Practical jokes you’ve seen on the job
I remember working on a large commercial building, IBM…East Fishkill NY, framing metal stud partitions and doing sheetrock. As is typical on such work, we carpenters were paired up with partners. One older journeyman named Jim had drawn an apprentice, a big kid with a know-it-all attitude and a wise-azz mouth.
We were just back from a three day Christmas weekend that morning, about eight of us shaping up at our company’s big tool chest, drinking coffee poured from our thermoses, talking happily about the holiday with our families.
The big kid comes walking up with a shiny new metal toolbox, about two feet long by one foot high and deep. Jim, his partner started in with a mild joke about stepping up in class from our typical 5 gal pails. The apprentice, looking for a comeback, sees that his older partner is wearing a new leather belt. The belt is about eight inches too long, it’s extra length hanging down loosely from the buckle. The kid walks up to the older man and says, “Hey, you got a new belt for Christmas, but it’s way too long. Lemme adjust that for ya”. He whips out his utility knife, grabs the end of the belt and slices off about six inches. Jim is stoic, just shakes his head and smiles.
The rest of us chuckled at this scene, feeling that payback would be somewhere around the corner.
About an hour later, my partner and I were working along behind the two of them, standing up 12′ 5/8s rock and screwing it to a long partition that they were framing. They had moved about thirty feet, leaving the apprentice’s shiny new box on the concrete floor near where we were. We’d put up enough boards that the box was no longer in sight of the kid. I was standing on a ladder, screwing off the top of a board when Jim came along with a Hilti gun in his hand. He quickly dumped the kid’s tools out of the new box then, replacing it in the same spot, he fired four nails through the bottom, into the floor. He took a minute to replace the tools, close the lid and then, winking at us, returned to work. There were Hiltis being shot continuously all over that large open space so it never occured to the kid, what had just happened to his box.
It was a wonderful moment when he came to move his box, a little later. Of course my partner and I were waiting for it so when we tried to smother our laughs, he blamed us for doing it.
I said, “Hey we’re doing rock today. We don’t have a Hilti.”
Then he turned and saw his partner doubled up, laughing and knew he’d been fairly had. So, to add to the joke, he got his old five gallon pail and loaded up his tools, leaving the box closed and locked, just as it was. By the end of the day we were long gone so I don’t know how many people got suckered by that practical joke.
Edited 5/18/2007 3:30 pm ET by Hudson Valley Carpenter
Replies
You remember the last name of Jim?
I worked with a hell of a carpenter and practical jokester from your neck-of-the-woods years ago.
J. D. Reynolds
Home Improvements
my buddy had recently nailed my shirt with the pneumatic to some studs.
Days later I nailed his boots to the wooden steps of a step ladder.
He was in them.-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
"If you come to a fork in the road, take it"
Guy I used to work with kept his wooden hammer handle wrapped with cloth tape.....like hockey sticks.
He left it lying on the subfloor of a project we were in the midst of.
As inconspicuosly as I possibly could, I cut a peice of tape from the handle. Drilled and screwed it to the floor and replaced the tape as best I could.
Apparently, I did a good enough job...when he went to pick it up, he ended up pulling himself down.
Funny stuff.
J. D. ReynoldsHome Improvements
I hate practical jokes and especially those done on the job. Good way for people to get hurt. Building is dangerous enough without adding to it. Sorry to be a wet blanket!
Some practical jokes are mean-spirited, some are dangerous to people or damage property...some are fantastically fun or simply amusing.Last week the new electician said he likes working on our jobs because we have some fun at work. Yesterday as I left the painter had turned on my wipers with a banana peel under them so when I turned the key I got banana slime smeared across my windshield...LMAO.The painter also said some water-based stain the HO bought at IKEA is crap...so it now travels around the job...got put in the painters lunch box, then in my van, now I hid it in his drop cloth tote...you never know where that silly little can of stain will show up next.Kinda goofy, but mildly amusing. Life is too short to not have a good time at work.We are careful not to do anything dangerous or mean...I got to go tile the third wall of a customers shower surround...working Sat. of a three-day weekend...I better enjoy my work.
You're traveling can of stain woke up a memory.
This is a community wide thing - You know those stupid lawn ornaments some people have, like pink flamingoes? A couple here had some plastic ducks they brought back from a vacation trip. Dick the Duck disappeared one sumer night from his grassy lawn and went traveling. He would end upon the roof of a business, or perched on somebodies mailbox, or down near the beach...you never knew where he wouldbe next. The unwritten rules stipulated that he was never to be touched during daylight hours. At first, his master and mistress were upset, but they soon got the jopke and laughed along with the rest of the community as his exp[loits became fine fodder for cocktail parties and Sunday fellowship pot-liucks as well as ferryline boredom relievers.Dick became a celebrity for the whole summer. I don't remember what ever happened to him.The next year, for some special event, somebody painted a plywood moose sillouette for a roadside decoration. It wasn't long before he followed in the footsteps of Dick the Duck, ranging far and wide on this little island. One morning he would be on the rocks of the breakwater, the next on the roof of the ticket office of the ferry...Creativity eventually wears thin tho - the next year, somebody was remodeling a house along near the roadway and left a porcelan throne out too close to the reach of passers by. It found it's way around the town for awhile, but its life cycle was shorter than that of its predecessors. I don't know if good taste won out or if the breakability of the material led to the early ending.
