A little humor...usually at someone elses expense.

[coltle6920]

Some or maybe many of us have been the brunt of a joke put upon us by an adult or older sibling. It usually involves something mechanical that needs fixing. You are sent to the store to purchase something that is necessary to complete the project. Maybe you asked the wife or your child to get you a lefthanded screwdriver out of the tool box. If you ever played a prank on someone or were the victim of one let's hear about it.

Since one of our pet peeves is that driver who fails to use their turn signals I thought the picture (below) would be appropriate if it were possible to slap it on their windshield with a note saying "Turn signals don't work? Maybe you just need fluid."

 

[ladder13]

 

[robvious]

I once was party to a manager at the hardware store messing with a newbie... sent the young man off in search of a Metric Crescent wrench... I thought that the manager was going to soil himself after the young man took off with such enthusiasm...

 

[444 Magnum]

I once was party to a manager at the hardware store messing with a newbie... sent the young man of in search of a Metric Crescent wrench... I thought that the manager was going to soil himself after the young man took off with such enthusiasm...

If you did that today, he would go out back and have a smoke while he googled it. When he realized it was a prank, he'd play on his phone for 40 minutes before going back inside and telling you he couldn't find one (with a straight face).

 

[Narragansett]

For you electrical types, a friend of mine and I once sent an electrical supply house salesman on a mission to get a price on a 1" X 30' non sectional, 3 phase ground rod.

 

[NYlakesider]

Back in the 1960s we would ask a newbe at the auto parts store for a upper radiator hose for a 60s era Volkswagen. This was the pre computer era with those 8' rack of parts books!

 

[Greyman50]

In AIT at APG we sent this " backwoods type" to tool room for air gauge to check air pressure in M-60 road wheels..
Someone at a show passed out some crude business cards to put under no parking people's wiper, can not post it but it's spot on. I for 1 can not comprehend how some people are allowed to drive. Driving is a Privilege, not a right. Seems more and more no driving idiots are on the roads every day.

 

[tlawler]

A shipboard indoctrination for a new sailor wouldn't be complete until they had been sent on a search for either sound powered phone batteries or relative bearing grease.

 

[Walkin Horse]

I had a helper come up and ask in a rather demanding voice, that he needed a new file. I looked it over carefully and told him I didn't think anything was wrong with the file,but he should go to the tool room and get some Elbow Grease.

 

[soFlaNative]

In a previous life asked the straightlaced bookkeeper to contact a supplier for a vacuum assisted sealant removal tool to repair
a leaking warehouse window. She called the company asking for a caulk----er.

 

[30-30remchester]

Used 7" to 20" heavy wall steel pipe in my line of work. Would use a cutting torch to cut to length. When we hired a new man, we would tell him to cut us a certain length of pipe. They would ask how. Told them to get the hacksaw and a few extra blades and hurry up because we needed it cut right away. After about a half an hour and several blades, we would teach him how to use the torch. Got busy once and forgot about the new guy. An hour or so later he came back into view sweating and exhausted. He had completely cut in half a heavy wall steel 8" casing with a hacksaw. We felt a little bad about that, for at least several minutes.

 

[mtgianni]

I was sent to go get left handed screw drivers buy a foreman who just saw me as an inexperienced new kid. I came back after lunch and told him I couldn't find them but had ordered them from NAPA with his name and contact number when they came in. In total I was gone about three hours.

He decided it was time to stop messing with people.

 

[RobertK3026]

For you electrical types, a friend of mine and I once sent an electrical supply house salesman on a mission to get a price on a 1" X 30' non sectional, 3 phase ground rod.

When my apprentices asked how to get the string in conduit with a mouse, I would tell them to catch a mouse. tie a string to it's tail and put cheese on the other end.
Metric screw drivers and wire stretchers always work.

 

[LoboGunLeather]

Young cops usually caught on pretty quickly after being sent to check the Clues Closet during an investigation.

The local municipal court, which handled only misdemeanor, petty offenses, and traffic cases, frequently issued "execution warrants" ordering a defendant arrested after promising to pay a fine and failing to do so. Pick up a dozen execution warrants, put them on a desk with a Thompson submachinegun, then tell a rookie to go serve the warrants. Always good for a laugh or two.

We once had a bunch of cards printed up like parking passes, usually placed on a car sun visor or dashboard. First line, very small print:
"Please don't tell my mother I am a"
Big bold letters: "POLICE OFFICER"
Third line, small print:
"She thinks I have a real job playing piano in a whorehouse."

The Big Boss was NOT AMUSED when brought to his attention.

 

[sophie]

Sky Hooks and muffler bearings were in heavy use around our dealership.

 

[jeffrefrig]

A shipboard indoctrination for a new sailor wouldn't be complete until they had been sent on a search for either sound powered phone batteries or relative bearing grease.

An acquaintance of mine from the School Board said they sent him, as a newbie, with a stick & a hook on it to wait for the Mail Buoy and bring it aboard. VERY IMPORTANT! Keep your eyes peeled, and you only get one chance. You miss it, you have to answer to everyone on board!

 

[Mike SC Hunter]

In construction we would send the rookies to the tool room to get a sky hook or a left handed Stilson wrench or pipe stretchers.

 

[SMSgt]

Because you asked, one that popped into my head in the blink of an eye:

I was working B-52s in the late '70s. I had a new guy assigned that had worked only F-4s, totally unfamiliar with the Buff. Because the Buff has ejection seats, no one was allowed to work on them until a "seat safety" class was completed.

I never worked on F-4s but did work with a lot of guys who had, and all of them said the F-4 seat was never truly "safe." In fact, the seat safety class included a photo of an occupied F-4 seat stuck in the hangar rafters.

The new guy kept bugging me to see a Buff, so I relented one night and took him to one in the phase hangar. Phase was a daytime operation, and only a few overhead lights were on. We had a flashlight, so I took him up into the cockpit, showed him how to verify the seat pins were correctly installed, and then showed him all the instrumentation we supported.

Then I took him downstairs to the navigators' seats--which eject downward. Again, I showed him how to check the pins--slightly different than the upstairs seats--and again showed him our equipment. At one point I bent over and pointed to some equipment in the "vine cellar," the equipment bay forward of the navigators' positions. When he bent over to look, he pulled his feet back and triggered both ankle hold designed to grab the ankle to keep the crews' feet from flying up upon ejection. To be clear, the hooks have nothing to do with the seat firing sequence, merely a physical restraint. All one has to do to get out of them is move your feet forward.

But the look in his eyes told me he was having flashbacks to the guy in the rafters photos, and the idea struck like lightning. I yelled, "Don't move! You'll fire the seat right into the concrete floor." Of course it wouldn't, but he didn't know that. I told him I was going to leave and get the seat guys to disarm the seat. So I left him there in the seat, in the dark, scared to death he was about to die, and went back to the shop.

I walked into the shop, and everyone asked where the new guy was. To clarify, the new guy had in a few days' time managed to annoy everyone in the shop, so when I told them what I had done, they were busting their guts laughing. About 45 minutes later, we heard the building doors slam, and in walks our red-faced new guy mad as hell. Seems he started yelling for help at some point, until some airman cutting through the hangar heard him, checked to see what was going on, called new guy a dumb arse and released him from the hooks.

And that was the start of my pranks on the new guy. I could write a book on them.

 

[jscheck]

To be sure, every new guy who worked flightline in the USAF was sent out for 30' of flightline and a left handed wrench!

 

[Rudi]

We would send the new kid around the job site asking for the "board stretcher". Pretty funny. Don't get me started on blinkers.