Do you ever fuch with your job for fun?

[DARISC]

Once, I sent an image to a chief engineer with whom I was working to develop his station’s furniture proposal. As I have found many engineers to be, he was a pleasant enough but… bland… fellow. Along with the image I wrote that it was unwise to temporarily place a growing young potted palm in the knee-space below the audio console if there was any possibility that it would be forgotten about for any length of time.



The next day the engineer replied, writing “Thank you for your concern. Where did this happen?” I broke out laughing out loud that the guy had taken me seriously (like, he thought it was a photograph?!). Coincidentally, the sales engineer with our company who was working on that job happened to be ambling by my cubicle at that time (which is interesting in itself, given that engineers don’t tend to amble) and asked “What’s so funny?” “Check this out” I said, showing him what I’d sent and the customer’s response. The sales engineer, also a pleasant enough but…bland…fellow, looked it over unsmiling then looked at me and said “You shouldn’t do that.” I asked “why?” He shook his head, sighed and ambled off. Ahh, yes. One of the fonder memories of a long career – pretty much made that day for me as I recall.

Anyone else pull harmless (or evil ) capers on their job?

[legion]

One of my coworkers was reprimanded for hanging Christmas lights (fire hazard and all ) a few weeks before Christmas. We decided that the department responsible for the building had "killed Santa". We put a tape outline of Santa on the floor...

The project I've been on since 2002 was supposed to go live in 2008 (it will be more like 2010). I knew this was unrealistic. We had "Celebrate 2008" posters all over the place. I took to writing "It goes to 11" on the posters...

[SlowToady]

Sometimes for laughs I power-cycle the servers and network gear. The frantic phone calls and text messages are priceless.

(Just kidding....)

[DARISC]

Originally Posted by legion

We put a tape outline of Santa on the floor...

HA! I'd totally forgotten. On one of my first jobs years ago I found out that one of my coworkers had acquired some yellow police crime scene tape somewhere.

So we met outside the office late one night, drew a chalk outline of a tortuously twisted body right in front of the entry door then taped off the area and went home.

When I arrived at work the next morning those who'd arrived already were standing around while the manager talked to two cops. They had their cruiser sitting there with the engine running and gumball on.

It was hilarious but really difficult to keep it secret that we'd done it - woulda been canned for sure. I ended up working there longer than my coworker and when I left I told the manager I was a culprit. He was pissed! Like I cared .

[wreckersteve]

My old boss did not have a key to his office so I locked him out 1 day. He crawled through the window between his office and his secertary office. When he left that day I flipped the handle. Should have seen the look on his face as the door closed. Also unplugged his receiver for his phone when he left once. I guess he was not happy when tried to answer the phone in the morning.

[ZOA NOM]

I'm a System Engineer at Oakland Air Traffic Control Center, and I was working the graveyard shift for the changeover to the new millennium on New Year's Eve, Y2K. We were quite heavily staffed that night, just in case, along with an open telephone bridge with all ARTCC's on from coast to coast so we could monitor progress across the time zones, and react if any of the Centers had any software issues when the time/date rolled over.

I'm sitting in front of a Monitor/Control Console for the ARTCC Display system, which provides the picture for the radar screens at all 75 of our Controller positions, waiting along with all the other technicians, engineers, managers, etc., who are on the edge of their seats. I quietly type in a command that will "unmask" a missing critical input to the Display System (one that is a future installation, but has been masked to prevent alarms), and sit calmly with my finger hovering over the Enter key...

As we all watch the clock counting towards 00:00:00 on 1/1/2000, I'm poised to create the single greatest practical joke in History. Just as the clock reaches 23:59:55, one of the more savvy managers quietly reaches around my back and presses the "Clear" key, cutting me off at the pass.

It would have been epic, tho.

[Tishabet]

We put these magnetic bumper stickers on my boss's car a couple of weeks back... he drove from work to home and from home to work before spotting them the next day.

[gt350mike]

My boss had an AMG Mercedes and for _hit's and grins, I put three or four of the stick-on bullet holes on the passenger door............His wife discovered it three days later and didn't see the humor. Some people just need to veg out and enjoy life!

[mikester]

In my dept if someone wanders away from their keyboard without locking the screen somebody will come to your desk and email the group mailing list with the phrase "I'm a dumas."

We're going to get that guy...

I've taken keyboards and rearranged the letters (except the querty part otherwise it is obvious). I've taken mouse balls and now with the lasers I have taped a piece of paper over them.

My next is to get the guy who does the dumas deal by spraying his keyboard with 3M adhesive spray - I just haven't gotten up the balls to do it.

[Danny_Ocean]

I was doing a flat-screen install in a call-center after hours and the manager (who was babysitting us) kept bugging me to borrow my tools. He was not the handyman type, but was attempting to install "Employee Entrance" signs on the outside of the building. Took him hours (4 screws each sign). When we were finished with the flat-screens, he escorted us out, locked up the building and left. We were still in the parking lot loading up our tools. Once the coast was clear, I removed the signs with my screw-gun and re-installed them upside down. The boss is always the first one in to work every day and reportedly jacked him up for not installing the signs correctly...

