Can techs take a joke?

[fixthecopier]

I was walking past the work area of one of our computer guys and noticed a magazine for high school cheerleaders. I looked at the cover and saw his name and the company address on it. I laughed and he said that one of the other computer techs subscribed him to it, but he still does not know who. I thought it was funny, do others play piratical jokes on each other?

[ZOOTECH]

Yeah, we were playing so many practical jokes, the owner told us we had to quit. My favorites are switching key caps on the keyboard for the parts guy (he kept trying over and over to input the part number); having a newbe test a machine after loading skyshots every 5 pages in the drawer (the puzzled look was too funny), and the one that got us busted was loading waste toner in the tech's gym shoes before he went to his workout (he didn't know the toner was there until he switched back to his work clothes).

[blackcat4866]

We had two tech that traded practical jokes on a daily basis. The more memorable ones were

1) greased door handles
2) hole punch chads in the defroster vents
3) radio set to full blast
4) windows cranked down during a rainstorm
5) partially flattened tires

Some practical jokes that I was involved with were:

1) filling an S10 pickup with packing peanuts, to the dome light
2) disconnect handset cord under phone
3) fill desk drawers with hole punch chads (it takes a lot)
4) superglueing an glass ashtray to an office desk

The absolute worst though, was the tuna sandwich under another techs driver seat (in August). Sometime around day 4 the aroma becomes overwhelming. It never went away completely either.
=^..^=

[Stirton.M]

having a newbe test a machine after loading skyshots every 5 pages in the drawer .

hehe....that one is a good one.....

When I was in the army as a RadOp, a prank for newbies was to send them to the QM supplies for a box of frequencies. I almost fell for that one....I got to the building before it dawned that the guys were setting me up. Not everyone figured that one out before getting an earful from the QMS staff....heh

[fixthecopier]

One of our techs back from training said the instructor told them he took a bunch of business cards from this manager he did not like, and passed them out at a gay bar, telling guys to call him, they would do lunch.

When we would hire new girls to answer the phone, I would get people to call I and report that one of their soldiers was trying to copy their ass and the glass broke and now their testicles and caught in the cables, how soon can he get here.

At the steel plant I worked in, I used to swap out peoples uniforms when they came in from the service company. The fat guy gets the small shirt, the tall guy gets the long pants. I had to stop, the uniform man almost got into a couple of fights.

Another fave of mine is to tie a rubber glove around the drive shaft of the car.
And lets not forget super gluing a quarter to the floor to watch people pick it up.

[banginbishop]

Quite a few years ago i turned up for work to find an envelope with my name on it and "freedom to express your homosexuality" and company address on it. inside was lots of gay litrature. I went bananas the sales guys just pissed themselves laughing as they just typed up an envelope with my name on it and left it on my desk.

[Mr Spock]

Use different colored skyshots and put them in a b/w machine...

I did that one and it took 2 hours for the newbie to comprehend b/w machines cannot produce "color" copies.....

[fixthecopier]

Use different colored skyshots and put them in a b/w machine...

I did that one and it took 2 hours for the newbie to comprehend b/w machines cannot produce "color" copies.....



Wow, bet I use that one soon. And the sad thing is, the newbie I will bust with it has been with us 3 years.

[KIP_Doc]

2) hole punch chads in the defroster vents



Reminds me of a place I once worked at. They put anchovies in a guys defroster vents in the summer. Talk about stink............

[Mr Spock]

I know a tech that had the door handles (late 70's chevy with the real stick out door handles) coated with vaseline.

[neergish]

I got our in shop computer tech by each day adjusting the colour of his default blue windows desktop slightly paler when he was out for lunch. This went on for 2 weeks or so, I had to come clean when after he tried the 4th new video card he was about to do a complete reload of windows, yep he couldn't take a joke at all hehe.

[jonezy999]

Create a new shortcut on the desktop to shutdown the computer. Change the icon and the name to Internet Explorer. Delete actual IE shortcut and ur done.

[prntrfxr]

One of the repair companies I worked at was 2 suites down from a gay gym. The field techs would put love notes in the door handle of the parts guy's car. It had him so freaked out he parked in back. It was so funny to them they began to tape ads from the gay yellow pages on his monitor (yes, in Atlanta, they have one). Needless to say, he did not take it well.