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You remember the last name of Jim?
I worked with a hell of a carpenter and practical jokester from your neck-of-the-woods years ago.
Sorry, I don't recall if I ever heard his last name. That crew was only together for a couple of weeks, before getting split up to work in other areas of that big complex.
That IBM plant, east of the Hudson, wasn't in part of my old local's territory so it was a little unusual for anyone from our side of the river to be over there. That was the winter of '84 or '85 and slow for us, so I was willing to drive the hundred mile round trip. That was the only winter I ever worked over there as a union carpenter so I don't remember anyone from that job very well.
Working on a box culvert on a new street down in a draw. Construction Inspector (City) leaves to have lunch with the contractor. Put a 4' rat snake in his city car. Comes back from lunch, gets in, drives off, and directly we hear him on the radio calling for "animal control" to get a snake outta his car.
After we could breath again, we took the truck up and got the snake out from under the dash. Bought us a case of cold ones...
I don't do too much of that myself because a lot of what passes for practical jokes can cause hard feelings or be safety problems. Forinstance, I saw a couple guys working exterior trim off a pipe staging once. The upper guy was nailing stuff in and the lower guy was Cutting pieces.
The guy with the saw kept making comments to the younger guy abope him about his baggy pants with cuffs dragging and how they would catch something someday and get him hurt. Those were true words but they went in one ear and out the other one.
After awhile, The guy doing the cutting waited until the young nailer turned his back to him and he reached over and grabbbed the baggy cuff and touched the trigger of his saw just as he tugged rapidly on the cuff, giving the impression that the fabric had gotten sagged and wound up in the circ saw blade.
Young baggy pants almost jumped out of his skin - not a good idea two stories up in the air.
But it was funny!
Way back when I was roofing in Texas in the seventies, one guy on the crew who was really not a roofer insisted on wearing cowboy boots all the time no matter how dangerous it was.
Then to add to the foolishness, he insisted on taking the darn things off so everybody else could savour the aroma during lunch. He got plenty of direct comments and hints about how "indiscrete" he was being, all to no avail.
One day, he laid back on a pile of sheetrock in the garage of the new house we were roofing and dozed off during lunch - with hios cowboy boots off his feet.
Somehow
Somebody
managed to get a nice big gob of plastic roof cement down into the toe of his boots while he sawed logs.
When it was time to head back up on the roof, he jumped up and slammed his feeet into those things and the look on his face is what keeps this memory stuck in my mind. Kind of like a kid who is expecting a mouthful of ice cream being fed a spoonful of boiled okra instead...
Strange, but I don't remember him showing back up at work again after that...
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A couple years ago did steel stud framing in a hospital. Big job lots of trades. One of these trades was a fat electrician named Tommy. Funny guy always with the one liners and what not. One day I headed out to lunch and left my pouch on the ground. I've always been notorious for doing that. Came back and Tommy had shot it into the floor with his hilti. Later on that nigh after Tommy left, he had chained all his step ladders together, so I put my own lock on it and hung the key way to high for Tommy to reach. His step ladders chained together and not usable and all. To get me back he took all my hand tools wrapped them in silver duct tape and covered them in liquid duct seal. It took me an hour and a half to get it off. Tommy and I were standing there laughing about it later and then the idiot tells me hes gotta go to the johnny on the spot so I sneak out after him and screw the door shut left him in there for a half hour, till his boss found him. To get me back he chained my truck to salt bin and when I left it went flying. I had the last laugh though when we wrapped his truck in hay bale wrap and took out his driveshaft with out him noticing, after he unwrapped his truck and got in he couldn't figure out why he wasn't going anywhere. Lots of fun.
I worked for a while with my brother and an older guy named Gordon. Gordon was quite the prankster. One of the many tricks he played on my brother was tying a metal paint tray under my brother's truck. The driveway was dirt, so it wasn't until he got out onto the road that he started to hear what sounded like a dragging muffler, or worse.
Gordon had tied the paint tray up front though, so my brother kept getting out and checking his muffler, but couldn't find the problem until he got down on his hands and knees.
My brother got back at Gordon by tying his truck to a stump that had been pulled. I recall them backing off on the jokes after that.
My favorite trick, that I do way more often than I should, is when test-fitting a long board I'll hold my end an inch past where it should be. Then wait for the other guy to think he burned an inch and cut the board short. One of these days that one's gonna get me burned but it's worth it.