[Hawktel]

Back some time ago I was working for AOL. It was a tech call center environment before all those places got moved to India.

We happened to have to do the Mac support in my area as well, so we had a few beater mac computers set up on the end of the isle so we could test stuff, and check configurations. And needless to say all the Macs had Speakers, like the PC's didn't, as well as a interesting feature where you can set the macs to read out loud text that comes into a chat window.

So I would sit way far away, log the mac into a chat room I made in AOL, and log my computer in, turn the speaker up loud, and wait for people to walk by.

The best part was the Mac was right by the Men's bathroom, and I'd wait till someone came out, type in "Did you wash your hands"

It was hilarious. This one guy stopped looked them over real carefully, and then went on his way. Another turned right around and went right back into the bathroom. A lot would just ignore it. Most would rubber neck to see who was talking to them.

It was pretty funny though.

[jeffgrant]

I was IT manager for a record company a few years ago, and we'd developed an internal portal that was everyone's home page.

April fools day 3 of us set it up so that when everyone logged into the portal, the first thing they saw was a news item saying that they had been fired, as if it was released early. And each news item was specifically written for those individuals (we spent about a month getting them all prepped). We dropped all sorts of personal info into the news item (their name, job title, personality traits, etc). (It was easily personalized due to the IP addresses that everyone had statically assigned).

The looks of fear on everyone's face was priceless... especially since they all thought it was the public facing news portal.

We sat there for an hour pissing ourselves laughing until the boss came in and told us to "stop it".

[slodave]

Only small joke was to take a magnet to the back office room door alarm sensor (it was connected to the main alarm) while the receptionist was gone and pull it off. There would be a loud 'beep' and the office manager would run out of her office to see who was at the front door.

[dtw]

Oh, plenty. One that always makes me laugh is one of the simplest, most effective gags I pulled. Used to have a coworker that enjoyed fking with my computer if I left my desk without locking the machine. One day he went to the john without locking his. Noticed he had a chat window going with a coworker that I knew he was 'close' with. Seems she had been venting about stress at work. So staying in context, I just keyed in, "Man, I have been doing a LOT of blow lately..." and let the good times roll. Caught hell for that one but it was worth it.

[RoninLB]

that's funny

[legion]

We have cloth-walled cubicles at work.

A super-anal guy who works here keeps all of his manuals locked away in the cabinet above his desk and won't let anybody else use them. As the back of the cabinet is the cloth cube wall, a friend of mine emptied his cabinet by lifting it off the cube wall and replacing it, leaving only a ransom note. We're still waiting for him to notice.

My favorite prank of all time (which I witnessed but did not set up). Two coworkers are having a conversation and I hear Lloyd say to Robin: "Your pretty gullible Robin."

Robin: "No I'm not."

Lloyd: "Yes you are. Gee-you-el-eye-bee-el-ee. Gullible."

Robin: "Gullible has two els."

Lloyd: "No it doesn't, it has only one."

Robin: "It has two, I'll prove it to you."

With that, Robin grabs the dictionary she keeps at her desk, opens it up to the page where "gullible" was listed, and she finds her picture pasted just below the word...

[oldE]

In the early 80s, the company I worked for had a Personnel manager who probably did more to ruin labor relations than anyone I could think of. I remember hearing her refer to contract negotiations as "a Dog and Pony show".

One year, when the new contracts were signed, I requested a copy for my department. A few days later, I received a fat envelope with a note inside to the effect: "Les, This should keep you out of trouble." The letterhead stated: From the desk of......... The note was attached to a cover page of the new Collective Agreement and 30 or so blank pages.

After some thought, I visited a friend who was doing some renovations and asked him for a piece of scrap trim, then got his puppy to chew it a bit.
I photocopied the letterhead while covering over the original note and fastened the piece of chewed-up wood to the letterhead paper. On it I wrote, "Dear Mrs. P. I'm not sure why you sent this to me, but perhaps you could mend the tooth marks and use it to repair your desk."

Upon retrospect, I suppose I was asking for it, but she was gone within a couple of years, I was there for another 20.

Les

[Joeaksa]

Good laughs... good way to start the morning!

[Porsche-O-Phile]

Some of these are GOOD!

[Porsche_monkey]

1. Someone I heard about (slowly going bald) was never supposed to leave his computer without logging off. He never bothered to log off and his boss kept getting on his case. One day the balding guy went for a smoke, and of course did not log off. So the boss went into the balding guys email and sent everyone in his email list a little note saying he was thinking of getting a toupe, did they think it was a good idea?

2. A guy in an engineering office gets a diesel VW. He goes on and on every day about what great mileage he gets, how much money he saves etc. The guys get sick of listening to this so for a month they add diesel to his car every day, eventually he thinks he's getting about 80 mpg. Next month they start removing diesel every day. At about 15 mpg he shuts up.