Originally posted by bigsky
my favorite was a joke was one they played on new guys at this company i worked for. the company built barns and other large commercial buildings. it had a high turnover rate, hire twelve guys to get three that stay, so nobody cared too much about there feelings, they were mostly just college boys and convics on work release. so the setup, the boss or a crew forman would be mean to the new guy and treat him kinda bad. then one of the old hands (like me) would play the good guy and gain his trust by being nice. then the good guy would say "the boss is all right, you just have to get to know him better". "why dont you strike up a conversation with him, go ask him how his sisters swimming lessons are going". then he would go ask the boss how his sisters swimming lessons are going. then the boss would give him an evil look and say "MY SISTER DROWNED!". the looks on those poor suckers faces as they looked at the crew laughing at them was priceless.
bigsky
Nothing unique there. We did the same thing in junior high school, except instead of the sister drowning, we'd tell a kid to go tell Butch that he'd seen Butch's dad skateboarding the previous day. Butch would reply "My daddy ain't got no legs!" and scare the piss out of the kid.
Now that I'm an adult and work with adults, and am imbedded in the corporate culture which frowns on practical jokes, we don't do anything that would put our jobs, mortgages, carpayments, and pensions at risk.
However....
A few years ago when our company was thriving and telecom was hot, we were working our buttocks off to meet deadlines and complete sales transactions. But we had this one older worker who came in at 5am and was done by 3, so in the afternoon he'd wander around the halls and pester those of us trying to get things wrapped up so we could go home by 6. He was nice and friendly, but we really didn't have time to socialize.
Being the highly intelligent work force that we were, we took practical joke-playing to a new level.
The way our office building was constructed, there was a security guard's desk with camera monitors running, placed by the main door where employees had to badge in. One of us told the security guard of our plan and he agreed to go along with it.
That afternoon, as soon as Elderly Worker started making his rounds, one of us casually mentioned "you know, they installed a camera on this floor that points down the hall. The security tape is catching all of the traffic on this floor."
Think about that for a second. A security camera is watching you. Is watching everything you do in that hall. Including wandering from office to office, standing in the hall gabbing for 2 or 3 hours until people start packing up to go home. And management can get a copy of that.
Soon after, as Elderly Worker did the usual work stuff that required him to leave the office, he started looking down the hall, up at the ceiling tiles, trying to figure out where the camera could be. It was fun to watch him just sort of casually glance around as he went to and from his office. And we noticed something else: he stopped making the rounds to our offices. If he had something to say, he didn't stand in the hall where he could address 2 or 3 offices at a time (and be seen by this imaginary camera). Instead, he'd walk all the way into our office and keep the visit short.
After a couple days of this, one of us happened to be chatting to the security guard and he mentioned that on a few occassions he could see Elderly Worker trying to look across the guard's desk to see where the cameras were pointing, but the guard nonchalantly would place a package, or some flowers, or himself in Elderly Worker's line of sight.
We eventually moved into a new building and Elderly Worker retired soon after. I don't think Elderly Worker ever found out.