The jokes I've done were on in shop techs and the boss.
Foamy cleaner sprayed in chair
box taped their mouse and tools to the desk
wire tied their chair to the desk
put tape over the lens opening of a laser scanner
put packing peanuts in the fan of a printer (as soon as they put it on, they get a shower of tiny foam pieces, plus it scares the crap out of them when they're not expecting it)
super soaker fights in the warehouse
hiding their chair in the ladies room (tech wandered around the entire building looking for his chair for over an hour, while the rest of us laughed)
Removing the battery from drills
putting chairs real low so they're sitting on the floor
& my personal favorite:

At one company an in-shop tech shared a PC with me as our benches were side-by-side. He had a picture of his Honda Shadow, the one with the orange tank and the flames on it, as the desktop picture. While he was gone to lunch, I took the photo, put it in MS Paint and painted the tank pink, added pink streamers out of the handle bars, & flowers on other key areas. I saved the photo again and made it the desktop photo. Other techs saw it before he did. When he finally saw it, he nearly flipped out. I laughed so hard I could hardly breathe.

When you're a girl like me working with a bunch of guys, you got to be able to take a joke and dish one out.

[HenryT2]

When I was working for a 'Office ??? ' as the Electronics Supervisor, we would get the newbie's by re-arranging the products on the shelves. We would of course SPREAD the items out so they did not all fit. We would then send them down the mall to X store to see Jim Bob and ask for the " SHELF STRETCHER " that he borrowed from us last week: Jim Bob would send him to another store to see Mary Ellen...etc.
By the time they got back, ' without the shelf stretcher ' we would have straightened out all thew displays and shelves, and then tell them " Never Mind ". It was one guy's FOURTH trip before he figured it out.

We used to put clear tape on the power cord prongs on the tech's swing arm lamp, take it off when he left to get a new bulb, and have the lamp back on when they returned.

AH!! THE GOOD OLD DAYS.

[joelsa12]

There were always jokes going on at the last office that I worked at, but the big thing was the scare! We tried to scare the crap out of each other. And we did!

One time fairly new tech was coming into the office. We got prepared. We had one guy who was fairly short and would fit any where. We cleaned out the cabinet where we kept scrap paper. The small guy got in the cabinet. When the new tech got back I acted like I was working on a machine. I asked him to get me some scrap paper out of the scrap cabinet(the one with the tech hiding in it). He opened the door and reached in with out looking. The guy hiding in there screamed and grabbed his hand. I have never seen anyone start shaking because they were scared. But he did!

We messed up because the guy that we scared became the best for scaring people. he paid us back 10 times over. After about 8 years we figured out how to know when you scared some one the best. There are 3 stages. one the initial scare, two the getting pissed, and then three the laughing about it. If you can find those three items in a scare you know you got them good :)

[andy1mack]

I've had lots of fun with the Service Manager's screensaver. The possibilities are endless.

[DWise]

in the past, we've flipped the tech's screen to make it appear upside-down, then we would mess with the mouse settings and make the right-click over to the left-click and so forth... it's fun to see them try to figure out how to use the mouse and get the screen back to right-side up...

[Dalamar]

ThinkGeek :: The ThinkGeek Annoy-a-tron (http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/electronic/8c52/)

It really works.

[KEVIN900]

I had a great practical joke played on me. My friend Chad took out an ad in Craig's List, advertising a 7am yard sale, at my address. It even listed desirable items like antiques, and civil war memorabilia. The ad even said "Early Birds Welcome". At 9am I was making a "Death in the Family" poster, so I could get a little peace and quiet.

[oldschool]

A cable running from the positive connection of the headlight to the positive connector of the horn. When the lights com on the horn blows. Had a tech scratching his head for a while until he figured out that the horn stopped when the lights went out.
We had an old copier Canon NP7000 with very pricey drums. The tech was doing a PM in shop and went to lunch. He left a nice note to be careful of the drum he had placed on the shelf. We took an old drum and hit it with a hammer a few times replaced it with his and piled junk on top. He flipped out!!!
I worked in the parts room for a while. A tech would call and ask me to hand a part to the delivery guy to bring right over (VIP customer). I gave the delivery guy an empty box. I told him to deliver that first and then wait 5 min or so and then bring him the part. The customer was watching when the tech opened the empty box.
I switched the receivers on the loaner fax machines. It wouldn't hang up. The tech actually had to do a service call and fix the Fax already there.
I once changed the guys office key off of his key ring with a key that looked about the same.
When a tech sets his tool case down, unlatch it and watch his tools spill onto the floor when he picks it up.
Add an entry in the auto-correct section of someones word processor. Have it replace their name with any number of colorful descriptions.
Anyone remember silicon oil..Pour it all over someones tools. What a mess.
:D

[nmfaxman]

The "Great Santa Fe Toner War", so named by the owner of the company, is officially over!
Early 80s when every machine had a waste container.
I got a little pizzed when I got hit with the second trash can full in the face.
Today I always get a laugh remembering the look on my wifes face when she picked me up that night.
I started it. You ended it.
Thanks Ran.

