We can sympathise with people who get frustrated at work (especially on Friday’s when the weekend is tantalisingly within reach) when things don’t go exactly to plan – and that can be doubled or even tripled if you’re working within the food service sector.

Tasked with making a large quantity of food in a finite time is a stressful task at the best of time, and when things go wrong we can understand why tensions may rise and tempers may flare from time to time.

But Scarborough Magistrates has recently been hearing about an employee who decided to attack a sausage roll machine with his head in a fit of rage.

No, we aren’t making this story up: A twenty-two year-old (now former) baker, Shane Thompson, took his anger out on a computer controlled unit because it “was not making the pastry properly.”

The machine, apparently worth £27,000 according to reports, ended up with a six inch by four inch crack in the display screen.  

His ex-bosses claimed that it would cost in excess of £3,000 to repair and initially began docking his wages to cover these costs.

But it all ended up in court.

The defending solicitor, one Robert Vining, said: “The defendant is at a total loss to understand how butting a glass screen and cracking it results in that piece of equipment being worthless.”

Mr. Thompson admitted criminal damage and was handed a twelve-month conditional discharge along with an order to pay over £700 in compensation.

It transpires that the case was stood down so that a number of inquiries could be made to determine whether the Swedish made unit could be repaired cheaper than the employees, Yorkshire Baker, claimed.

Mr. Thompson is now employed by a well-known theme-park.

It happens to the best of us, I’m sure.

By Leon Brooks [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons