really have UPS backup power but rather a large heavy heater that will be useless when called upon.
Same person should be checking fuel condition and supply and genset maintenance if you have that sort of power backup installed. A genset needs to be run for a few hours each month to stay usable.

General Maintenance
If you don't have a building maintenance contract or crew then you have a communal responsability to change the lightbulbs and refill the TP roll. If this isn't being shared and no-one has been designated then you have a political problem not a tool problem. That being said, tools for these sort of responsibilities should be provided by the person responsible. If that person is in the employe of the firm then the appropriate tools should be provided to them as needed.

PC Admin - maintenance.
See general Maintenance - same thing just different skills and tools.

Shelter
If there is any possibility that your office may become your home for a short duration because of whatever event that makes getting home or being home untennable and evacuation to better digs impossible then your office needs sheltering supplies.
Water - 1 gallon per person per day minimum, Blankets, Fuel powered heaters - alpaca kerosene stove is a great alternative, sanitation without plumbing - honey buckets are a possibility as long as you have a place to dump them once a day, Food - think vending full vending machine with three or four slots mandatorily taken up with granola bars, and pop-tarts or other "complete meal" alternatives in the eternal food category.

Just some thoughts. Probably won't get the firm to spring for the whole she-bang but if you are decent at Powerpoint proposals and do a thorough job of researching supplies and prices and options you could pitch it to the big honcho in the corner office as a good thing to consider and maybe get a decent Office FAK at least. There is good stuff at the FEMA site and the ARC site to start your research. If you do make a presentation I would love to see the finished product.

Heck for that matter, If anyone here has made a pitch like this to their firm before I would love to see the presentation and supporting documentation.

It is both very funny and very sad that people truly don't realize that until the restroom door shuts behind them.

Like others here, I sort of go with the "sacrificial anode" concept. I always carry a Leatherman Micra in addition to a "serious" folder... if someone asks for a knife, I hand them the Micra, and they don't get exposed to anything that might "scare the horses". Similarly, I have an "office convenience kit" in my desk drawer with a small mirror, band-aids, dental floss, analgesics, sewing kit, Fixodent (loose crowns, bridges, especially temporaries), safety pins, Photon 2 (personally, I prefer the 3), nail clippers, plastic bags, etc. This has nothing to do with my PSK or the larger set of stuff in the car out in the lot. I only reveal the serious gear for serious situations.

Along those lines, I should mention that I have for years kept a Ka-Bar "Hobo Set" in my desk drawer. This is a velcro/nylon pouch containing an all-stainless folding knife/fork/spoon combo. The interesting thing about this set is that each utensil detaches so that it has it's own handle, and you can actually eat in a civilized manner... and, as a side benefit, you have, in the middle, a VERY flat, slender, very lightweight lockblade folder in a very innocuous-looking package and context.

>>It is both very funny and very sad that people truly don't realize that until the restroom door shuts behind them.<<

Habits are hard to break. After Isabel, with the power out, I couldn't walk into a dark room without reflexively flicking the light switch, even though I "knew" there was no point. I knew that was going to happen from previous experience, but what surprised me was how many (hundreds) of times I blithely walked off into dark areas of the house with no light source on my person. We had lamps, lanterns, flashlights, but I was so used to not having to think about it, that it was second nature... the only thing that cured it was putting a tiny LED flashlight in each front pocket, so when I strode off to locate something and found myself suddenly blind, I didn't have to double back, each and every time.

As I mentioned once before, the light-switch thing doesn't have much downside... but I caught the lady of my life reflexively putting food down the garbage disposal. Contemplate the implications of that with the power off for a week...

Great post Minime I'm still trying to digest it all but I thought I would add something to the setion on Fire. I'm an architect and came across this product a while back. It's a retractable ladder. They also sell some other interesting ladder devices.

http://www.jomy.com/jomy/page.html