This is a joke my friend played on his hunting buddy.
"Harv" bought his friend "Joe" a new coffee thermos for his birthday.
Or maybe it was a retirement gift or maybe he just bought him a new one because the other one was getting old.
Anyway Harv didn't tell Joe about the new thermos.
They went hunting and when Joe wasn't looking Harv put the old thermos on a fence post.
Harv then said to Joe "Look over there on the fence post"
Then he said "watch this" and he aimed and fired and the thermos was shot to pieces.
Joe said "what the *%$# are you doing"
Harv then handed him his new thermos and they both got a big laugh.
^^^^^^
a Smith & Wesson beats four Aces
Dedubs.
Got a freind I'd like to introduce to you.
Goes by the name "enter key".
He doesn't mind if you use him once in a while.
J. D. Reynolds
Home Improvements
Sorry ole there ole bean, went ahead and deleated the whole mess, didn't mean to
booger up this thread. It did look like an I.R.S. tax form.
Ah, ya shouldn't oughtta gone and done that.
Good story. (Tell it agin, tell it agin!)
Just a tough read.
Somebody oughtta pssst Timberline.
J. D. ReynoldsHome Improvements
Edited 5/18/2007 7:58 pm ET by JDRHI
Was working on the same job with a mason named Malcolm. I was up on the roof late Fri afternoon when Malcolm walked over to meet with the homeowner to get his weekly check and left his helper to load up the tools. The helper yelled at me to look at what he had. It was a 6' (at least) black snake and he was giggling like crazy as he put it in Malcolm's truck toolbox. Malcolm came back and they hopped in the truck and left. I'd worked around Malcolm several times and knew he was not fond of snakes.
Come Monday, the mason's weren't there. On Tuesday, Malcolm showed up alone. I asked Malcolm where he was yesterday. He smiled and said he was at his helper's funeral, and it was a lovely service.
http://grantlogan.net/
I'm not much of a practical joker, because of the tendency of these things to get unpredictably out of control. But awhile back, one of our painters stole our new air compressor, and hid it for a few hours in the morning. I didn't panic, because I felt that it might turn up somewhere. But Robert, the foreman in charge of tools, and a pretty tightly-wound guy, was all in a panic. The more so because one of our subs did actually have an air compressor stole off this job, in broad daylight.
So we laughed it off, once the painter 'fessed up. But when that painter showed up a few weeks later, showing off his new compressor, you can guess what happened the minute he turned his back. He told me he knew I was responsible - which I was. But his partner told me later he was really stressing out for awhile, until he figured it out. I made him wait all day, then told him where it was - right there in the corner of his paint shop, with a rag thrown over it."I needed a drink, I needed a lot of life insurance, I needed a vacation, I needed a home in the country. What I had was a coat, a hat and a gun."
Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe
This ones pretty gross but was, and is even in memory, one of the funniest I've seen.
We had a kid on the crew, who since he stayed out late and partied most nights, didn't eat breakfast, so first break he ate his lunch.
Then come lunch time he would prowl around asking everybody if they were going to eat, "that". "That being whatever you hadn't picked up yet.
After about two weeks of it, It was wearing really thin.
One day Toby comes around and asks Howard, if was going to eat that. And ol'' Howard, tells him he has and extra roast beef sandwich and he can have it. The kid gets it about half eaten, and starts gnawing away on a piece of gristle. He pulls the sandwich away from his mouth, and a condom falls on his chin. As he pulls it out of his mouth and looks like he's about to ralf, ol'' Howard says, with a perfectly straight face, "I knew I pissed her off last night, but I didn't think she was that mad."
The look on Toby's face will be with me always be with me.
I asked ol' Howard about it later, and he just laughed, and said, "I put it in there, and then made myself a turkey sandwich so I wouldn't get confused. It's kind of like puttin a blown egg full of cayenne and tobasco, in a nest to cure an egg suckin dog."
And, It did cure Toby of bumming food off the rest us.
So you have a mooch, we had a mooch Geaorge that always wanted to go to lunch with us but never had any money. one day after three years of the same ole thing we went to lunch at a local establishment and ordered lunch. George ordered something special and costly expecting one of us to pay for it. low and behold we went and had our lunch and enjoyed it with glee for we had a cure for our mooch when the bill came george excused himself and went to the bathroom with no intention to pay his oen way. We had told the waitress that we new from previous work inside the resteraunt to get the owner and we explained our situation. we payed the check and waited for George to return. When he did we ecused ourself and started to leave the owner in great bravado went into one of the greatest acting performances insinuating that we were trying to dine and dash. George was dumb founded and did not now weather to run or hide. we told the seemingly upset owner that George would pick up the tab by working off anything owned to him and left. Not wanting to be further embarrased George set about clearing tables and taking out the garbage settling for washing dishes. we left George there four hours to soak in missery. his pride wounded and embarrasement overwelming him. We all returned after completing our job in the neighboring business complex and sat down to Georges speach on how we could do this too him we were his co workers and friends. The owner and waitress steped up to the table and handed George the reciept that we had paid earlier and at that time we all cracked up laughing fhat he had been suckered into our elaborate prank at his expence. for days we razzed George about his work habbits and that maybe he was better suited to resteaunt work. Geaorge learned his lesson and was a better worker from that day on that silver spoon must not have had the same taste after all that crow he had to eat.