NUFF SAID!

[pacman]

OMG, y'all are TERRIBLE!

*takes notes*

This would be great.....except my parental units are the owners of the company....

[Lagonda]

Back in the dim dark ages well before Workplace Health and Safety was thought of, one of my fellow apprentices thought it was a good idea to wire up the stainless steel urinal to a low voltage power supply!

[mikadonovan]

One of the best ones I saw was putting a whole box of punch unit chads on top of the ceiling fan in the dispatch office. The fan came on when the light switch was turned on, and our big-haired bitchy dispatch chick spent the rest of the day looking like she had a blizzard in her hair.

Others include greased door handles, a can sitting on top of the rear axle with 20 feet of string tied to the axle ( I dragged one for miles before I realized it. sumbitches), sticking the end of a screwdriver in a cooling fan while the guy is taking voltage measurements, supergluing a quarter to the service department floor(got the company owner on that one. He was pissed), and numerous cases of screwing with toolcases and such. FUN! FUN!

[Mr Spock]

Just to be obvious...

Of course we can take a joke we work on copier/mfp machines for a living... Just read the manuals!!!

[Stirton.M]

I like this one...used it a couple times.

On a computer desktop (windows).

Press the "print screen" button. This copies EVERYTHING seen on the screen to the clip board. Use MSPaint or similar graphics program and paste the info into the program. Save the file on the hard drive. Then open up the wall paper configuration and select the newly saved file as the new desktop paper.

Set the desktop icons to hide. Set the task bar to autohide.

Sit back and watch the fun.

[Morlock49]

When a tech sets his tool case down, unlatch it and watch his tools spill onto the floor when he picks it up.

Anyone remember silicon oil..Pour it all over someones tools. What a mess.
:D

I have a good sense of humor, but anyone messing with my tool kit had better watch out, for a start I would rip your gizzard out, feed you your own spleen, and hang you from the ceiling by your genitals. they dont call me Mr Nice Guy for nothing, you know.

[BR549]

I have a good sense of humor, but anyone messing with my tool kit had better watch out, for a start I would rip your gizzard out, feed you your own spleen, and hang you from the ceiling by your genitals. they dont call me Mr Nice Guy for nothing, you know.
Hey Mr Nice Guy, are you done with my pressure washer yet? My front porch is filthy.

[Vulkor]

lol Gotta say this is some impressive stuff and think I'd like to do much of it. Unfortunately, the boss doesn't have a sense of humor. Besides I keep my tools and my car LOCKED at all times. Worst I've seen done here. Is a tech have a Gay Pride Bumper sticker put on his car once. Oh and same tech got a penis/balls drawn in the dirt on the side of his car. He went around like that for a week before we told him.

[mikadonovan]

Oh and same tech got a penis/balls drawn in the dirt on the side of his car. He went around like that for a week before we told him.

Forgot about that one.

[mrwho]

/me takes notes feverishly :p

Sorry for my lack of knowledge of car mechanics, but what the heck is this supposed to accomplish?


Another fave of mine is to tie a rubber glove around the drive shaft of the car.

[mikadonovan]

Probably makes a funny flippy noise.

[D_L_P]

I've never done this but I'd imagine it would make one heck of a noise as you were driving. Kinda like taping a card to your bike near the spokes when you were a kid.

[fixthecopier]

/me takes notes feverishly :p

Sorry for my lack of knowledge of car mechanics, but what the heck is this supposed to accomplish?


If you tie it so that one end hangs down, it beats the bottom of the car, the faster you go, the faster the driveshaft turns and the faster the noise gets. when they stop to check it out, the is a good chance they will not notice, because the noise stops.

[mrwho]

Well, I bought one of these (http://cgi.ebay.com/35-Exhaust-Muffler-Tail-Pipe-Whistle-Automobile-Car-/290434437458) and already pranked some of my friends - so far I always managed to recover it, but one of these days I'm gonna be so pissed at someone that I'll stick it further into the tailpipe!

