Jokes at work

[Pat-inCO]

I got the idea for this thread from another thread on another subject.
Rather than derail the other thread I thought it might be fun to see some
of the jokes pulled at work, over the years, hopefully that didn't cause any
real problems.

Mine is from years gone by, seemingly in another life time.

I was just coming up to speed in computer programming and we had the
advantage of going hands-on with the main-frame (this was before the
personal computers, and even used punched cards). Well, we had a few
people (some were even able to program) that would come into our
computer room and use our equipment.

One of those people was a gal from the deep south with an ego that
marginally fit in the room. Well, she was having problems getting her job
to run yet would not ask anyone else for help (like I said . . . large ego).
Well, about the third trip in I was the only one in the computer room and
she asked WHY her job would not run. I took a quick look at her JCL
(Job Control Language) and saw that she had mis-spelled the data
set name. I'll also add that it was a file on a reel of tape. So . . . . . .

I had her modify her JCL adding the parameter "LABEL=(2,BLP)"
But what I told her was "add label=(" and I then asked if this were the
second try today, and she said yes, so I said "add the number 2 and a
comma". She did and I said your initials are BLP, right? (She was Betty
L. Patterson) She said yes, so I told her to add them and a close parend
[the ) ]. She did and I told her to submit the job.

Funniest thing, the job ran. What the jcl said was "use the second file and
bypass label processing" (but that was WAY over her head). She looked
surprised, picked up her reel of tape, her printout and almost RAN out of
the room.

I saw her the next day and I'll just bet someone in her group told her
what the change in JCL actually did. She scowled mightily at me every
time she saw me for the next week. 8)

Fun times can be had when putting small holes in large egos.


Anyone else got some funny war stories? 8)

 

[gramps]

Huh? I have no idea how that deflated her ego. Ya might need to spell it out for us peons.
gramps

 

[JFB]

I sort of got it...guess you had to be there!

during the course of the career, the pranks were nonstop for the first couple decades, but some how nearly elimated the last due to increased regulations...ie, work just wasn't fun any more.

in the theme of busting egos. during commissioning of a 600MW steam turbine in Korea, the plant's engineers were busy studying the mechanical control diagram and discussing the consequenses of intiating a trip handle during the performance of the the MOST locked out testing. based purely on the mechanical drawing, they were correct in their assumption the trip handle would be the same as the MOST oil injection sequence.

I betting them 10 Kwon that it would NOT work and they had to try with the unit at 600MW. while I did compromise and they tried during a planned removal for the grid, when they pulled the handle the unit tripped. after I recieved there won, I showed them the electrical logic that interrupted the MOST lock out IF the trip handle was activated.

during returning the unit to the grid, I approached them and betting 100Kwon, "I" could pull the trip handle during MOST and the unit would NOT trip. they chattered and a large crowd gather to watch what they though would be my expulsion from site if I tripped the unit. as I prepared to pull the handle, I removed a jumper and connected it accross the limit switch that signaled the electronic logic of the handle's status.

I pulled the handle, the MOST completed, the unit didn't trip and the mad bunch of engineers hesitantely paid me the bet. I informed them

Never bet a man at his own game

 

[Pat-inCO]

Huh? I have no idea how that deflated her ego.

Betty was the one that "knew everything", thus would not ask assistance.
Then, to use her initials to perform a function that she didn't even know
existed, did manage to upset her.

As I heard it, she took a lot of flack in her own area over that.
So much so that she transferred out. :wink:



Another joke:
One lady (ten years after Betty) in our area had married the regional
manager (gives advice and council to God) and had a habit of not
following security procedures. Being the wife of the regional manager,
she could not be directly chastised for her lack of security procedures.

The one in question was that when you left your office, you were to log
off of the system. Most of us set it up to be a disconnect to save time
as you came back. This lady would just walk away and leave it logged on.

Our then system gu-ru came in and modified her profile (the mini program
that establishes the links you want), and then logged her id off. She came
back in and went to log in. It called for her userid and pass word (normal)
and then said that there was an increase in system security that had
just been implemented and she needed to enter her sex. On entering that
it went into a loop and asked once again for her sex (never ending loop).

After three or four tries she hollered for help. The guy that did it told her
to log off and log back in with the option "noprof" to keep it from running
the profile. He then deleted the mini program he had put in place and
put hers back in force. She got back on and smiled (good for him) and
asked why he had done that. He told her why, and she never left her
office without either logging off or disconnecting, from then on.
And all was well with that little piece of the world. 8)

 

[eveled]

I once nailed a guys shoes to the floor.