Please hit enter about every five lines or so, a page full with no break makes it very hard to read. Your english teacher will not come back and get you for poor paragraphing (however your typing teacher might want to have a word with you). (:-)
Welcome to BT by the way.
Bob
Couple of the guys on another job decided one day they would switch M and the N keys on his keyboard and couldn't get into his computer because his pass word to didn't work. Way to funny and had to get a computer geek to fix it.
This is a Joke that backfired.We were custome cutting wheat next to a crew still using an old pull type combine.That night when we shut down, my boss put one of those bombs that you hook to the spark plug and when the engine is started, it goes off. No real harm done.The next day, we went to start things up and all of our belts were cut.
My boss never said a word. Got in his truck, went to the International dealer and spent several hundred dollars on belts. This was in 1959 dollars.Pete
I put one of those on my grandmother's 53 Chev once, she got over that part fairly well but I did not it as well when I got reamed by dad after she took it to a mech to remove the wire shorting the plug.
Sorry, too much texting with the KIDS and I couldn't find the return bar on this
electronic gizmo.
Remember if you can't learn something no matter how small you might as well apply
at mc x's.
I thought the internet would be the downfall of communications but txting may outrun it. That cell phone ad with the mom and kid tells it all. (;-}
That was worth a ROAR!
Dang good story!my granddad told one about eating lunch at the shop one day. It was some sandwich meat he liked with black olives in it. Another guy sitting across the room asked, "Het Norm, what's that black spot on your sandwich?"He held the sandwhich out to focal length, took a good look at it, said, "OhBoy a fly" and quickly gulped it down to complete the effect of hurrying to get the prize before it flew away
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Local gas/cofffee stop in my morning drive has smoke bombs for sale...6 for 1.50. Red, green, blue, purple, yellow.
You know how Mikey LOVES that VW Bus? LAst week at G-town, at lunch I lobbed one near it..and then said " Hey, Mikey? What's that green smoke coming outta your bus?''
That boy has no sense of humor.Parolee # 40835
Way back about '71 or '72, I ws roofing in Florida and some masons doing the stucco exterior pulled up around back and started hollerin' for the SR guys inside to come see what we found!From the roof looking down it was all plain to me.They had found or run over a large rattlesnake - about 7-8 feet anyway - and had it coiled in the back of the truck with a stick propping head up and mouth open in strike pose. The SR guy going up to the truck could not see it until he peeked over the edge and by then his head was only a couple feet away. The masons had a good laughand the SR hanger had to change his shorts. He was pissed the whole day then. Kept muttering something about paybacks are hell...Back then, we worked a lot of new subdivisions by the same builder where each house only took a max of three weeks to dryin full exterior, and we would jump from one house to the next right on down the street. There might be on portabotty for every 6-7 houses, and the builder kept one old man busy doing nothing but cleaning up scraps to burn or take to the dump. One morning we were on the roof early when the fog was still hanging and dew was still on the tarpaper. I happened to look down at that old man as he shuffled along approaching the outhouse, and thinking to myself something like, I wonder how old I'll be before I start to move that slow.Then as he openned the outhouse door, he exploded into action! Before I knew it, he was a good twenty feet back from the outhouise and screaming and hollering, which brought 10-15 carpenters over to him. There was a rattler that had crawled into that thing the night before and slept on the floor. When he openned the door, it raised and rattled a warning and he reacted. I believe he thought he had been bit, but that was not the case. He had moved so fast, that his penny loafers were stilll planted where he had been standing when he openned the door and saw it!Not a joke from anyone, but your sanke story reminded me of it. It was a funy thing to see.
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Guy I worked for years ago occasionally wrote the words "sexual favours" in the Memo line on the pay cheques. Sure got some funny looks when at the bank cashing the cheque!
Was doing concrete on a sewer treatment plant one time and we had a settling tank completed and full of water to pressure test it (18 ft deep by 50 ft diameter). Put the foreman's tool pouch on a chunk of styro and set it adrift...
Helped use a tower crane to hoist a carelessly parked truck up a couple of floors. Guy had been given fair warning several times but didn't heed the warnings...
Taped a sign that said "I love little boys" to the back of a co-worker's truck. He drove around with it for a day or two before being pulled over by a cop - in a school zone, no less. Guy asked the cop if he worked homicide. No? Well, if you follow me I can pretty much guarantee you an open-and-shut homicide case!!!