[Vulkor]

Had one of those in my tailpipe after wedding. Took me less than 10 yards to notice it & yank it out with my pliers.

[Stirton.M]

Well, I bought one of these (http://cgi.ebay.com/35-Exhaust-Muffler-Tail-Pipe-Whistle-Automobile-Car-/290434437458) and already pranked some of my friends - so far I always managed to recover it, but one of these days I'm gonna be so pissed at someone that I'll stick it further into the tailpipe!

I'm gonna get one of those and try it on the boss.....heh

[Lawrence]

I glued the old guy's favorite coffee mug to the desk with super glue and left it over night. The cup was one with the desk. Later that day i saw him comming down the street to i swirved towards him, he did the same. We dam well near hit. Great minds think alike! :p

After the cell phone ban we had to get hands free sets for the cars. One guy got a visor clip thats basically a speaker phone. He pulls up to a coffee drive thru, and goes this will be a experience for you. I hear the lady asking for his order and he gets a large coffee. I spoke rather loudly into the phone, "WITH EXTRA DICK".
There was total silence and then i hear "you ass". ;)

The old guy used to carry a ton of tools in his case which made it rather heavy. The guys took all the tools out and put a small chunk of rail way iron we had been using as a door stop in his kit. He then went on a call and came back after a little annoyed :eek:

[mrwho]

The old guy used to carry a ton of tools in his case which made it rather heavy. The guys took all the tools out and put a small chunk of rail way iron we had been using as a door stop in his kit. He then went on a call and came back after a little annoyed :eek:

I often heard the older techs where I used to work speaking about placing one (or more, if space allowed) heavy 60ppm fuser roller on the bottom of a tool case of another tech - without taking the tools out, so I can only guess how long it was before he noticed it.

[fixthecopier]

When I worked at a Weber carburetor plant, this old set up man got out of his car one morning and left it running while he went in to work. It ran for hours. After that, we would steal his car keys and go out 5 minutes before he got off and start his car. He would come out and think his car had been running all day.

If you know a guy who loves his car a little too much, get a little can of motor oil, and every place he parks, make a little puddle under the motor and for good measure splash a little on the motor. See how long it takes him to find the leak.

When I worked in the steel plant, I welded a guys tool to the steel work table.

[mrwho]

Okay, this one was described to me by the same guy who told me about the fuser-rollers-on-the-toolcase that I mentioned before. I must warn you that it is very explicit and, if you don't like stuff involving male genitalia, please pass on this one.

I'm going to try and tell it in exactly the same way he told me - and I'm sorry if my english isn't enough to convey the exact message.

So, there are three technicians on the shop: one of them is working on a machine and the other two are behind him observing the job being done. So, one of the two guys behind the working one grabs his screwdriver and rubs the handle in the asshole area of the guy bending over the machine - who immediately, without looking back, slaps the screwdriver handle out of his ass and starts saying something like "Hey, stop it!".

A couple of minutes go by, and again the playful dude uses his screwdriver and rubs the handle in the working man's ass - who, now more than a little pissed off, and again without looking back, grabs the handle and turns it away with a "I told you to STOP it!".

Another couple of minutes go by. Now, the screwdriver guy blinks to his other colleague. He then proceeds to unzip his own pants, takes out his erect manhood and rubs it against the other guy's ass - who, again without looking, goes and grabs it. When he feels that hot sweaty thing in his hand, hell breaks loose.

I never got to know what happened then, but I've been told that the guy was more than a little upset.

[ToshibaTech]

WTH!?

[jonezy999]

While tuna fishing in the Aussie Bight for months on end, the pranks would get pretty loose. Majority or the deckies didnt like climbing the 50ft cable ladder to the crows nest, so this was obviously the best spot to hide someone's bedding. Make ice cubes from vinegar for the wogs vino, (they didnt even notice, so much for lovers of fine wine.) Hang a heavy one inch nut from some fishing line behind the wall panel of a bunk, everytime the ship rocks side to side, the nut belts the crap out of the wall just above their head. Marbles in drawers, grease, just put it fukn anywhere (engineers earmuffs are the best,)

[WOETC]

Create a new shortcut on the desktop to shutdown the computer. Change the icon and the name to Internet Explorer. Delete actual IE shortcut and ur done.

