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No mean stuff, just the best gags you’ve performed, been victim to or have witnessed. Inspired by Job Site Joker Topic.
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I had an apprentice working with me while doing some steel stud work. I sent him looking for some "laser fluid" to refill our laser. He was gone for about half an hour. He came back and asked if I needed blue or red fluid. I figured I better let him in the joke before he ruined my equipment.
*How about the painter who thought it would be cute to make his partner the same color they were spraying the powder room with? One amputation and a bankrupt contractor later no one laughed.Call me a spoil sport but no horseplay is acceptable on the job. Jokes are fine. But I've seen too many broken bodies over "funnies" to be amused. I'll bet you'll feel the same, or if not you, your insurance company.the best jobs are those with a high proportion of people who have their feces correlated..
*Left over hydraulic cement in a rookie's nail bags during lunch. No insurance investigators were called.
*Sorry Fred, Should've added to the opener "gags free of malice, danger, humiliation, anything that could lead to hurt bodies or feelings"And lawsuits.Luck
*How on earth does spraying someone with paint result in an amputation and a bankrupt contractor ?
*Luka, those airless sprayers will spray paint right through skin if held close. Like those "needeless" injections that just pump right through your skin. Paint is not user friendly inside your tissue. I don't know if the home style from HD will do it, but the big ones do. I do know that you can fill an airline with water for some cheap entertainment. An ice water bath first thing in the morning is fun to watch. The escalating retaliation gets out of hand sometimes, and you don't want to mess with the old guys. Joe H
*Don't know if this will work nowadays with most using air nailers to frame:Take a handful of bent 16d sinkers(never many bent ones on my jobs!) and slip them into your fastest nail banger's pouch right before they get going on a new wall....Great fun...no lawsuits.
*By the way,would NEVER fool around with an airless sprayer of any type.
*The first job i ever had in construction, i had an old-timer clue me not to put finish nails in my mouth--i thought he was referring to rust problems until i realized he was just too shy to tell me about the guys who thought peeing in the box was great sport with the rookies.
*we were doing a resturant remodel in downtown LA -there was a rodent problem here obviously, there were so many we used to have target practice at lunch time with our nail guns(don't think anyone actually hit one) Well, someone put a freshly dead one in my bags while I was out getting materials, when I reached in to grab my block plane and pulled out a rat, I screamed, dropped my bags, packed my tools. I was done for the day. everyone was on the ground laughing. me too the next daygb
*I once started a series of practical jokes with a guy, and it kinda escelated like was mentioned above. One day when it was my turn to get back at him, I just popped the hood of his truck when he wasn't looking. I didn't even open it - Just left it open to the 1st notch as if I had messed with the engine and hadn't gotten it closed tight afterwards. He stood looking at his engine for 10 minutes after work trying to figure out what I'd done.
*You're looking at around 3000 PSI coming out that small tip. You get it close enough to your skin and pull the trigger it will blow right through your skin. It can do some damage.
*Maybe I'm just no fun, but........I've always seen this sort of thing turn into trouble. Then you have two people mad at each other. I don't like it at work.Come to think of it, I don't much care for practical jokes at all. Just not my style.Ed. Williams
*Take one of those 3ft snapties that you see laying around and put on driveshaft of truck. Its great, 3 Texans going home in toyota drove around the jobsite about 5 mph trying to decide if the toy was going to make it back to Amarillo
*Two maintenance mechanics where I used to work got into it.Ray plugged the shop drinking fountain so Rick got sprayed getting a drink.Rick put a tray of water on Ray's Sun visor so he got soaked as he pulled out of the parking lot.Ray ran a hose through the drop ceiling right over the couch where Rick liked to sleep during lunch and turned on the water.Rick filled Ray's "fireman" boots to the top with water.Ray won. He took a 50 gallon plastic trashcan to the top of a 6 story building. Our shop was in the basement 7 floors below. Ray filled said can with water and chained it to the elevator shaft so he didn't accidentally drop it (safety first). Ray had gotten to work very, very early and was waiting. Rick was whistling to himself skipping down the steps to the shop. (I was sitting in my car watching...but had no idea Ray was on the roof) Rick lifted his key card up to slip it onto the slot and all the sudden he's hit by a 55 gallon slug of water moving at about 100 miles an hour. Rick turned on his heal, got into his car and didn't show up until the next day.
