Meet the merry pranksters who keep the workplace interesting, if not productive
- Reference: 1672059668
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2022/12/26/who_me/
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A few months ago, you may recall, we told you about "Philip," a reader who played a prank on his perspex-enclosed boss by the simple expedient of [1]clamping the telephone line . Oh, the hilarity.
Phil's exploits inspired a few Regizens to recount their own tales of skulduggery for us.
[2]
Some of these were fairly minor and harmless, like "Buddy" who found himself and his team assigned to work inside a constrained glass cubicle. In typical '90s buzzword-friendly fashion, Bob fastened a sign to the outside of said cubicle, bearing the slogan "Thinking outside the box."
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This went unmolested for some time until management ventured within the cubicle one day to see that the other side of the sign read "Thinking inside the box." At that point Bob's superiors were less impressed.
Further cubicle-centric high jinks were employed by "Legolas" and his crew, who were all, including their supervisor, consigned to a space "Eight feet wide and 20 feet long." Ten people were expected to work in that cramped cubicle, so you'll appreciate why it was nicknamed "the sardine can."
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Well, that would be OK, as long as everyone got on well and worked as a united team. Thing is, the supervisor, "in deference to his rank," was provided with a divider about four feet high (that's a meter and a bit, top up that drink, please). This provided no privacy, but was clearly there just to illustrate the pecking order.
So the other nine sardines hatched a plan whereby the supervisor's partition was moved, ever so slightly – about an inch a week – to make the space smaller. The desk and chair and filing cabinet were also moved relative to each other so it wasn't obvious what was going on.
After two months the head sardine lamented that he must be putting on weight, at which time the scheme was exposed.
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The telephone-meddling aspect of Philip's prank inspired "Dobby" to tell us about an annoying and lazy manager at his former workplace who would start his day by forwarding his phone to a random company line, thus rendering himself uncontactable. If anyone complained he would blame a "telecom SNAFU".
Well, a SNAFU is exactly what Dobby gave him. A quirk in the system meant that call forwarding from an extension didn't work if another number was already forwarded to that extension. But any number of extensions could be forwarded to a single extension. So that's what Dobby and his mates did – in the depths of night, going from desk to desk, forwarding every phone in the place to their lazy manager.
You can imagine that closer checks were kept on the use of call forwarding after that.
[7]When we asked how you crashed the system we wanted an explanation not a demonstration
[8]Server installer fails to spot STOP button – because he wasn't an archaeologist
[9]Programming error created billion-dollar mistake that made the coder ... a hero?
[10]How not to test a new system: push a button and wait to see what happens
And finally there's "Hermey" whose boss was a neat freak who simply could not tolerate bugs. Not software bugs, actual bugs.
After the boss captured a few crickets that had been tormenting the office, Hermey hit upon a plan. He obtained a few "chirper" devices that could be strategically hidden, and would emit a noise very much like that of a cricket at random intervals. He placed them on shelves and behind cabinets, and waited.
The boss went crazy, climbing up on a small step-stool to reach the hiding places and retrieve the irritating noisemakers. Confronting the staff, he demanded that the pranking stop forthwith. The staff assured him it would be so.
But Hermey crossed his fingers for that last bit, and sneakily planted one more chirper. The boss, infuriated, searched on every shelf and beside every cabinet. He became convinced that this one must be a real cricket, because it seemed to move around the office. Wherever he looked, it sounded so close, but he couldn't find it.
Eventually, the chirping stopped. Those chirpers don't have infinite battery after all. The boss presumably thought the cricket had gone to greener pastures. Hermey knew it was still taped to the underside of the step-stool.
And with that we leave you for a restful and hopefully cheerful holiday season. [11]Who, Me? will resume on January 9. Of course, if you feel you'd like to interact with us in the interim, shoot [12]an email to Who, Me? with your own tales of techie derring-do and we'll share them in 2023. ®
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[1] https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/31/who_me/
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2Y6nTLXMB7YzRtCEeHoXTZgAAAJE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Y6nTLXMB7YzRtCEeHoXTZgAAAJE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Y6nTLXMB7YzRtCEeHoXTZgAAAJE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Y6nTLXMB7YzRtCEeHoXTZgAAAJE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Y6nTLXMB7YzRtCEeHoXTZgAAAJE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2022/12/19/who_me/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2022/12/12/who_me/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2022/12/05/who_me/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2022/11/28/who_me/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/Tag/Who%2C%20Me%3F/
[12] mailto:whome@theregister.com
[13] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Going BOFH on a spammer.
A confession from the 1990's when I was working as a contractor in the days when the internet was more trusting and open to abuse. It would be more difficult to repeat some of my actions today. I started receiving spam emails from a company selling holiday homes and time share properties. They arrived almost daily and there was no unsubscribe option. My email address appeared in the TO part along with a number of other people's email addresses, notably in alphabetic order and alphabetically close to mine, so the same spam must have been sent to hundreds of people over multiple emails. I politely emailed back and asked the sender to remove me from his spam list, but my request was ignored and the spam continued to arrive. After a few more months of ongoing spam I'm afraid I lost it one day and went full BOFH on him. The link in his spam led to his website, a small company fronted by one man, with a grinning mugshot of him on his contact page. He gave his full name, business address, contact email address, telephone and fax numbers.
I did all the usual miscreant deeds of the day, and subscribed his contact email address to the most extreme pornographic sites I could find and to dodgy looking scam / get rich quick sites, but then became more creative and went on to search for suitable web contact forms. I arranged for around ten random companies to phone him as he was 'interested' in their products or services and submitted his fax number to various organisations to receive their brochures and price lists. A bit more difficult but I managed to arrange for the wholesale delivery of one ton of fresh bananas to be delivered to his business address. Guessing he'd have nowhere to put the fruit I ordered a container at the docks for him to store it. As he would likely be somewhat fed up by now and in need of a holiday, I booked him a hotel room for a week at the seaside and a hire car from his business address to the hotel, with a different company's hire car to bring him back again (he was to be invoiced for all the things I'd booked / ordered). Finally, thinking of his health, I arranged for him to visit a private clinic where a doctor could discretely examine him and his problem of an oversized testicle.
Oddly, the spam stopped straight away. As he didn't know it was me who gave him the grief, he must have stopped spamming everyone.
Re: Going BOFH on a spammer.
Or went out of business or went crazy and checked into a mental hospital.
I remember the good old days of mailbombs.
It was a more innocent time.
Superglue
Can't say anything else.
The file may still be active.
Mouse Balls! prank or hyjinx?
During the summer vacation at one place, the second floor would be opened from one end to the other for various workers, cleaners, painters etc. Every door was opened, and you could see out of the office 150m down the hall. At lunch one day, I grabbed a hand full of old style mouse balls, and headed to the end of the hall and started 'bowling' the mouse balls the length of the building. I might have rolled 3 out of 10 end to end. I got some strange looks from a colleague in an office I thought was empty.
The best 'mosquito'
This was in one of the electronics mags (can't remember which) and had both a timer and a light sensor, so it was only active for fairly short periods, and also only when the light was below a certain level.
Made life interesting
Right back at the beginning of my career, I was regularly picked up and tried to be placed in a bin.
I was 20, skinny ass but adopted superhuman strength.
Now if someone did the same today it would be called abuse.
I didn't see it that way then, and I still don't. We were as bad as each other.
In the early 2000s, we collectively left a banana under the fflap of a office chair of one guy.
He used to claim he changed his trousers every day, and had 5 pairs of them the same
The sticky hole strengtheners for sheets going in lever arch files were great. Get one to stick on his arse on the trousers, It'd be there all week.
Let's not forget the NERF wars either...
Happy days