I used to work the evening/night shift at a coffee shop chain. That time of night in inherently slow, so we would get saddled with the general upkeep of the equipment. Nothing too high tech, just simple disassemble, clean, re-assemble (coffee grounds get into EVERYTHING). I took a shining to the task because I’m fairly handy and it would get me way from customers for decent chunks of time. So, I became the unofficial guy to do it, which was fine by me. I took a shift and read through all the corporate approved maintenance manuals, which had step by step guides on how to do anything and everything that would be required of a barista to do. I would also work with them out in front of me to reference.

One night, my manager told me to deep clean and do the general maintenance of the walk in fridge one night. So I pulled the manual and did all the things in it for that model of fridge. Took me most of the shift, but the fridge was good. Nothing was wrong, and it wasn’t going to get any cleaner than I got it last night. The next day I come in and they tell me that I “clearly didn’t work on the fridge” and to do it again. Cue first malicious compliance: Not caring if I waste another shift in the back room went into the fridge with the manual and checked each step to make sure I didn’t miss anything, then once I confirmed each step was done, sat in there with a cup of coffee with a piece half apart so if anyone checked on me it would look like I was working, and got paid to drink a cup of coffee all night with my hoodie on in the fridge.

The very next day they scolded me for not doing it again. So I asked what they were talking about. Apparently there was some crud in the groove of the door seal and it was still there, so I “must not have been doing my job.” I pulled the manual and showed them the official cleaning procedure does not require scraping out the crud in the seals. I explained that’s most likely to keep from damaging them. They said, “No, you’re supposed to remove the seal and put it in the dishwasher and run it on sanitize.” I again, showed them this was not an approved step, and cautioned them, letting them know that I didn’t think the seal should be removed, as it may damage the refrigerator. I was basically told to shut up and to it. I asked them to write it in the daily task log and initial it, so I wouldn’t forget to do it that night. They rolled their eyes and wrote “remove and clean refrigerator seal” and initialed it.

So, that night I complied. I pried out what was very obviously a seal that wasn’t supposed to be removed, ran it through the dishwasher, and did my best to get it seat back in. My boss called me the next day to say, “It looks so good, that wasn’t so hard, now was it?”

I was off the next 2 days but decided on day 2 to pop in for a free cup of joe and say hi to my friend who was working that night. I arrived to see firetrucks outside. Apparently the refrigerator motor malfunctioned and caught on fire. It was discovered it never stopped running after the seal was removed, and something in it shorted, causing a fire. Luckily no one was hurt, but the store was going to need a new walk in refrigerator and was closed for 2 more days until the fire marshal cleared it.

The manager tried to pin it on me, but I had the manuals to back up me up, along with their explicit instruction in the daily task book. So in the end, I walked away scott free. I’m not sure what kind of trouble, if any, my manager got in.