1. Change keyboard from QWERTY to Dvorak.
2. Take screenshot - save as wallpaper -move all desktop icons to a new folder, placed directly over the top of an existing folder. Mouse works fine but nothing happens when you click

[mrwho]

2. Take screenshot - save as wallpaper -move all desktop icons to a new folder, placed directly over the top of an existing folder. Mouse works fine but nothing happens when you click

Been there done that.

On the good old Windows95 times, there was this cute program that would reverse the mouse movements (up goes down, left goes right, etc). At the time I was in high-school, but we would do these LAN parties where, when taking a break between quake and duke3d, we would share our folders and swap stuff around - some of the most popular stuff was - you guessed it - porn. Since, at the time, internet was something still only available for a selected few, those lan parties were the only place were we could update our - ahem! - databases. :)

So I grabbed this .exe, tucked it amonst my pron files and renamed it after a famous star of the time - pamela.exe - and sat behind my monitor giggling like a girl while, one by one, my friends would say "Hey, there's a Pamela file over her- HEY, WHAT THE F***??!?"

Wonder if there's something like that for Vista/7...

[spaniel ears]

One of the best pranks we did was on my former boss many years ago. While he was working in the upstairs office one day, we stretched a piece of sellotape across the doorway at the bottom of the stairs. We tried to gauge the position of it so as it would stick to his glasses when he came down, as he was only about 5 foot nothing tall one of the lads crouched down in the doorway as I positioned the sellotape at his eye level sticky side facing the stairs hoping for a direct hit. Anyway, a few minutes later we were all hidden out of sight and my boss came trundling down the stairs, he walked straight into the sellotape bang on target. The best bit was the shock of hitting the sellotape made him jump backwards and his glasses came clean off and they were just hanging there in mid air as we rolled around pissing ourselves laughing, he didn't have a clue what had happened.

When I was a puppy, the same bunch of lads bundled me into an empty machine box on my birthday and parcel taped it closed, then they dragged me out into the middle of the road outside the office and left me there. I had no idea where I was until I managed to break out and popped my head out of the box to find cars driving around a higly embarassed man in a big cardboard box.

Sellotaping the hight adjusting lever up on the swivvel chairs was always a favourite as well, so as soon as someone sits on it the chair drops straight down to it's lowest position.

We also stole an ambulance from the mechanic next door who had it in for a service, he always used to leave the keys in the vehicles so we waited until he wasn't looking and hid it behind our office where he couldn't see it. We gave it him back eventually.

The window cleaner never forgave us for nicking his ladder and leaving him stranded on the office roof for 5 or 10 minutes one day when we were bored. He still gave us dirty looks for several years after the incident, miserable twat.

Rigging up party poppers with extra string and sellotape to chais, doors and drawers was also a frequently used prank.

Occasionally, we also did some work.

[mrwho]

we stretched a piece of sellotape across the doorway

Did that a couple of times some years ago - the sound of the tape breaking when someone hit it sounded like a bear trap closing on its prey, and we would say aloud "caught one"!

[Herrmann]

In the early 80s, i was an Apprentice for Radio and Television engineer. This was the Time, when VHS Recorders was real "Heavy Metal" , 30% Electronic and 70% Levers, gears, Springs and whatever with a total weight of 20 pounds and more. If you had to service such a beast, it ends up in disassembling the whole mechanics, clean, grease and reassemble. So far, so good. as you can imagine, this was a job not been done in a couple of minutes, i needed at least 4-5 hours for a complete reconditioning.

Ok, this was the preliminary, now the fun begins:

I disassembled the mechanic and place the parts in order on my workdesk as end of work time knocks in. So i finished and the next morning i came back and started to reassemble the parts. It ends up with me sitting there, scratching my head while looking at two items (a tiny lever and a spring) for which i had no idea, where they belonged to.

It turns out, that the master engineer added these two parts just to take me on the ride.

This happend more than one Time and not only to me, i hated him for that in that time... but in retrospect i should be grateful, this was a good training to develop a photografic memory while disassembling things ;)

[mrwho]

It turns out, that the master engineer added these two parts just to take me on the ride.

Reminds me of a colleague (the same one who told me about the colorful tales I shared with you) who would sneak up when other techs were not looking and unplug a random connector inside a copier being repaired without telling anyone.

[mikadonovan]

I like walking in to an account where the competition has been working on their particular piece of equipment and decided to leave for a little while. Just to be nice and make sure he doesn't run out, I may add a couple of extra screws and an e-clip or two to his pile he left unattended.:D