My BIL worked in a machine shop where a guy had terminal plumber's crack, he poured some red chalk down his shorts. a little later the guy went to the can and came out pale and left and went to Doc.
ROTFLMAO!Terminal plumber's crack!
Weow!
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The 'drive-by' contractor we were framing for always seemed to show up at break time and mooched donuts out of the big bag we often got (without asking). One day we took break a little early and left two donuts stacked in the bag - and a surprise beneath the second. After devouring the first donut he went back into the bag for the second - He gasped and dropped it back when he saw the dead frozen rat.
Someone once tied a roll of caution tape to the back end of a pickup. The driver didn't notice it until he was cruising down the highway with a 50' yellow tail flapping in the wind.Same guy once drove around for a whole week with a rainbow sticker on his bumper.
I would have kicked your butt and the other guys too. A similar thing happened to me 40 years ago. I went on a new job, sent there by my employer. There were four carpenters that were already on the job for several weeks. I was made to feel unwelcome from the gitgo. I won't bother going into the details, had to do with being a so called company man.
At the end of the day I went to pick up my toolbox, the metal bottom was nailed to a plywood deck with at least 20 16d nails. I spent three hours trying to remove the nails and grinding the burrs off the bottom when I got home.
Next morning, went up on the deck without any tools. I asked who nailed the toolbox,naturally none had the guts to tell me. I went over to the closest toolbox, picked it up over my head and threw it four stories down.I then proceeded to do the same with the other three toolboxes,this while four cowardly carpenters watched and hollered.
I still have the box with the holes, sitting in the garage with a bunch of junk in it. There was a layoff that day,four carpenters,not me.The owner asked me what happened,I told him.He laughed for a couple of minutes.He called for their checks and had me lay them off the following day.
Sometimes practical jokes aren't funny to everyone.I never considered this to be a practical joke, just meaness. I have been the butt of a number of practical jokes, I laugh just as hard as the jokester.
mike
Not sure who this is a joke on, but I was a party to it. Did a remodel many years ago as an employee of my all-time favorite contractor. Upon installing the toilet it was realized that the inswinging door hit the bowl by several inches. The owner, contractor, and architect were in a huff--someone should have spotted this one coming. After they left someone cut a very nicely coped notch out of the door edge--exact same shape as the bowl--and glued it to the door jamb. Looked like a jigsaw puzzle piece when closed, and the door did open.
Yes, this trashed a perfectly nice door. It had to be replaced but a good laugh was had. I'm sure the owner still tells it at his cocktail parties.
Mike,
I've been given a lousy welcome on a couple of occasions. Made me pretty mad too.
I was fortunate to have been given some good practical advice about such situations from my dad, back when I was a teen-ager with a really bad temper. He told me to go burn off my negative energy by running or riding my road bike. So, later in life, after a bad encounter on a job, I'd do just that...go home and take a run or ride until I shucked off that sh_t.
Sounds like you still hold a grudge, all these years later. I can understand that too. Your story reminded me of a couple of azz holes I'd be better off to forget. There's a way to do that too. When those old negative memories come up, take a deep breath and let them go as you exhale.
Bless you brother, I know where you're coming from.
Edited 5/19/2007 11:41 pm ET by Hudson Valley Carpenter
Piffin,Your story about your grandad reminded me of one about mine. On my grandparent's wedding night, one of my grandpa's brothers put several sticks of dynamite up in the crook of a tree near their house and lit it. I can't remember he said they called it back then (1930's), but it was wedding night pranking just for fun. The night was cool and foggy. The resulting blast shattered all of the windows in the house and the explosion was heard for miles and miles. The numbers of calls to the police by concerned citizens made the papers. I've got the clipping somewhere.My dad was quite the practical joker as well. His co-workers finally got back at him one time by giving him a cake for his birthday that was cardboard covered in frosting.Never got into the habit myself. Ott
Couple of stories posted, one that backfired and one that mentioned bumper stickers reminded me of a very funny non-construction, non-joke which front-fired and backfired.
I live near a small town on the upper Delaware River where local elections are held every two years. On one occasion, back in the mid-seventies, a new candidate who owned a liquor store in town managed to get enough signatures on a petition in order to have his name, Richard Weed, put on the ballot without any party affiliation. He and his wife, who ran the local office of the state DMV, decided to manage his campaign by themselves. Therefore it came to pass that bumper stickers with the phrase, Dick Weed for city counsel, began appearing on cars all over town. Lawn signs too.
Having grown up in a somewhat more sophisticated environment, at least as it relates to slang expressions, the words "dick weed" were quite familiar to me as a humorous reference to hair which finds its way into someone's mouth ("what was that, a dick weed?" or "you're a real dick weed, aren't ya?"). Clearly, that definition had never found it's way to Mr. and Mrs. Weed's collective consciousness. Nor did it seem that many locals had ever heard it, not until I began relating that definition to business associates and friends in local construction, whereupon it passed quickly around town until it reached the environs of the liquor store and the DMV.
