Engineer Sick of Office Pranks Fakes a Disk Wipe to Scare His Antagonist
Pranks filled the office
Joe described a workplace where colleagues staged practical jokes. Their tricks included balancing confetti over a doorway, leaving prawn heads beneath a car carpet and putting hand cream on phone earpieces.
One colleague, whom Joe suggested calling TF, repeatedly sneaked up behind him and roared into his ear in an attempt to make him jump. Joe decided to plan what he called a lasting revenge.
A harmless fake formatting program
The office computers had Borland C compilers installed, Joe said. He used one to create a program that looked like MS-DOS was formatting a disk. The display showed flashing lights for several minutes before revealing that it was a prank. Joe described the program as completely harmless.
The prank's delayed payoff
About five or six weeks later, another colleague phoned Joe with news: TF had been badly frightened that morning. Joe's story appeared in The Register's “Who, Me?” column, which features readers' accounts of workplace pranks, mistakes and escapes. The column invites readers to email their own stories of revenge through pranks.
Key points
- Joe said practical jokes were common at his office.
- TF repeatedly roared in Joe's ear to startle him.
- Joe created a harmless program that imitated disk formatting.
- A colleague said TF was frightened by the prank weeks later.