Tales from the Corporate Frontline

The Pop Tart Incident

I was eating a quick lunch in the third floor break room one day when my co-worker Mike came in carrying a dusty old box and dropped it on the table. When I asked him what he brought he said it was an old toaster oven. He said he had found it in his sister’s basement and thought it would be perfect for our department break room. I guess I didn’t think much of it at first really.

Mike said he had another load of items to grab from his car. When Mike left the break room I took a closer look at the toaster oven. It looked quite old and there were spots on it that looked as though it had been burned by fire before. A few minutes later, Mike returned to the break room with another large box. Leveraging his find even further, on his way to work Mike pulled into the discount Megastore and bought a restaurant size pack of Kellogg’s Pop Tarts in assorted flavors.

I expressed my concerns about the quality of his recent addition to our break room. But he just brushed me off, saying it worked fine.

Then he put in a strawberry toaster pastry, and within minutes a strange smell began to permeate throughout the break room. Mike didn’t seem to notice or care though. He took out his food and headed back to his desk, despite the fact that it was clearly burnt.

I was about to tell him that the toaster oven was probably not such a good idea, and that maybe he should take it back, but then I decided that maybe I was overreacting, and worrying about nothing.

After Mike left with his charred treat, another coworker of mine, Todd, came in and immediately commented on the smell in the break room. I explained about Mike’s toaster oven and that maybe it was just his food being a little overcooked, but Todd disagreed. He said that there was definitely something wrong with the appliance and that we should tell Mike to take it out immediately, before it became a real safety issue.

Later that afternoon, it did take a few minutes to make the connection when the sprinklers in our third story office building were triggered. Small puddles began to form on my desk and my keyboard filled with water. Everyone stopped working and headed for the stairs. Once in the staircase, I realized the entire building was emptying too.

Fortunately, nobody was hurt and the fire itself was contained to a corner of the break room. The company needed to replace the countertop and purchase a new refrigerator. The more significant lost was in the 3 days of downtime needed to dry out our offices. Oh by the way, the authorities were not able salvage any of Mike’s Pop Tarts.