Acck! But it was too late to change the signs and the stickers were really well glued to all those bumpers so...the Weeds were stuck, between the teeth of an entire town. That suited both the Republicans and Democrats just fine. They didn't care for anyone going independent on them, messing up their voting blocks. As it came to pass, neither party lost any seats on the council, though I'd surely have enjoyed reading the local paper more after council meetings, had Dick Weed been elected.
Mrs. Weed was later found to be skimming sales tax money from used car registrations and did some time in the county jail. Seemed she would offer to help people fill out the tax forms when they had cash in their hands. Been playing that game for many years. What a dick weed.
Years ago one of my guys slipped a pain in the a$$ homeowner a Xanax in his snapple bottle. He was wipped out. I did not know about this until weeks later and the guy I hired he was gone!! I think its funny now 8 years later. I don't condone this But it is funny
It is funny in a movie screen fantasy kind of way, but it is the perfect example of how a thing like this can go wrong. That guy might have decided to run down to the grocery store and got in an accident, killing someone. Since the guy who did it was in your emnloyment, guess who would have been on the liability chain in the lawsuit! It would have scarred me to death to hear about one of my guys doing that.
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It is funny in a movie screen fantasy kind of way......
It would have scarred me to death to hear about one of my guys doing that.
Funny like a date rape pill!
Doug
I was thinking Steve Martin slapstick scenario
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On my grandparent's wedding night, one of my grandpa's brothers put several sticks of dynamite up in the crook of a tree near their house and lit it. I can't remember he said they called it back then (1930's), but it was wedding night pranking just for fun.
It was often called "shivaree" or some variant thereof.
Yeah, there'd be nothing like trying to get your new bride in the sack, only to have the greenery outside exploding. Turn you into wet spaghetti real quick...
Jason
They got into our motel room and short-sheeted the bed, put powdered sugar all over the sheets, and saran wrap stretched tight over the toilet bowl and unscrewed half the light blbs in the room. I'm sure there was more, but I don't remember.
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your bride called ahead and had the Hotel staff "prepare" the roomI don't Know what I am doing
But
I am VERY good at it!!
Recently asked a new guy to grout some drains in.
Came back to me after worried about the warnings on the bag.
One of my carpenters said, " you got that stuff on your hands?".
I said, " you better go pee on your hands".
At that moment , I'd never had so much support from the rest of the crew.
They were makin stuff up and it was good. One guy actually bit thru his own lip while this guy did it .
Were all still waitin for the payback.
Can't send that guy to get us coffee anymore.
Edited 5/26/2007 2:12 am by 1muff2muff
Edited 5/26/2007 2:21 am by 1muff2muff
No idea what that word "shivaree" means, or where it hails from...But in my Mind's Ear, I hear Jerry singing it in a Grateful Dead song.....
Old French folk custom: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CharivariDan
No idea what that word "shivaree" means, or where it hails from...But in my Mind's Ear, I hear Jerry singing it in a Grateful Dead song.....
Sugaree When they come to take you down when they bring that wagon ’roundWhen they come to call on you and drag your poor body down
Just one thing I ask of you, just one thing for mePlease forget you know my name, my darling sugareeShake it, shake it sugaree, just don’t tell them that you know meShake it, shake it sugaree, just don’t tell them that you know me
You thought you was the cool fool and never could do no wrongHad everything sewed up tight. how come you lay awake all night long
Just one thing I ask of you, just one thing for mePlease forget you know my name, my darling sugareeShake it, shake it sugaree, just don’t tell them that you know meShake it, shake it sugaree, just don’t tell them that you know me
Well in spite of all you gained you still had to stand out in the pouring rainOne last voice is calling you and I guess it’s time you go
Just one thing I ask of you, just one thing for mePlease forget you know my name, my darling sugareeShake it, shake it sugaree, just don’t tell them that you know meShake it, shake it sugaree, just don’t tell them that you know me
Well shake it up now sugaree, I’ll meet you at the jubilee
Just one thing I ask of you, just one thing for mePlease forget you know my name, my darling sugareeShake it, shake it sugaree, just don’t tell them that you know meShake it, shake it sugaree, just don’t tell them that you know meShake it, shake it sugaree, just don’t tell them that you know me"I needed a drink, I needed a lot of life insurance, I needed a vacation, I needed a home in the country. What I had was a coat, a hat and a gun."
Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe
I was made to feel unwelcome from the gitgo. I won't bother going into the details, had to do with being a so called company man.
I'm going through the same thing right now. Doesn't matter how good the work I produce is, or what I do. Certain foreman have relegated me to garbage boy.
All because I went to high school with the owner's son.Glamorous
I'm going through the same thing right now. Doesn't matter how good the work I produce is, or what I do. Certain foreman have relegated me to garbage boy. All because I went to high school with the owner's son.
