Ever want to make a little mischief back at the workplace?

[brett]

No, of course not. Why burn bridges for no reason whatsoever?

This seems like such a pointless exercise to me.

[skipro33]

I was laid off a job once after training 2 young guys out of college who replaced me under a 'reorganization'. Their combined pay was less than I made, so they kicked me to the curb. This is in the heyday of pagers, before cell phone texting was so common. After I was canned, I would send pages to those bosses who made decisions like they did of me of phone #'s for sex calls. The type that a sultry voice would talk to them and ask for a credit card or permission to bill to the phone # they called on. After a while, they figured out not to call these #'s, recognizing that they were suspicious. So I then paged them with upper management #'s. Those they HAD to call as they never could tell if the page was legit or not. It was irritating for them I'm sure.

After the advent of texting, I limit my 'fun' to those times I stop in at the company. A feature of the phone system is the ability to forward an extension to any place, both on premises and off premises. Mostly this is done with a preprogrammed button on the company phone. However, all the button does is play back a series of phone button #'s, sorta like speed dialing. To forward a number, just pick up any phone, press *#55, the extension you want to forward, wait for the double beep, then the phone # you want to forward to. To cancel, use *#56. I'll forward the bosses phone to one of those sex #'s I mentioned, or to his home, another department head that he was having issues with, etc. Anyone calling the boss got a sexy voice, his wife or home answering machine or the wrong boss. Since I don't do it that often, every year or so when I stop in for customer business, I don't think they ever caught on to what was happening. They would just report the problem and someone would 'fix' it for them. Now days, the bosses are all gone, so no more chain yanking.

[kcowan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by marko About 20 postcards over a few years. Lemons to lemonade: Actually, in his travels he ended up meeting some very wealthy Italian woman who nobody's ever heard of and is now living in the south of France somewhere.

I hope he sent a Thank You card!

[MRG]

I suppose I did my mischief while employed. One, two line code change brought multiple systems down for months.

[CoolRich59]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pellice Of course, sigh, I wouldn't do it, being too timid. But do any of you ever have the urge to mess with MegaCorp's minds or emotions - just to make a little mischief?

About a year before I left megacorp, someone in their infinite wisdom decreed that housekeeping staff would no longer empty individual trash containers. Instead, the company was going to place large plastic trash cans in the copy rooms and each person would be responsible for emptying their own trash.

I took a copy of the "new corporate travel policy" joke that had circulated for years (see below), modified it to add a line about the new requirement to empty your own trash, and sent it to a couple of colleagues.

I soon learned that it had been forwarded far and wide when I started getting comments from people all across the megacorp universe. The CEO even mentioned it when he announced he was revoking the self-service trash policy.


New Corporate Travel Policy

Due to the current financial situation, changes will be made to the Corporate Travel Policy. Effective Monday the following revised procedures apply:

Lodging
All employees are encouraged to stay with relatives and friends while on business travel. If weather permits, public areas such as parks should be used as temporary lodging sites. Bus terminals, train stations, and office lobbies may provide shelter in periods of inclement weather.

Transportation
Hitchhiking is the preferred mode of travel in lieu of commercial transport.
Luminescent safety vests will be issued to all employees prior to their departure on business trips. Bus transportation will be used only when work schedules require such travel. Airline tickets will be authorized in extreme circumstances and the lowest fares will be used. For example, if a meeting is scheduled in Seattle, but the lower fare can be obtained by traveling to Detroit, then travel to Detroit will be substituted for travel to Seattle.

Meals
Expenditures for meals will be limited to an absolute minimum. It should be noted that certain grocery and specialty chains, such as Hickory Farms, General Nutrition centers, Costco, Sams Club stores etc. often provide free samples of promotional items. Entire meals can be obtained in this manner. Travelers should also be familiar with indigenous roots, berries, and other protein sources available at their destinations. If restaurants must be utilized, travelers should use "all you can eat" salad bars. This is especially effective for employees traveling together as one plate can be used to feed the entire group. Employees are also encouraged to bring their own food on business travel. Cans of tuna fish, Spam, and Beefaroni can be consumed at your leisure without the necessary bother of heating or costly preparation.

Miscellaneous
All employees are encouraged to devise innovative techniques in effort to save company dollars. One enterprising individual has already suggested that money could be raised during airport layover periods which could be used to defray travel expenses. In support of this idea, red caps will be issued to all employees prior to their departure so that they may earn tips by helping others with their luggage. Small plastic roses and ball point pens will also be available to employees so that sales may be made as time permits.

[CoolRich59]

I have to admit being a bit of a prankster when I was young(er) and at my first megacorp job. I worked with another fellow who was also a prankster; and the two of us working together was like mixing gasoline and fire.

I like to think that our pranks were funny and not malicious, but will let you all decide for yourselves.

Our manager used to call his wife and talk to her on speakerphone a lot, he even had IT program a speed dial button on his phone with his wife's number (he was technology deficient). We reprogrammed his speed dial button to one of those phone sex numbers. He must have called the number a dozen times (on speakerphone! ) before finally getting IT to come and reprogram his phone.

Another time we reprogrammed the department's fax machine to forward incoming faxes to his phone number. So, for about a week, several times a day his phone would ring and he'd get that screeching tone when he answered.

We pulled other stunts, but one almost got us both fired. Our megacorp was late to implement voice mail because the CEO hated it and thought a caller should always get a live person. He finally succumbed and voice mail was implemented.

Incredibly, they implemented voice mail but not passwords -- so all you had to do was dial anyone's number, let it go to voice mail, hit the prompt, and you could access their messages and all user controls. One day my mischievous colleague changed my outgoing message from the standard "Hi, this is Rich, I can't take your call right now ..." to something very rude. After playing it for a couple of people and getting some laughs, he deleted it -- except it didn't get deleted.

Sure enough, a client calls me, gets the new message, is outraged, and complains. The next thing I know, I get called to HR and told I'm being terminated. Luckily, our VP gets involved, demands to hear the outgoing message, and points out to the HR flack that it's not my voice on the outgoing message.

So, I'm in the clear. But HR wants to know whose voice it is so they can fire him. I play dumb and claim not to recognize the voice. Then they play the message for all the managers in my department. Luckily for my colleague, even though several of the managers recognize his voice, they play dumb as well. HR is sure we're lying but there's nothing they can do.

As you can imagine, password protection was added to the voice mail system shortly thereafter.

[travelover]

Early in my career at MegaMotors we got a new supervisor and he brought with him his personal lackey and snitch. Wherever the supervisor was transferred, he always brought this guy along. This guy was a spy and a snitch that did little to no actual department work, so he was not popular. One day while he was gone, we pulled all the letter keys off his keyboard and moved them one position to the right. The snitch was a type-by-looking at the keyboard typist, so it totally caused havoc with his typing assignment.

[JakeinChina]

Quote:

Originally Posted by CoolRich59 I have to admit being a bit of a prankster when I was young(er) and at my first megacorp job. I worked with another fellow who was also a prankster; and the two of us working together was like mixing gasoline and fire. I like to think that our pranks were funny and not malicious, but will let you all decide for yourselves. Our manager used to call his wife and talk to her on speakerphone a lot, he even had IT program a speed dial button on his phone with his wife's number (he was technology deficient). We reprogrammed his speed dial button to one of those phone sex numbers. He must have called the number a dozen times (on speakerphone! ) before finally getting IT to come and reprogram his phone. Another time we reprogrammed the department's fax machine to forward incoming faxes to his phone number. So, for about a week, several times a day his phone would ring and he'd get that screeching tone when he answered. We pulled other stunts, but one almost got us both fired. Our megacorp was late to implement voice mail because the CEO hated it and thought a caller should always get a live person. He finally succumbed and voice mail was implemented. Incredibly, they implemented voice mail but not passwords -- so all you had to do was dial anyone's number, let it go to voice mail, hit the prompt, and you could access their messages and all user controls. One day my mischievous colleague changed my outgoing message from the standard "Hi, this is Rich, I can't take your call right now ..." to something very rude. After playing it for a couple of people and getting some laughs, he deleted it -- except it didn't get deleted. Sure enough, a client calls me, gets the new message, is outraged, and complains. The next thing I know, I get called to HR and told I'm being terminated. Luckily, our VP gets involved, demands to hear the outgoing message, and points out to the HR flack that it's not my voice on the outgoing message. So, I'm in the clear. But HR wants to know whose voice it is so they can fire him. I play dumb and claim not to recognize the voice. Then they play the message for all the managers in my department. Luckily for my colleague, even though several of the managers recognize his voice, they play dumb as well. HR is sure we're lying but there's nothing they can do. As you can imagine, password protection was added to the voice mail system shortly thereafter.

Those are good. I like the redirecting the faxes to the bosses number. That fax sound is so annoying.

[marko]

[Edit]
Comment at post #29 removed by marko. I shouldn't post until after my first cup of coffee. Original comment not relevant to this thread.
Non-sequitur.

[Lizcourt]

My dad always told me that your job while employed is to do everything your position and influence permit to make it a great company. But once you give notice, that’s no longer the case. It’s not your job ton”fix things” on the way out the door— in fact, you surrender that right by deciding to leave the organization. On the other hand, it’s also no longer their job, or right, to tell you what you could have done to be a better employee. Once you’ve given notice, they can’t hurt you anymore