The Project Pad

We tend to try and pull one over on the apprentices. Usually the mouthy/arrogant ones.

Stuff like:

- asking them how many wedding rods they can bend over the back of their neck. Then laugh as all the flux goes down the back of their shirt.

- asking if they've been weighed before. Pick the guy up in a bear hug and another guy whacks their ass or back of their legs a few times with a 2x4 or similar.

- ask if they've taken the wee out of their hard hat yet. When they say no, you offer to help them out. Once they hand over their lid, you whip it as hard as you can across the ground, saying "weeeee" as it skips along.

- ask if he knows how turtles fuck. When he says no you take off your lid and smack him over his hard hat with it.

- send an apprentice to the tool crib for any number of fictitious tools:
- smokeless welding rods
- left handed come along
- skyhook
- pipe stretchers
- long stand / long wait
- petty file
- bucket of steam

- last day before Xmas break tell guys to sign for their ham or turkey at the tool crib or in the general foreman's office



Those are some of the classics. Seen all of them over the years, believe it or not.

How about in your workplace... what are some of the embarrassing hazards the more gullible folks may encounter?

PRY4SNO wrote:- send an apprentice to the tool crib for any number of fictitious tools:
- smokeless welding rods
- left handed come along
- skyhook
- pipe stretchers
- long stand / long wait
- petty file
- bucket of steam

Not sure this would work in the frozen north but in the USA:
- metric vise-grips

elaw wrote:Not sure this would work in the frozen north but in the USA:
- metric vise-grips

Funny enough, that might work up here... we use metric & imperial depending on the situation

I'm in the restaurant business - we used to send bussers and entry level cooks all over town for stuff.
Left handed spatula was a good one.
Bucket of steam
etc

Once we told the whole food runner/busser staff at a fine dining restaurant they would need to all wear hair nets starting 3 or 4 weeks out. We kept the joke up for the whole time talking about how it was an upcoming rule in preservice until finally the day came. We had them all put hair nets on and set the whole place up - this took an hour or two during which time they all bitched and complained. Finally, right before the first guests walked in, we said - " nah, we were just fucking with you". It was fun for WEEKS

I once worked with a guy who said when he wanted to have fun, he would swap drums from side to side on a car someone was working on. "The brakes would never feel right no matter how much he adjusted them!"

I asked him if he thought it was appropriate to fuck up someone's car and waste company time like that. Then I reported him.

Fuck people who waste time at work. Work is work time not fuck-around time.

except when you are the boss. employee razzing shenanigans on my own dime are a judgement call

I install scanners & MRI in hospitals : I once locked a temporary worker inside a MRI scanner room during cooling tests (the MRI making noises), he started to panic so I shouted to him "WRAP YOUR HEAD WITH DUCT TAPE, OTHERWISE YOUR BRAIN WILL MELT".

I think I'll always remember his duct-taped-momified head.

Tugboat guys have the best ones:

"tuning the radar" is a perennial favorite. wrap your favorite greenhorn head to toe in tinfoil and have him stand at the bow of the barge with hands and feet in different positions until its no longer funny (this process can take hours)
"get a bucket of prop wash" Is another good one, bonus points for giving the greenhorn a 5 gallon bucket with a line attached.
Have fun asking the captain for the keys to the sea chest...
and my personal favorite: tying the corner of the greenhorn's bed sheet to a 5 gallon pail with fishing line, once he oversleeps into his watch (and they always do) throw the bucket overboard and he gets the eject-o-sheet wakeup call