The maintenance guy bought a new broom, so I went over to his Dept. I wrote shipping & receiving on his new broom.

The next day he walks up, gives me his broom, apologizes, says he can't figure out how he got my broom, and if I see his new broom to let him know.

When he retired, I nailed his work shoes to the floor. He was pissed, but I did him a favor. No way his wife wanted him bringing those ratty things into the house.

 

[sasu]

I proclaimed in the office that this would be a good job if I had pleasant colleagues. Then the battle started...

 

[IraIII]

At work we had two shifts that overlapped by an hour from 230-330. we had lockers in the break room to store our work clothes that were about 5 feet tall and 2.5 feet square. One day I picked a coworkers lock, and managed to squeeze myself into the locker, and locked the door from the inside. When he came in to get ready for work, opened the door and I came out, I thought he was having a heart attack.

 

[Rancher Will]

Many years ago, when I was only16 years old, I got my first paying job as a wrangler on a large cattle ranch. There were 10 or 12 cowboys and four ranch hands and the ranch cook working there and I was the youngest of the lot.

About a week or so on the job, when I had brought the remuda into the corral and the cowboys were saddling, one of the older men got bucked off his horse. It was not unusual for some of the horses to buck a little when saddled in the morning, but not the way that horse bucked and the cowboy almost never got bucked off of any of his string. That horse put on a real rodeo show. I was the new guy on the job so I didn't know what was happening except what I saw.

All of the cpowboys watched with surprise except one young cowboy who was laughing. Even after the rider was on the ground, the horse kept pitching until one cowboy roped it so two or three men held the horse. The rider that that had gotten off the bucking horse then removed the saddle and looked it over.

I never got a good look at it but the rider found some kind of burr or something in the saddle skirts that had pained the horse when he had gotten on. The young cowboy was still laughing, so there must have been something between the two cowboys before I got there.

The cowboy that had been on the bucking horse walked over to the laughing man and decked him with one punch. The ranch foreman had been watching with the rest of us. When the formerly laughing cowboy got up off the ground, the foreman walked up to him, told him to get his belongings out of the bunk house and "hit the road". He was fired.

Later one of the other cowboys told me that anytime someone plays a trick that can hurt another man or hurt a horse on that ranch the foreman would fire them on the spot as he did that day.

 

[toysoldier]

One day in the O.R., an open-heart patient didn't make it off the table. They sent for the body cart, an old gurney with a frame that held a curtain over the body so it wasn't apparent that a body was being rolled through the hallways. When is showed up , I got under the curtain and rode it back to the room. Just as we got to the O.R., our gay, black, gospel-singing orderly came out. I reached out and grabbed him. The scream could be heard back at the front desk.

 

[Jimbo357mag]

When I was working on a gas air conditioner one time a rather cranky old supervisor came by to see how the job was going. It was a sealed part replacement which meant discharging all the coolant (ammonia) making the repair and then recharging and starting the machine. I was at the part where I was trying to start the machine after charging and I just could not get the coolant to circulate around the system following the book. The supervisor could see my frustration. I finally looked at him and said I was going to drop some liquid ammonia in the very hot generator to kick start the process. He said, " Do what you think will work but I am getting out of here". He then preceded to get in his car and leave. I dropped the ammonia into the generator watched and heard a rather violent reaction and got the machine running. He never bothered me on an a/c job again.

 

[Skidboot]

The first post here goes a long way toward explaining why there is no known instance of a computer person being a stand-up comedian .

 

[sasu]

Yes, we computer people are sit down comedians.

 

[JFB]

during another unit commissioning, a co-worker was responsible for the supervisory instrumentation cabinet, basically a old design computer that measured and recorded the unit's condition. an error in the field, cause a power back feed and thus burnt wiring and cards in the cabinet. the co-worker had spent a week making repairs and had just began the process of powering up and checking its operation..

the Project Manager came by where we were working to check on the progress since this was now critical path to going commercial. the PM saw the co-worker was concentrating on his work and didn't see him enter. the PM walked behind the cabinet and thought it would be funny to take a cigeratte drag and blow it into where the co-worker was concentrating.

before he could even think about laughing, the PM was unaware the co worker had set up a large bolt cutter and thus immediately cut the input power cable on the first wiff of smoke!

while every one on site heard about this delay caused by the PM, it was not discussed at the daily status meeting

 

[Pat-inCO]

The first post here goes a long way toward explaining why there is no known
instance of a computer person being a stand-up comedian .

Very true.

Our jobs are (were) details and we tend to think in details. :wink:

 

[JFB]

The first post here goes a long way toward explaining why there is no known
instance of a computer person being a stand-up comedian .

