Soliciting a little OT humor

[Mark]

Greetings Wreckers, Since I put OT in the subject, don't bitch. As a diemaker I have trained quite a few apprentices. And one of the 'perks' is being able to have a little fun with some of the more naive ones. Too bad it doesn't offset the headaches that come with the territory. :-( Sending them to recycle old blueprints in the basement (when we work in a single story building), asking the foreman for a set of left hand drills cuz he was tapping some stock for left handed threads, putting tool steel in the owners fridge to 'thermally stabilize' it, etc. It goes on and on....

Any stories from some of the more seasoned out there who have given some of the younger folks some grief. Even though I make my living in a different trade than this group, a lot of pranks can work almost anywhere. I'm sure there are some good stories floating around. Mark

[Ratchet]

Back in the days when cars had points, plugs, and condensers, we had a hazing gag we played on new employees at the gas station where I worked. Remember, this was in the '60's, when a gas station might have half a dozen attendants. All the regulars would be in on the gag, which began with everyone standing around BSing.

One of them, we'll call him the Perpetrator, would be holding a condenser, just fiddling with it in an offhand way. (The condenser was an aluminum tube about the size of a lipstick, with a black pigtail wire coming out one end.) At some point, the Perpetrator would hand the Victim the condenser, and of course the Victim would start twiddling it around, etc.

Now, the thing about a condenser is, if you hold the pigtail up to a sparkplug of a running engine it will build up a charge of, oh, about sixty gazillion volts. It will hold that charge if you touch the barrel, and it will hold the charge even if you handle the pigtail. But if you touch both at the same time, it will zap you like a stone-age Taser.

Of course it was only a matter of time before the Victim got around to completing the circuit, at which point the crew would laugh and laugh.

Then there was the guy who'd periodically throw a lit cigarette into gasoline to prove (correctly, as it turned out) that it wouldn't ignite. But that's another story.

Bob

[todd]

I haven't been in the position myself, but my wife (prior to taking her current job as caregiver to two young girls) worked as a project engineer for a very large construction company. The field engineers would have fun with the rookies by sending them to the store for left-handed hammers and laser level fluid.

todd

[Herman Family]

I once had a few students who needed to measure a rather long pipe. I couldn't believe it when they took my suggestion of using an inch worm. I've also asked for metric crescent wrenches along the way. The guys in the shop were fantastic. When the student would go in and ask for the tool, they'd rummage around a bit, and finally come back apologizing that someone had already borrowed it, or the inchworm had died.

One day I wandered into the shop. Those fellows could barely stand up as they recited their anecdotes about students coming in for one thing or another.

Teaching chemical engineering was a lot of fun.

Michael

[mel]

Not really a gag, but if you have a forklift bet someone you can pick up a dime with it. The trick is simply lower the blade at a slight angle till it touches the floor beyond the dime. Back up dragging the blade and the dime will flip up onto the blade easy as pie. Please forward 15% of all winnings to me.

[Paul]

I remember when I was 16 working with a plumbing outfit during the summer. We were working on a small shopping centre that was being built. The foreman sent me off to one of the other sites to get a roll of plastic grappler strap. Of course I did as I was told, and was subsequently sent from site to site looking for this non-existant product. After figuring this out I went back red faced to the delight of many. A couple of weeks later the same foreman sent me off to another sight for some "blonde hair". I went to the other site had a coffee, BS'd a bit with the guys, and cruised slowly back to work. Imagine the embarrassment when I found out that "blonde hair" is like teflon tape for sealing pipe threads. Not to mention the ass chewing for being gone for a hour. Never forgot that one.

[Andy Dingley]

I liked the approach of a metal-bashing shop in Birmingham.

Apprentices would be softened up by being sent for a box of skyhooks / left-handed hammers / a long weight (wait) / etc. a few times. Then, when they got wise to these tricks, they'd be sent for "a block of elbow grease"

"Albo grease" is, of course, a well-known brand of polishing compound that's found in any sheetmetal or plating shop.

-- Smert' spamionam

[George M. Kazaka]

Then there is the one about sending the freshman from the wood shop to the paint shop for Barber Pole paint and of course he was always sent back with "What set of Colors" and then of course the Paint shop was missing one color and they had to select a differant set and this could go on for hours.

So does anyone know what a drywall wrench is ??

[Mark]

[Mark]

[Jack]

The Navy is chock full of these gags, the best we use include: - Mail Bouy Watch, when the ship gets underway we will task the newest sailors and an occasional Ensign (junior officer) to man the Fo'c'sle in battle helmets with sound powered phones, binoculars, lifejackets and the longest, heaviest boat hook onboard to watch for the mail bouy. The OOD or the CO of the ship would often talk to them on the phones about the significance of the mail bouy while the rest of the ship's crew would come by the main deck to enjoy the search. - Down in the hole are the proud engineers that make the steam that is used for main propulsion, these guys are called Boiler Tech's or BT. We would often send a new guy down to the hole for a BT punch to remove that stuborn pin... amazing how many of them came back with a bruised arm (and ego). - Lookouts use relative bearings to report location of visual contacts, so it is a no brainer to send guys all over the ship for relative bearing grease. - the mast crank to lower that mast as we approach a bridge...

