Workplace Pranks

[beanhead]

In reading through Kern's "most useless tool you've bought" thread, he had a post about a joke he played on someone at work. That got me thinkin'....I bet we all have some similar funny prank stories. Post 'em up!

While there's many I could relay with some time to reflect, two came to mind right away--

We used to tell new (electrical) apprentices that at the bottom of each new 5 gallon bucket of Ideal-brand wire lube was a pair of wire strippers. Most of them didn't fall for it, but some did...and watching these guys sink their arms into that crap and fish around was hilarious.

The other one wasn't quite so "harmless". There was a guy on one of my crews one time that had the reputation as being one of those hot-headed, verbally abusive big ego dicks...and he sure lived up to it. Even the guys in the other trades couldn't stand him. One day he was talking about how his stomach was feeling messed up and any minute he was going to be running for the porta-potty. Well, someone inconspicuously removed all the TP from that one and when he went in, he realized it and yelled out the door for someone to "just hand me some of those hand towels over there..." meaning the plain paper towels on a nearby table. Well, one of the other guys anonymously handed him some hand cleaner wipes instead (on purpose of course). He didn't notice until it was too late..
He was screaming and about 30 guys were laughing their asses off. He was pissed! His attitude was better after that incident, strangely enough..

Happy Thanksgiving FBBO!

 

[Sahara]

Back in the day when I worked construction we would wait for the plumber to look away for a second after installing the toilet and we would toss an O’Henry bar in.

 

[kiwigtx]

As an electrical apprentice I had a few pranks played on me.

The Tradesmen used to charge up all the capacitors in the store - randomly thrown in an open box. You can charge them up really easy with a hand-cranked Megger (in the old days) - amazing what 500 Volts DC can do to a capacitor. Anywhere from 3-20 microfarad caps. Occasionally you'd here a scream when someone tried to grab one out the box. That taught me to always short the terminals on capacitors whenever grabbing them.

I was once sent to the local hardware store with a list. Sadly the guy in the store was as unaware of 'skyhooks' as I was. I ended up bringing back a box of 200 bright chrome screw hooks. The guys at the workshop were not happy...as they had to explain to the store owner why they needed to be returned.

 

[Potts]

Not work related but went on a Florida vacation many years ago with a group of guys, in our late 20s.
There was one guy that kept trying to change plans, wanting to go here instead of there. He always ordered the most expensive thing on the menu when we were pooling the money. This guy always put his comments in when a guy was trying to hook up with a lady. Just a pain to deal with in general, a real know it all. We tried so hard to get along, but he was a one way street with no good qualities.
He was a friend of a friend's cousin, you know, we've all got stuck with knuckleheads like this from time to time.
So anyway, he was obsessed with playing the Florida state lottery, which was up about 5 million, alot in those days. He had kept buying tickets for days and had a stack of close to a hundred tickets.
1 of our crew who was fed up with this idiot who has been bragging to everyone about winning the lottery, so he devised a plan...
On the night of the lottery drawing we got him so drunk that he fell asleep before the 11pm drawing. We got up at 9am the next morning and bought 1 ticket with last night's winning numbers and slipped it into his pile of tickets.
Now this guy wakes up around noon, hung over and finally checks the lottery tickets with the newspaper.
He stops, checks the "winning," ticket a few times, too hung over to realize the date, and now he gets quiet.
He walked into his room, closes his door and calls his girlfriend. We are all quietly eavesdropping and he says (trying to control himself).... I fuckin won the lottery!!!
We are rich!!! Then he says he's gonna fly home today and leave these loosers (us) behind.
So he comes out of the room and we say to him what's up? You look different.
He gushes and blurts out, "I won, I won!!!" My buddy says let me see that ticket. Of course this stingy bastard holds the ticket with two hands up to my buddy's face and said "see this"!
My buddy says, ...you asshole, check that date on that ticket, loosa!
This guy stood there, staring at the date in disbelief as 7 guys around him laughed our asses off.
He did go home earlier than expected, as a looser.
Boy did he deserve it.

 

[tnfastback]

Remember charging condensers up and leaving them laying on counter while working at NAPA in High School

 

[Kern Dog]

I have turned circular saw blades around so the saw is dull as hell, throwing smoke and making lots of noise.
I have screwed hardhats down.
I have picked up someone's tool or materials and moved it when they weren't looking. They come back to find it missing, then go looking for it. I put it back exactly where it was and let them think that they are going crazy.
I've kinked guys air hoses so the nail gun won't sink the nails....they get down to check the compressor to see it is working fine.
I've poured water under their cars and trucks so they think their radiator sprung a leak.
I've put rocks, 4x4s and other things against tires so they have to climb over them to leave the job.
I've put rocks in lunchboxes, handfuls of nails, small tools...anything to make it heavy.
Random graffiti regarding the masculinity (Or lack thereof) of co-workers.
One winter when it had rained heavily, there was a trench in the ground that had filled up with water. One guy turned a corner and fell in up to his chest. He cussed and bitched as he pulled himself out. Moments later, He called his buddy to give him a hand moving a beam, NOT warning him about the ditch. Yeah, he let the guy fall in the ditch just like HE did.

Sometimes I have placed materials right in the way of everyone just to be annoying.
As a forklift driver, I blocked a guy in on both ends of his truck with stacks of plywood.
I've played my unpopular music LOUD just waiting to see how tolerant the guys would be.
All of these things were just in good fun. Nobody actually got pissed off.

 

[kiwigtx]

One of the tradesmen I worked with was doing a 'bench repair' on a fan heater one morning. Just before we went to morning smoko (tea break), I liberally sprayed CRC-556 onto the heating element inside the heater enclosure......then switched the heater to FULL on....and switched the test rig distribution power OFF.

After the break, Dave (we called him Shaking Steven...that's another story) tried to get the heater running. On figuring the power was off at the wall.....he switches it on. Nek minute, there's clouds of white smoke blowing all over him, and he's waving his arms around like a madman trying to get clear of it.

We all laughed....well, all except one guy.

 

[kiwigtx]

I have turned circular saw blades around so the saw is dull as hell, throwing smoke and making lots of noise.

I saw a nice 18V Makita circular saw for sale on FB Marketplace locally a year ago. Was tempting to buy it. Owner claim it didn't get much use because it didn't cut that well.
Looking at the pictures he posted, the blade was on backwards.

Speaking of pranks to apprentices.....in the old days we had steel cap boots with exposed steel caps. (Illegal now here)
It was quite common for the Engineering apprentices to arrive at work and find their boots welded to their bench vices in the morning.

 

[kiwigtx]

Back in the 1980's when big tool boxes and bags were quite expensive, a lot of Sparkies used wooden nail boxes as tool carry boxes on house jobs. I remember working on one house out in the sticks.....myself and the apprentice went out to grab some lunch. When we returned, the builders had nail-gunned the tool boxes to the wooden floor of the house.

 

[Kern Dog]

That is some funny ****.

I worked a maintenance job where a foreman worked 10 hour shifts while the rest of the crew worked 8 hours. The Boss took the broom handle from the custodian and shortened it ONE INCH each day.
Imagine thinking to yourself This feels strange. Either my arms are getting shorter or something weird is going on.
That same Boss messed with another guy....The dude wore shoes to the job and switched to boots on site. The boss would take the guys boots and put them in the freezer after work and pull them out 15 minutes before the guy showed up for work.

 

[kiwigtx]

That is some funny ****.

I worked a maintenance job where a foreman worked 10 hour shifts while the rest of the crew worked 8 hours. The Boss took the broom handle from the custodian and shortened it ONE INCH each day.
Imagine thinking to yourself This feels strange. Either my arms are getting shorter or something weird is going on.
That same Boss messed with another guy....The dude wore shoes to the job and switched to boots on site. The boss would take the guys boots and put them in the freezer after work and pull them out 15 minutes before the guy showed up for work.

That's frigging pure evil....and downright funny.

 

[1 Wild R/T]

I've posted this before but here goes..

