This might be an actual, workable engineering solution. To be safe, there should be two buttons, spaced so that one person can’t push both. That way there’s a microwave operator and a witness. (Or accomplice.)
We won’t talk about the dual-signed micorwave operation forms.
Well that explains it, and immediately ends any investigation and collective punishment. Executives are too busy and too important to have to monitor something as petty as their own popcorn.
Every workplace I’ve been in has dial-controlled microwave ovens that don’t let you go beyond six minutes or so. That pretty much handles most fire hazards. What kind of microwaves are used in the OP’s office?
When you design a fool-proof system, Nature comes up with a better class of fool.
Regards,
Shodan
I once worked in a factory where the guillotines used to chop rubber into big chunks had two buttons, set far enough apart that not even our tallest employee could reach both at the same time.
The Maintenance engineer would go around removing the “fixes” the employees came up with. We’d be strolling around in our way to wherever and she’d amble off towards a guillotine and pfft, remove a fix without breaking stride or changing the conversation at all.
I can’t believe it is happening, but I am going to defend the HR department just a tiny bit. The monumentally stupid policies are not usually generated specifically by HR. They come out of study groups assigned to provide a plan of correction so that someone in upper management will have something to enter into the “action taken” blank on the state generated form for “Event Reports” of bad things that have happened. Now, since guys in my job are all working overtime already to provide the statutorily mandated minimum coverage twenty four hours a day, doing the thing facility was created to do, the committees and study groups are generally formed from offices and divisions that don’t actually have to do anything on any particular day, or for a week or two. Evidently, that includes HR rather often. One worker in housekeeping seems to serve on these committees fairly often, although I don’t think she actually ever speaks during their meetings. At least that is what she told me. She just likes a break from mopping and buffing.
The committees generate reports that are submitted to the Senior Management Team, which discuss them, at their regular meetings. This is where the actual policies are produced. Human Resources and the Training Department are tasked with making sure everyone signs the memos. (Another burst of fairness, many of them find the process stupid and pointless as well. But, they do participate.)
Oddly enough, I actually love my job. I do really good things, I do them quite well, and the folks for whom I do these things are quite pleased with my performance. I make suggestions all the time, to folks actually doing what I do, or things close to the people I serve. I do so very politely, and diffidently. I actually want the suggestion to make things better. I find the monumental stupidity thing is mostly entirely irrelevant, or occasionally just in my way. But, I haven’t seen a Senior Staff person in my work area more than a dozen times in thirty years. Evidently if they want a clue, they don’t think they can find it here. I have both my days off on weekdays, so after four on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, and Monday I have no contact with anyone from the management portion of the facility at all, since they are either home, or busy.
Tris
I’ve microwaved a lot of popcorn, often inattentively, sometimes drunk, occasionally barely conscious. I’ve never set the microwave on fire. The worst I’ve got is burned popcorn. I suspect malicious intent.
At my old job we had one where you punch in the time, but in that case what the heck time are people setting them for? Punching in 99:99 and wandering off to a different floor of the building?
I keep having this vision that the OP works for the Orville Redenbacher Corporation.
Whatever they’re paying you, it’s not enough. 
You both make good points - if the microwave has a popcorn button, I can’t imagine most people doing anything more difficult than just pushing the popcorn button. It sounds like a case of an arsonist with plausible deniability. I’d get the police involved if I were you, Triskadecamus.
I saw a flaming bag of popcorn in my highschool cafeteria once. A girl ran and dumped the blackened smoking bag into the garbage, which then also caught on fire.
No, you’re thinking of Metatron, the scribe of heaven, first among the angels, and speaks directly with the voice of God. Also, he transforms into a Walther P-38 pistol and is the leader of the evil Decepticons.
My home microwave has a popcorn button. Push it once for a normal bag, push it twice for a smaller bag. It’s preset for the rest.
The first time I made popcorn in the microwave I didn’t trust the preset time, so I put in manually the bag’s labeled time. The popcorn came out burnt. :sciencefail:
I am at a loss to understand the coworkers who:
“Cheese it! The popcorn coppers! I mean cockporn poppers! Aw, hell with it… just run!”
Our office microwave has a built in sensor. You just put the bag in the microwave and hit the button with the picture of popcorn on it. It senses when the popcorn is done and shuts off.
It also has pictograms depicting other likely microwaveables.
You don’t even need to be able to read to work this thing safely.
You could suggest that your workplace by one of those.
That’s stupid. Then people who can’t even read can safely work in this company !
I say make microwaving popcorn deviously complicated, possibly even grievously dangerous to one’s health. But make a point of giving every new employee an in-depth notice on how to bake popcorn safely. Then make fridays “Popcorn Fridays”. That way you know who can follow simple fucking instructions, and those who can’t. Fire the latter, 'cause if they can’t bake fucking popcorn, they sure as hell can’t fathom the specific kind of sorting algorithm the client fucking asked for.
And now you know why Village People brand popcorn never really caught on with the safety concious consumer.
I have a hard time believing that many people are that stupid and they all work in the same place. I’ve been working in offices for (counts on fingers and toes) a long time and I’ve never encountered this. Actually, maybe that’s because they all work with Tris. Of course, there was that one girl who caused a fire microwaving her lunch because she didn’t realize you had to remove the fork from the plate before you put it inside. When we all stared at her incredulously after she told us that she does it that way at home all the time, she looked at all of us like we were the crazy ones.
When was this microwave manufactured- 1942? It has a dial? I haven’t used one of those in over 20 years.
I think I’ve figured out the real problem here . The dial goes to 11.
Dial-controlled microwaves are very common in settings like offices and schools, where they are used by many people. A dial prevents you from being able to set very long cooking times.