Master Chief Jack

[Fatty Mcgee]

I have a friend that once worked at a printing shop. They routinely broke in a new employee by making him/her get the "paper strecher". I'm told the search usually took all day.... Phils got it -> Phil: Daves got it -> Dave: Saras got it ->... Great way to meet the whole staff!

[Silvan]

First day on the job at McDonald's, back in high school... This guy I sort of knew who was a friend of a friend kind of character... I didn't know him well, but I knew him better than anyone else in the place, so I sort of looked to him for guidance my first day on the job.

We got three busses, and in the middle of the ensuing chaos, he said "Quick, get [the manager] to give you the keys. You need to run back to the storage cage and get sesame seeds for the buns!"

So I did... Left my work area and went running around to find the boss, then I asked her for the keys. "@%#!#^#%$ WHAT THE @#%@#!%#!# ARE YOU ! $!#!#@$!@$ KEYS FOR #!%!#%!#%!# YOU @#!%!@#%!@#%!@#%"

I almost got fired on the spot.

(Wow she was a BITCH. Hoooo boy she was a bitch. Thinking back, that was the worst job I ever had, hands down. Paving roads was better, barely, and paving roads SUCKS.)

[nuk]

Yep. Being a former bubblehead (submariner for you landlubbers) nuke, we had a ball w/ some of these. Send someone back to the engineroom for a bucket of steam... Have sonar send someone to the electricians for some new contacts... Send someone back to the engine room to feed the shaft seals... someone sent a nub electrician new to the boat down to the diesel room for a machinists punch during field day when all 12-13 mechanics were there - Ouch!)... later we arranged for a nub a-ganger to be sent to Engine Room Forward (E-div field day space) for a roll of electricians tape (looked like a mummy until they came and retrieved him).

The one that was really really bad was when the classic Mail Buoy gag went a little too far... We had the guy all Barbie'd up in a pumpkin suit, harness, the whole nine-yards. Everybody is just about dying trying not to laugh, as we had him staged near the weapon shipping hatch (normal personnel access when on the surface, which we *were not*!). Then someone noticed Zippy was starting to crank on the opening mechanism. Luckily there is a *lot* of backlash in that mechanism and we dogpiled him before he got thru it all...

Ah, the good ole' days...

nuk

[Upscale]

Had a lot of time on your hands at the last forklift owning company you worked for?

[Lionel]

When I was an electronics technician in the Navy back in the days of vacuum tubes, I happened to see my best friend standing at the FASRON parts counter with a long line of grumbling sailors behind him. The stock clerk was nowhere in sight. "Whatcha waiting for, Stinky (Steineke)?" "The chief sent me after a fallopian tube." I managed to get him away before the stock clerk came back mad. The chief had gotten both of them.

Lionel

[Robert Bonomi]

There's the classic left-handed monkey wrench. But be careful, they *do* exist -- they're just extremely rare. I happen to have one that I inherited from my grandfather -- confusing as *hell* to use, till you get used to it; it has a *left-hand* thread on the jaw adjustment

And the 'gallon of striped paint'.

Around the harbor, a request to fetch 50' of "shore line".

Around airplanes, "a bucket of prop wash", also "10' of alieron trim".

Don't forget the 'round tuit' -- the victim gets a raise, as soon as you get a 'round toit'. and send him searching for one.

The April issue of Scientific American, particularly the "Amateur Scientist" colum, going back many years, was often good for some _really_ funny stuff.

there is a tech-spec data-sheet running around somewhere, for a truely famous IC chip. A "write-only memory". (anybody who understands much about electronics, and is -not- familiar with it, is strongly encouraged to Google, or similar, for it.)

Then there's the acronym games. Things like IITYWIGMAQ (Or substitute a K for the Q, if in mixed company) What's _that_ mean? "If I tell you, will you give me a quarter?" (or 'kiss').

[Robert Bonomi]

On towboats on the Mississippi -- and some other rivers -- the _entire_ wheelhouse is on hydraulic lifts. For _exactly_ that purpose. Depending on the craft, it is capable of 'bobbing' in excess of 8-10 _feet_.

First time you see it, particularly with a boat going _upstream_ (slowly), It looks _really_ funny -- it ducks its head to go under the bridge.

[Norman D. Crow]

Then there's sending the new Bosun's Mate apprentice down to the rope locker for 100' of shoreline.

Nahmie

[Jim Heater]

In the army I drove a tank. On thing that I remember was sending a new recrut to supply for a bottle of squelch for the radio. Jim