Ever Play a Practical Joke at Work?

One time I put the severed head of a horse in my coworkers credenza.

So who did you work with? The Corleones?

Same as Gus, except I used a cow's head.

I've never played a prank. I'm not that type of guy.

Couple weeks ago, I requested a visit from a Jehovah's witness under my friend's name & address. It worked.

I did. Several years ago (early nineties) when the Michelangelo Virus was all the rage. Some may remember that there was a lot of media coverage about the Michelangelo virus which would launch on Michelangelo's birthday on March 6th. (kind of timely, huh). It was reported that this virus would wipe out everything on the hard drive.

This was in the early days of computer virus' and many people did not know much about them. I decided to pull a practical joke on the Operations Manager and the Human Resources Manager. I had access to their computers because I was the computer guy. Under the guise of updating some things on their computers, I loaded something that I had put together with batch files etc. I did this near the end of the day on March 5th and had it set so that my little joke would take place when they turned on their computers on the morning of March 6th.

Part of it backfired when the Ops Manager rebooted his computer before he left on the 5th. My little joke ran and he figured it wasn't the Michelangelo because it was not March 6th. He quickly figured out that I was the likely culprit. He admired my attempt. The next morning he asked me how I did it etc. We were in his office discussing this when, all of a sudden, we heard shrieks of hysteria throughout the office. Mary Jane was literally running through the office yelling to anyone who would listen that "We have been hit by the Michelangelo virus!" "Do not turn on your computers" "Everything has been lost"

In the Ops Managers office, we were bent over in hysterics. We calmed ourselves before Mary Jane burst into the office, still yelling. She asked me what could be done. With a straight face I said, "Well, if you have really been hit, I hope you have taken my usual advice and kept uptodate backups. She said she had not. I shook my head gloomily and said that I would try, but it is possible that all of her records are lost. The Ops Manager shook his head in agreement.

Keeping as straight a face as I could, I went with her to her office. I asked her what happened when she turned on the computer. Of course, I knew exactly what happened because I had programmed each step. She told me that it made some noises and then some stuff scrolled down the screen. A message was flashing on the screen that all files would be lost and the computer would shut down. Lists of files scrolled down the screen. Suddenly, the screen went blue and then went black.

The Ops Manager and myself could no longer keep straight faces as Mary Jane wailed about how she would probably lose her job and that she wished she had backed up her files like procedure dictated. I told Mary Jane that I had the ability to save the day for her. I proceeded to delete my little programs and rebooted the computer. When it came up clean, I expected a thank you or a big smooch or something. Mary Jane smacked me and called me a couple of names that my mother would not like to hear.

I have yet to beat that joke.

There was the time when I burnt the company archives on bonfire day...

well, and that was when i emigrated to here, basically.

being a sign writer as well, I painted up a co workers car for sale
in the parking area and the poor guy went to go home for dinner and discovered a man and his family, checking out under his car....needless to say he was not impressed, of course we all rolled about laughing!

Way back, when working in a machine shop, we hid the boss's hat rack. A nice rack it was, too. Stained oak, with nicely shaped legs, and solid brass hooks. We had the replacement ready. It was made from an old 4 X 4 they had used for cribbing on the trucks, and nailed a shorter 4 X 4 on the bottom to make two of the legs. The other two were old, muddy 2 X 4s, not really of equal length. For hooks, we used a handfull of 12" spikes, and let me tell you, that thing had everything but termites, and I'm not real sure about that.

So, he walks in, starts to put his hard hat on the rack, pauses, and then hangs in it the usual place, pretending not to notice. Now, imagine this very serious person working away at his desk, pretending not to notice, but sneaking looks at it out of the corner of his eye, and getting redder in the face by the minute.

We had to relent, and give back the good hat rack. It looked like he was in real danger of having a stroke. We told him it was intended for the day shift foreman. He suddenly saw the humor.

Great stories here, guys!!

Intrepid, that lady should have kissed you! :wink: