“I have to go, I’m bleeding from my ass”.
It was me… It wasn’t me
This is the stupidest trick, but it works all the time. I take a screenshot of a coworkers desktop, hide all the desktop icons, and make the screenshot the new desktop background. I did this with all 3 computers in the office, which are shared with other people. I called in sick the next day, not expecting all hell to break loose, but people were unable to open any of their programs. IT sent a newbie who was trying various solutions, but had no luck. When they found out what the issue was, they were so pissed off that I had to play dumb and bite my tongue. I had planned on taking the credit and bragging about it, but nope.
Bloody hell
Had a perfect start to the day until I get a call from an employee saying, “I have to go, i’m bleeding from my ass”. I was in shock and I told him to go home. I walked to his office and I see his chair soaked in blood, with multiple napkins all over it. He was still there, so I offered to call 911 but he insisted in driving himself to the hospital. The weirdest part was explaining all of this to management, because everyone was asking about how the blood appeared. I was never told what the issue was, but I guess he didn’t have to… we all knew.
Try not to cry… Cry a lot
There was this awesome agent (named Joe) who was literally the perfect employee. He was 60 years old and had never so much as stepped out of line once. We offered him numerous management positions, but all he wanted to do was fix our customer problems from his home. His 40th wedding anniversary was coming up in a few days, when the company decided to send Joe and me for a new system training in Ohio for a few days. This meant he would miss his anniversary. Together with my boss we communicated this decision to Joe and, with a low tone, he said, “I have to refuse this time, the day after tomorrow me and my wife celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary”. The boss didn’t accept the refusal and told him, “YOU MUST GO, YOU HAVE NO CHOICE”. So Joe agreed.
He told his wife the news and she decided to visit her sister until he got back. I went to pick Joe up to go to the airport, and he told me that his wife left yesterday to visit her sister. He was quite upset, but tried his best to be upbeat. We got to the airport in Houston and I took him to the gate for a flight to Miami. I told him, ”Joe that's your gate”. He looked at me and said, “Hey... my wife is over there. Whats going on?”.
My boss had arranged a trip to Miami and then a cruise to Jamaica as a gift for their anniversary, with all expenses covered. He started crying and we had a long group hug.
Oh, and if you care, I still had to go to Ohio… yeah… Ohio.
Payback’s a bitch
Dave is a good guy, but he’s kind of the office punching bag. People like to joke around with him because he gets worked up easily. So there was this guy at the office, Jim, who hid a fishing rod in the drop ceiling tiles, with the hook hanging over Dave’s head and the reel in his office. Every so often, Jim would drop the hook onto Dave’s head, then reel it in fast so nobody noticed from where it was coming from. This went on for weeks, with Dave clueless about what was going on and getting more worked up each time. He even went to the doctor, afraid that something was wrong with him. A few weeks later, we told him what was really going on. He was pissed, but we could not stop laughing.
Dave definitely got the last laugh, though. He met Jim’s sister at a bar and took her home.
About to have a stroke
My manager came into the office, closed the door, and in a very serious tone said: ”The CEO wants to have a talk. He is waiting for your call from the conference room.” I went there and set up this new conferencing device we built, and his first words almost gave me a stroke.
CEO: “HELLO (his only way of greeting people since he named the device like that), there is some serious news I have to share with you. The company has announced layoffs which will impact your division”.
Me: “Have I been affected?”
CEO: “Oh, no no no. We had to let him and her go and blah blah.” I wasn’t really paying attention at that point. “Today is their last day”.
What I thought: “You should have started with that”
What I said: “Oh, sorry to hear that, thanks for letting me know”.