back to article Want to leave work early? Torch a filing cabinet

A Florida woman who started a fire in her office so she could get off work early has been jailed for nine months, the St Petersburg Times reports. Michelle Perrino, 40, of New Port Richey, executed her cunning plan on 12 May 2009, at Bayonet Point Oxygen. However, she subsequently blew it when she "mentioned the fire's origin …

COMMENTS

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    Bayonet Point Oxygen ?

    Oh come on!

  2. RyokuMas
    FAIL

    Phew...

    Sounds like a lot of very hard work in order to skive off...

    ... wait a minute.

  3. Martyns
    Happy

    Perfect timing

    Just in time for the birth?

  4. S Larti
    Coat

    So was she...

    fired for stupidity?

  5. Ben Rosenthal

    nine months free holiday too

    fucking bargain!

  6. guybles
    Flame

    She did what?

    Setting a fire something in a company with the word "oxygen" in the title?

    Only nine months is a pretty good option, compared to a Darwin Award.

    1. Disco-Legend-Zeke
      Flame

      She Is Lucky...

      ...the charge was not arson.

  7. Just Thinking

    Unlucky

    If she hadn't made that mistake, nobody would have suspected anything. Filing cabinets burst into flames all the time.

  8. Gordon Matson
    Flame

    The company sells oxygen...

    and she started a fire? Isn't that exceptionally dangerous?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      That depends

      You know, what really matters is whether there was bottled oxygen near the filing cabinet rather than whether the company sells oxygen or had "oxygen" in its name.

      You sound a bit like one of those police or security types who might stop someone for being in possession of a picture of a gun somewhere in the vicinity of an airport. You can't be too careful where children might be involved ...

      1. Annihilator
        Badgers

        re: that depends

        Indeed - technically speaking setting fire to an O2 shop would presumably have the same hazard. Or setting fire to BP's head office building. Not that I'm condoning that sort of thing.

      2. JC 2
        Alert

        @ That depends

        Of course, because we all know fire doesn't spread and 9 out of 10 businesses put words in their name for no reason.

  9. Hollerith 1

    I hoped she enjoyed her afternoon off with pay...

    ... as it's probably the last one she'll ever have. Has no one in the USA heard of a 'sickie'?

    1. Jimbo 6
      FAIL

      Nope...

      ...they've never heard of 'overkill' either (reminds me of that Merkin who tried to loosen a stubborn car wheelnut by shooting it with his shotgun, thus spraying himself with ricocheting buckshot at point-blank range...)

    2. Phil 54
      Pint

      Since it's the US

      a sickie probably wouldn't be paid

      pint, caused many a sickie

    3. Mr Larrington
      FAIL

      Not onl;y that

      It seems no-one in the USA has heard of the BOFH.

      1. Trokair 1
        Stop

        Incorrect

        You sir are incorrect Mr. Larrington. I write this from my desk across the pond where BOFH is a valuable training tool that I use to teach our inexperienced IT professionals.

  10. TeeCee Gold badge
    Coat

    Bayonet Point Oxygen.

    Why do I get the mental image of a group of soldiers standing round a prisoner and saying: "We have ways of making you breathe...."?

  11. LuMan
    Pint

    Criminal what?!?

    Criminal Mischief?? Isn't that like 'illegal naughtiness' or something??

    Sounds like somehting the Hamburglar would get picked up for.

    Beer, 'cos I'm off now as I can smell smoke.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @Jimbo 6

    "...they've never heard of 'overkill' either (reminds me of that Merkin who tried to loosen a stubborn car wheelnut by shooting it with his shotgun, thus spraying himself with ricocheting buckshot at point-blank range...)"

    My favourite is the attempt to remove the rotting whale carcass through the ingenious and subtle use of dynamite.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbidGgVDdaI

  13. disgruntled yank

    fairly old trick

    Some years ago one would see, along about lunch time, unusually dense crowds milling around the NE corner of Connecticut Ave. and K St. NW in Washington, DC. These crowds had cleared out of building being searched for a bomb. Eventually the police found that some meathead would call in a bomb threat so that the building would be evacuated and his meathead friend could enjoy an unhurried lunch with him. Both got prison sentences.

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    Could have been worse

    She was ordered to pay $4,800 damages and to have "no contact with Oxygen".

  15. SgtFalstaff

    It's been worse before

    In 2007 a nurse in Houston Texas started a fire in her office to conceal the fact that she had failed to complete some paperwork on time. She killed three people and was sentenced to 25 years in prison.

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    9 months off work?????

    Just enough time to squeeze out another drug dealer.

    For more quotes to make your blood boil just visit.

    The Daily hate Rag .com

  17. disgruntled yank

    BPO

    Bayonet Point is a town in Florida, for those who are wondering.

    1. Phil 54

      Ahh, Florida

      That explains a lot

      1. Disco-Legend-Zeke

        "Florida...

        ...America's penis." ...Homer Simpson.

  18. Craig 28
    Stop

    Re:Oxygen

    Use common sense and read the damn article. It was in an *office* it didn't say that there was oxygen processing facilities present or even on the same site. It may be that the oxygen plant was on the same site in an entirely separate building, it may be that the plant was not even on the same site as the offices mentioned here. It may also be that they *resold* oxygen and said oxygen wasn't stored anywhere near the office as well.

    It is idiotic to presume that just because they handle oxygen as a company that there would be oxygen present at an office, of which they may have more than one in multiple sites potentially for sales purposes.

    1. JC 2
      Thumb Down

      Re:Re:Oxygen

      Don't get out much? Just about any modest or larger factory facility has an office of some sort in it... what do you want to bet that companies that handle oxygen have an office in the same building? You have to have somewhere for the management to put their chairs.

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    Oxygen is not explosive....

    .. it is only an oxidizer.

    Fuels, like paper, wood, plastics, some metals, fine powders, some gases and petroleum products burn better w. additional oxygen or explode when in the right concentration with oxidizers.

    You can't ignite oxygen so it won't explode and the gas bottles are designed to withstand typical fires w/o bursting.

    1. Rattus Rattus

      What are you doing?

      Are you seriously trying to bring logic and common sense into a discussion ON THE INTERNET?

    2. JC 2

      @ Oxygen is not explosive

      Yes, oxygen isn't explosive, it just makes other things oxidize so rapidly, potentially explosively if not an instant inferno which when it comes to human survival is a similar effect given it is not an environment comprised of 100% oxygen.

      Gas bottles may be designed to withstand typical fires, but what about atypical fires... like those enhanced by a high % oxygen environment? I certainly wouldn't want to be in the building to find out.

  20. Colin Stratford
    FAIL

    ...it's not an oxidizer either

    It's just oxygen, one of the three essential elements of fire.

  21. Ben Rosenthal

    re @ That depends

    True, god forbid a fire spread from our offices to our warehouse, that would be about 80 miles of the United Kingdom decimated!

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