Very true.

Our jobs are (were) details and we tend to think in details. :wink:

anyone every heard of an IBM engineer by the name of Jeff Foxworthy?

 

[protoolman]

One day on patrol (small town cop) I received a call from the city clerk. She had a base station radio so she could relay walk in complaints or non emergency phone calls to us. Our official dispatcher was a county employee who was in another town and took 91 calls and such. Anyway, the city clerk called me and says "we had a complaint of indecent exposure at the city recreational ponds. (small lakes). Being the smarta** I am my reply over the radio was.. " Is that indecent exposure or really decent exposure??" Being the straight laced older lady that she was all I got was dead silence on her end! The city maintenance guys who were also on the radio net thought it was pretty humorous.

 

[RoninPA]

When I was in the USAF, there was a radiation detector that used a 135vdc battery as its power source. We would solder half of a paperclip to the (-) side and the other half of the paperclip to the (+) side and bend the paper clip “leads” to opposite sides of the battery. The battery was about 4”x6”x4”. We would them wrap metal tape (lead tape) around one side of the battery. Then would leave about a 1/16” or less separation around the long axis of the battery and wrap the lead tape around the other half. Made sure each half was making good contact with the “leads”. Then a little red plastic (non-conducting) tape covered the separation and another piece perpendicular about ½ of the way to make it look like something wrapped up real nice.

Would set it where people would see it when they had business in the lab (I worked in the metrology laboratory – we maintained the reference standards for the base and did the calibration of all the test equipment) and had a sign by it that said “Guess my weight” or better yet “Don’t touch or pick up” (worked just like a Wet Paint sign does). Boy, were they surprised when they tried to pick it up. People won’t pick something up the long side, always by the shorter side and when they did their fingers completed the circuit and ZAP! It got dropped pretty quickly.

Well, one day the First Sergeant came to the lab for some reason and happened to see it. He was reaching for it when my boss saw him and yelled to him not to pick it up. Well,… too late. ZAP!. First words out of his mouth were “Where the hell is Lutz!!!” We actually had a good laugh (we were good friends) and I showed him the correct way to handle it without getting shocked and he asked me to make one for his office. Well, I made one for him but I did a bit of a modification. I wired it so that if you picked it up by either the short side or the long side you’d get bit. You had to pick it up catty cornered, which was pretty awkward, so again most people wouldn’t think about lifting it that way. I delivered it and with a smug smile, since he “knew” how to pick it up, he picked it up, long side and got shocked again. I laughed, he didn’t, and then I showed him how to do it. Then he laughed. He even got the commander and damned if the commander didn’t mention my name first also.

Maybe later I’ll tell about the morgue and beer. Or, old tube type oscilloscopes with low watt resistors wired to ground on the neutral side of the power switch.

 

[dpayne]

The first post here goes a long way toward explaining why there is no known instance of a computer person being a stand-up comedian .

That literally made me laugh out loud.

 

[bogus bill]

I used to imitate the blacks pretty good. One of the guys that thought it funny was off work at home on a Sunday and called me at work when nothing was going on. He wanted me to call his house and kid her with my black act. He said he would let her pick up the phone and then would listen in. I said what do you want me to say? Oh, just wing it! I thought awhile and called. Mizz Smiff? Yeees? We gots ta talk! Yo husband been messing wiff muh wife! WHAT? Then I started laying it on her. My buddy tried to cut in a couple times and she bellered at him to shut up and then it got good ! I ad libbed for a good ten minuets, she would be giving both him and me hell and he was frantic and she kept yelling him down every time he tried to cut in.
Finally I started laughing, she caught on, cussed us both out and slammed the phone down.

 

[exavid]

I'm glad I don't have to put the smoke back in electronic systems anymore. Retirement is better.

 

[Acorn]

I used to work evenings in a large utility companies garage that was located in a bad part of town. In spite of that during summer we left the garage doors open while we worked. One of the mechanics was extremely jumpy. If he heard a noise he'd holler "Who's there?" and start "investigating". On night I was off but drove past the garage a just happened to have a bag of smoke bombs with me. I don't remember where I got them but they put out a ton of smoke. I snuck in the garage smoke bomb in hand looking for our nervous mechanic. I heard some noises coming from the tool room and knew it had to be him. I lit the bomb and rolled it into the tool room but as I released it I heard the voice of the motor vehicle supervisor(our boss and devoid of a sense of humor) and "Nervous Nelly". YIKES! I turned tail and lit out of there. I never heard a thing about the incident but would liked to have a fly on the wall to see their reaction.