Workplace bullying, also related to so-called "mobbing", or "mobbery", is on the rise. While it often appears innocent, or trivial, the effects are cumulative, and can be traumatic.
If I were you, I'd look into this quite seriously, and begin documenting the incidents. While I don't believe EEO laws prohibit discrimination other than for race, creed, or gender, workplace bullying is recognized by the courts, and has been the basis for some large lawsuit settlements.
Google "workplace bullying" and you'll find quite a lot of interesting reading. Here's just a few websites.
http://menshealth.about.com/cs/workhealth/a/work_bullying.htm
http://www.bullyonline.org/workbully/amibeing.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workplace_bullying
http://www.bullyinginstitute.org/
http://www.bullyonline.org/workbully/index.htm
"I needed a drink, I needed a lot of life insurance, I needed a vacation, I needed a home in the country. What I had was a coat, a hat and a gun."
Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe
Edited 5/20/2007 11:54 am by Huck
Well shoot just get them fired and yourself promoted - what are high school buddies for?
Dustin
I went through the same thing while working road construction one summer durring college.
My uncle was the foreman - thats how I got the job! What good are relatives if you cant go to them when you need something. :)
I made damn sure nobody did anymore then I did, wasnt going to let anybody think I was being treated special because I was related to someone. Some times you have to prove yourself more-so then the others, just the way it is.
I wouldnt let any of the shid get to you though, some people are just insecure about their position and so they have to bust your chops to feel good about themselves.
Some of the joking is OK, but not being able to let go of it is another thing.
Doug
A guy I worked with had been a welder in a trailer factory.One day, someone threw a roll of duct tape at a guy who was welding overhead, striking him in the groin. The victim retaliated later and a huge chain reaction ensued.Productivity slowed to a crawl. Nobody would strike a bead unless they could make a groin guard out of a clipboard or something. The owner caught wind of what was going on and threatened to fire anyone who racked someone. Nobody stopped. My buddy moved on to another job, so he never knew what happened.I often wondered if the owner ended up going broke or getting sued.I like a good joke, but I can't see hurting anyone or messing with their property.
Mike,
I agree with your actions related to the story 40 years ago. You seem to have done nothing to deserve getting your toolbox nailed down (and ruined).
In the HudsonValleyCarpenter story, however, the kid seemed to deserve what happened to him by cutting the other guy's toolbelt with a knife. There's a real difference between a little verbal ribbing and property damage.
You're right, that kid deserved having some retaliation. I had forgotten about my toolbox escapade until I read the original post. I almost got as angry as I was 40 years ago, just thinking about it.
Many years later I was running a fairly large job. One of the younger carpenters asked me to put his father on, he was out of work for about two or three weeks.I told Tommy ,tell him he starts tomorrow.Next day the father comes in, sees me and tells Tommy " I don't need a job that bad".Turns out he was one of the carpenters on that job years ago.
Tommy was befuddled, I told him to ask the old man what happened first, then I'll give him my story.Tommy came in the next day laughing, he vaugely remembered the incident when he was 12 years old. All he remembered was something about a carpenter gone nuts on the job, and he had to buy a new toolbox and replace some tools that broke.I told him why I flipped out. I called around and got the old man a job on another site.
mike
Whyizzit some anger sticks with you for so long ?Especially since anger about mush worse things is so easily left behind ?On my very first -real- job as a carpenter, I had bought a new circular saw, new hammer, new tool box, etc.I was hired because a very good friend of mine was the 'owner's pet' so to speak. He was a VERY good carp, kept his nose clean, outworked everyone else, etc.The rest of the crew decided to take their resentment of him, out on me.First day... They broke my saw. On purpose. Everyone had a laugh, everyone thought this was soooo funny. This was just the tip of the iceberg of what all they did. Mostly just constantly ragging on me behind my back and especially to the owner or the foreman, etc. I only worked with them a few months.Young as I was, it never occurred to me to take the saw back to sears and get a replacement... LOLForward to after I got out of the army. Couldn't find a job back home, so I went to Atlanta. (Had an offer of a place for me and my family to stay until I could afford a place of my own.)I got a job at a place where they sold and repaired big cranes. To this day I have no idea why I was an outcast from the start. But that is the way it was.When I was growing up, the closest thing I had to a father was an eldery neighbor.Before I left home, he gave me an old pocket knife. The knife was a decade or two older than I was. I was real proud of that knife.One of the guys asked me about the knife, since it was so old, and I told him the story.Next day, someone came by and asked to borrow the knife. I refused. He actually -begged- to borrow the knife. He needed it REAL badly...I let him borrow it, and he came back 2 minutes later with one of the blades broken off. With a faint smirk on his face, and a lame apology. When he left I heard the collected guys around the corner laughing their arses off.I didn't work for them long, either...These were just two of the incidents that have occurred over the years of work. I'm sure everyone here has similar stories.The first... About the saw. When that memory pops into my head, I get less angry than frustrated. Yeah, I get angry, but not badly. Mostly just frustrated that such crap is acceptable in the workplace. Or anyplace at all, as a matter of fact.The second, I get an anger that is very difficult to put aside for a while, because of what that kinfe meant and just how morally lowdown those arseholes were, to have KNOWN the facts, and still have done that.That wasn't just a prank. That was pure evil. Guess I'm lucky they didn't break my leg or something, instead. "Just boys being boys". Bull sh--.
