A couple of years ago, I was a manager of a fast food restaurant, and I was working the closing shift. I didn't particularly like that shift, because you typically had high-school kids as crew, and high-school kids are known to goof off when they are supposed to be working. However, the person this account is about had graduated high school (how, I will never know).

I was in the kitchen showing him how to properly change the oil in the fryers. Ordinarily, I would have shown him how by doing it myself first. However, I was 4 months pregnant at the time, and my boss didn't want me doing anything he felt that was "dangerous", so I was to just stand by and instruct.

Now, in order to change the oil in the fryer without setting a fire or causing damage to the equipment you must do the following:

1. Turn off the fryer and give it a few minutes to cool down a little.

2. Drain the oil from the fryer.

There is a knob on the front and bottom of the machine that will allow you to drain the oil from the fryer into a special collector pan, and then you go to a special dumpster out back and dump out the old oil.

This he did with no problem. When he came back from dumping the oil, I was summoned to the front counter to speak with a customer. I instructed him to start putting the shortening into the fryer, but not to turn it on until I came back. I had explained to him before we even began changing the oil that if you turn the fryer on when it isn't more than half full, you can start a fire.

Apparently, he didn't believe me, because as soon as I left, he figured he would save time and turn it on anyway (we had three more left to do, and it would take about an hour and a half). I came back to the kitchen and noticed that the fryer had started smoking. I approached it, and when I was two steps away, flames started coming out of it. I reached up and switched the fryer off, at the same time yelling "Lid!" to the cashier by the sink (we wash the lids to the fryers at the same time we clean them, and they were drying on a rack above the sink). The cashier turned to me and stood there staring at the fire. I screamed at him to give me a lid, and he turned and tossed to me a plasic lid (one that would ordinarily be used to cover the lettuce or tomatos). I threw it back at him and grabbed the salt shaker, while a more alert cashier handed me the right lid. I slammed the lid down on the fryer, which promptly put the fire out.

I took him off of fryer duty and sent him out to pick up trash in the parking lot and change the outside garbage cans while I wrote him up.

If I had come back just a few minutes later, we would have had more than just a fire in the fry vat. Not only are the chemicals he was working with to clean the fryer flammable, but the broiler not ten feet away runs on gas, and that could have been really bad.

And needless to say, whenever changing the oil, I always keep at least one lid handy...just in case.

I haven't heard any more about that guy since, but I assume he's somewhere busily working on his Darwin Award.

Submitted on 04/24/2005

Submitted by: Candie
Reference:

Copyright © 2005 DarwinAwards.com

Daniel said:
Definitely Toss: Lacks Excellence
It sounds to me as if there is a reason for the policy of showing them how before you let them do it themselves.

Kelly said:
Definitely Keep: Personal Account
I'm surprised you didn't fire him on the spot.

Charles said:
Maybe Toss: Other
Much as I would like to keep this one, I honestly can't. As nobody was hurt, I have to guess who would have been injured by this moron's stupidity, in the worst case. And I can't help but think Darwin would not have been best pleased to lose or even risk loss of the genetic material of yourself and your then-unborn infant.

Jack said:
Maybe Toss: Other
I'm going to agree with Charles on this - bystanders (including an unborn child) were endangered, and the age of the youngster just might be in the grey area in regards to our maturity guidelines.

Tracy said:
Neutral: Personal Account
But this person may be a DA of the future - please keep in contact with him :)

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