I've literally set my oven on fire. Someone cleaned it out but left a towel inside.

I started it up and like 5 minutes later, smoke was billowing out. I thought it was just cleaner burning, so I opened it. Big mistake.

I've never seen my team run away so fast. I ended up grabbing it with tongs and throwing it in the hand sink [be nice, I panicked.] Also I was a 4 year partner at the time so big oopsie for such a veteran lol.

Best thing to do is laugh it off, and cringe in private lol.

It happens, dude. Don’t worry about it. As long as you got rid of the plastic after.

I remember making mistakes when I first started and beating myself up about it. I would literally count how many things I did wrong per shift. I’ve worked at starbucks for over 2 years now, and I am still making mistakes. The more I think about it, I probably make the same amount of mistakes because we are HUMAN and not computers that are programmed to steam milk and count change. The difference is that I just laugh it off now, because it was just a mistake. Here are a few of my favorites:

One time when I was new, I brewed multiple batches of coffee without a filter.

Our old brewing system was really odd and if we left our urns against the back heater they would start to boil?? One of my first weeks of closing I forgot to move the urns to the edge so they weren’t touching. I guess they were still wet from being rinsed out and when we opened the next day we found out that our brewing system literally exploded.

I was covering at another store and their ovens were so fucking disgusting and crusty (but also greasy at the same time?) that I put a pumpkin loaf in there and the whole damn piece of bread caught on fire. The oven nearly blew up and we had to close early because the whole store smelled like burnt wood. All the partners at my home store have nicknamed me the arsonist.

I’m not embarrassed because these are fucking funny as hell and great stories to tell people!

I think every partner in my store has almost set something on fire or absent mindedly burned the shit out of themselves, myself included.

I burned myself very badly. Shit happens.

It can happen where a scrap of the wrapper peels off and gets stuck under the sandwich or whatever. We had a partner on oven do that and you could see the melted ingredient list on the sandwich we threw away. No biggie. He is a shift now! Hang in there! Be safe!

I think everyone has started at least one oven fire at the bux. It’s kind of an initiation from green bean to seasoned barista haha

Thanks for your answers. I always do something messed up when I work. Smh. My goal is to have a shift where I don’t royally fuck up

Yeah don't feel bad shit happens. If it makes you feel any better, there is no way a bit of plastic in the oven would "set the place on fire" worst it will do is melt and smoke and make the place smell bad.

Aww, don't take it too much to heart. These things happen. The first time I warmed egg bites, I popped them into the tray and then into the oven... The smell was horrific. What are ya gonna do? lol