Fight fire with water.
My dad was a union plumber in Detroit in the sixties. He and my uncle worked together on Cobo Hall downtown. They were hauling their tools and materials in and made many trips past some bricklayers that were laying up a long straight wall. Every time they passed by they they looked at the wall then each other and shrugged or made faces. Soon the masons were checking the wall with levels and strings. The job super got involved checking the wall. The architect happened upon the scene and he too got involved.
Finally the super confronts my dad and my uncle and shouts, "O.K. you two, what the hell is a matter with this wall?"
They say, "Why nothing.......it looks great, Why do you ask?"
Passive-Agressive at its best.
I was a non-union hardwood installer working a very union job in Madison. It was a condo with pre-stressed concrete that we had to put 3/4 ply down with Rals first. Anyway, a plumber was going as slow as he could and we needed him to just move for a minute so we could keep laying these down. He complains, mutters "scabs" and such.
So we took lunch and waited for him to finish sweating in a copper line. When he leaves I took a short section of scrap pvc that was laying around and slid it over his copper stub out. When he comes back, our floor is down, and he thinks he forgot to run that line or thinks he ran 2 drains, but he asks us to pull that floor so he can replace it.
I told him he could do it himself with a non-bladed screwdriver if he had one.
The look was priceless! He was actually looking all over and asking his 'brothers' for a non-bladed screwdriver.
I once convinced a rather dim newbie that I could get an exact measurement using the "eyeball trick." I had just been up on a ladder getting a series of measurements for some short two bys that I needed. Well, he comes in after me and starts going up the ladder to get the same measurements. This wasn't terribly unusual for this guy. I tell him not to worry about those measurements, but of course he goes on getting them. When he starts to measure one, I tell him the measurement. As opposed to assuming that I had already gotten them, he asks how I did it. I make up a story about how if you hold your tape at just such a distance from your eye, with what you want to measure at just such a distance in the background, you can get accurate measurements. The "eyeball trick."So he goes to the next one to test me out, and I hold the tape up to my eye and say, "Looks like about twelve and a quarter." Sure enough. I acually saw him trying to figure this out later with his tape.Peace,Caseyhttp://www.streets.org
Was on a framing crew the helper was a wise guy, The older carpenter was on the 2d floor kept yelling, STUDS, STUDS so the helper was running as fast as he could, After awhile the forenan said that guy is working the pants off everybody, But the carpenter was throwing the studs out the window after the helper left, I dont believe in lost work but we never laughed so hard in our lives
was working on a survey crew many moons ago and this guy carl was telling everyone how he was taking karate lessons.just so happens there was a lot of shale where we were working so he started breaking them with his hand.after about five of those breaks somebody slips in a piece of granite, he showed up with a bandage the next day.seemed funny at the time, but not so much today.
I have a buddy who had to fly to a remote office to upgrade some telecom equipment. He’s a tough-as-nails, cowboy type, but a good sport with jokes. He’d pulled some good ones on the maintenance guys and he knew they’d get him back eventually. The maintenance guys knew that he always carried his tools on a flight with him (this was way before 9/11) so they loaded it with a special surprise from the janitorial closet before he left for the airport. He was at a loss for words when he opened his tool bag at the security checkpoint and about two dozen tampons spilled out on the floor.
I used to work as a salesman on the contractor desk for a building centre. I had on contractor that fancied himself a bit of a practical joker. He called me up one day pretending to be a customer looking for lumber pricing. The catch was that he pretended to have "Turets Syndrome". Now I have heard Turets before. He had it down perfectly. He had the "ticks" and the explosions of profanity down perfectly. He kept this up for about 2 minutes asking be for pricing on various dimesional lumber, before he finally broke down in histerical laughter. At that point I realized who it was and how well and I had been "got". I too joined in the histerical laughter.
A few weeks later he called the store pretending to be an Italian gentleman with a heavy accent and a pushy attitude looking for directions to the store. He kept this up for 5 minutes or so refusing to let the poor girl off the phone.
Just a few days ago he calls me up on my business line pretending to be an oriental gentleman looking for his quote for his addition. Of course i know nothing about an addition quote and he starts swearing a blue streak at me demanding his f###ing quote. I have not heard from this guy in over a year so it never occurred to me who it was. He thought he was pretty clever on that one.
I think pay back is strong order here. I was thinking something involving the police and a cavity search. Any other suggestions?
Dave
Make sure you get pictures!