Back in the late eighties when air bags were first coming out the guy in the stall across from mine had a job that required removing the air bag.. He was pretty freaked out about it... Hell it's basically a bomb & you have to stick your hands behind it in the unpadded area to un plug it....

I was watching from a distance, he was so focused on what he was doing he didn't notice me... Just as he got to the part where his fingers were in the danger zone I tossed a firecracker under the car.... Never seen him move that fast before...

The other techs & I were rolling.... He didn't see the humor... LOL...

These days he'll laugh about it but back then he wasn't amused...

 

[Kern Dog]

I have messed with buddies cars....
Rocks in the hubcap.
Rearranging the spark plug wire placement on the distributor.

 

[#41]

Must be something about carpenters. When I was a framer....

1. Dropping big rocks down the vent tube when people were using the porta-pot (I did not find this funny)
2. Machine gun assault of the porta-pot with air-nailers when it was occupied.
3. If you put your hammer down instead of in your bag, it was required that the first person to see it throw it off the building.
4. If you took off your bags and set them down, they would be nailed to the floor when you returned (exception = lunch time).
5. Nailing what looked like free lumber down to the deck.
6. The old "get me a box of left-handed sinkers" trick on the rookies...
7. The messages, poems, and artwork about various personnel written on the back sides of wall sheathing...
8. Filling rubber boots with 1" of water or whatever was handy.

etc.

Generally, I remember keeping all my stuff close by or in the car and being stealthy when going to use the outhouse. I also recall that it was a daily routine to ask someone when you rolled up "whatcha building mister?", and the answer was always "firewood!".

 

[Kern Dog]

I was once sent to the local hardware store with a list. Sadly the guy in the store was as unaware of 'skyhooks'.

Skyhooks, left handed screwdrivers, electric hammers, waterproof circular saws, Toe-nails....sometimes we still fool guys with these things.

 

[1 Wild R/T]

You mean a bucket of steam isn't stocked at the hardware store?

Funny thing my first command after boot camp actually had a storage locker full of double ended hooks with "Sky Hook" forged right into them... Probably cost us tax payers $1000 each..

 

[BeepBeepRR]

We had a guy who had just started as a helper he drove a lowered Yellow S10 with a snug top on it. He would come to work and brag about how he gets soo much tang with that truck. Well one day he backed it up to the wall. I went and took a 2x4 fluorescent light out of the box and cut out one side of the box. I wrote on the box in big 4 inch letters. "Dick is like Pepsi I gotta Have it." and stuck it to the back of his truck. He lived in Cleveland Georgia which was about 30 miles from the school we were working on. He came in the next day and was pissed.. He said WHO the fk put that on the back of my truck? My mom saw it when I got home. He wanted to fight but since nobody saw me do it everyone was laughing their asses off at this tool.

Had a plumber that liked to pull pranks on us. One day I took some Noalox and put it under the door handles on his truck. He went to get in and got that sticky **** all over his hands. It doesn't like to come off. The next day I was roughing in the basement of a house and I had a Dr.Pepper in a screw top bottle I left it by my materials. Anyhow I go and grab it and take a drink but kept smelling rectorseal. I looked all over the bottle and didnt see anything. I went to my van and looked in the mirror. That son of a bitch put it under the lid to my drink and I had a ring or rectorseal on my lips. LOL No wonder I could smell it.

 

[BeepBeepRR]

Skyhooks, left handed screwdrivers, electric hammers, waterproof circular saws, Toe-nails....sometimes we still fool guys with these things.

When I was doing siding and cornice a long time ago my boss sent me to the work van to find the siding stretcher. I stayed in the van for over 30 minutes looking for it. I didn't want to look like I didn't know what it was. They made a fool of me but hell I got to take a 30 minute break.

 

[Kern Dog]

Yep, it was called a board stretcher for us framers!

 

[1 Wild R/T]

Yep, it was called a board stretcher for us framers!

My buddy Dean is a welder... He started out as a carpenter but after a few times cutting the board to short he realized if you cut steel to short you can weld it back together...