So, has anyone here ever, like... worked in a regular office? Not the Apple Mothership or anything like that, just like a small office for a business with like 50 people in it?
If you go into the break room in a place like that, you're going to see consumer grade coffee makers. Again and again. They're totally normal.
Most of them are in good working order, UL approved, and not bought at a garage sale and improvised to run continuously. You cannot trust your coworkers to put a heating element on their desk.
The temperature of one office I was at had to be adjusted to the point where the secretary wouldn’t bring in a space heater. (We added a vent from the server room over the raised ceiling to blow on her, she was happy, the breakers were happy. )
On the other hand, are garage-sale & improvised coffee makers the kind of coffee makers people typically want to bring to the office? I assume the vast majority would be a standard, store-bought coffee makers which should have all the required safety verifications.
My point is... I don't think it's very common to ban them. I have visited hundreds of offices with consumer grade coffee makers in the break room. I've seen plenty of the machines that use various "pods" and come with a service contract too, but buying a $20 Mr. Coffee from Walmart is totally a thing in the business world.
Every office I've worked in either had a commercial grade Bunn coffeemaker or we had to go buy our coffee from the cafeteria downstairs. Most offices were free. The government office I worked in for bit had us chip in a couple bucks a week to pay for the coffee on the honor system.
Worked in 2 offices like you described, first one had a Bunn commercial brewer and the second had a Jura for the fancy coffee drinkers and a medium-duty Keurig for the “anything with caffeine” drinkers. I’m sure there are 50 person offices with a single $20 Mr. Coffee but I’m sure they wear out quickly.
I would expect the Keurig to be banned also if there was much to this "building managers just ban consumer grade coffee makers as a matter of course" theory.
The office I described was far from fancy. It was a DoD project in the 90s run by Lockheed and beneath minimum standards for safety.
It was literally in a modular building that had been assembled onsite. The floors sagged and the fabric on the cubicle walls had mold growing in it. The nearest coffee pot was a 10 minute walk away, which is why residents were tempted to bring their own.
If you go into the break room in a place like that, you're going to see consumer grade coffee makers. Again and again. They're totally normal.