*Everytime I here of a new prank, It reaffirms how stupid and childish and dangerous it all is....So who is happier after?...no one...Everyone ends up a b Loser!near the stream,ajTouch my stuff onetime...try it.
*Housing estate in the winter on a flat site, heavy clay soil. The access road in to the site was crushed stone and the lorries were making ruts which filled with water. The foreman had the bright idea of excavating 4' x 4' x 4' pits up both sides of the road for the gully-pots and got the labourers to dig trenches across the ruts to drain them into the pits.It rained steadily all week and at the week-end it poured down. Come Monday and the site was a shallow lake with, at unknown intervals, these pits full of liquid mud.By lunch-time, two guys had gone home, soaked to the skin and everyone was walking around with a length of roofing batten, prodding the ground in front of them. When the guys complained, the foreman, a right miserable bastard, said "You should use your bloody eyes"Two carpenters found one of these pits, waited until the foreman was coming and stood just on the house side of the pit, holding a drawing -- "Can you check this detail for us?"All the pits were fenced the following day.
*For those who arc weld - take one of the plastic cover shields from the helmet and spray paint it black. Put it back in your buddies helmet, shiny side out. When they strike the arc, they hear the right sounds, but no light. My buddy kept trying, looking down the end of the MIG torch but couldn't figure it out. Ken
*The thing with the airless is a crime because the operator was not educated/qualified to run the equipment, you can also apply this to any operator of air/powder/diesel powered equipment. Ya, what we do is dangerous enough without idiots running loose, but you don't have to be drolls. As a matter of fact, some people just beg to be messed with.AJ said "don't mess with my tools", let me add don't mess with my space, my time, or my mind, or I am going to prank you. Count on it, life is too short, and I get kinda bored sometimes.
*The worst one I have seen was a hand who put hot melt glue in his coworkers tool pouch. I went ballistic but wasn,t able to fire the s%%$#t.
*I was sent for a "key" for a hydrostatic lock. Not knowing that was something that takes place when hydraulics lock up.Caterpiller "rookie".
*My son was installing foamboard for a drivet job and one of the newbies wanted to know how they bent it into arches.He told the new guy you have to hose it down to get it soft so it will bend.After about ten minutes of hosing, everyone on the scaffolding about fell to the ground they were laughing so hard.
*I was leadman on a resturant remodel that was on the 1st floor of a 17 story building-we had a bunch of holes that had been drilled thru the concrete deck that we had to fill. I instructed the laborer on how to fasten ply to the underside & let him go-hoping it would take him the rest of the day so he wouldn't bug me(I musta been having a bad day).He finished rather quickly, & since I didn't have anything for him to do I told him to insulate the holes. He didn't understand, I explained he needed to grab some of the fiberglass insluation that got thrown in the dumpster and take little strips and loosely fill the holes, leaving room for concrete. 45 mins later the GC asked James what he was doing, James confidently told him he was insulating the holes- I hear the GC yell "Greg! Get over here!"
*I once took lumber strapping,wrapped it around a co workers cooler and then naied the strapping to the floor..another time, I nailed somebodys nail pouches to the floor,took out his hammer and nailed that down right next to it...as you can tell, I have done this a number of times... did it to an ex sheetrocker once, came back from lunch and found my pouches SCREWED down..even I had to laugh at that..BTW all the nails are put through pre existing holes in the belts.. no ones tools get ruined
*I worked on a job where the youngest, and the biggest wise ass would take a break whenever he wanted to. One day he went into the portapotty. We proceded to duct tape the the door shut (with him in it) and tipped the john over. When he finally broke out, he was covered in blue liquid and you can guess what else. No damage to the john though.
*When I was a kid, I worked summers for a small renovation crew. Everybody was real friendly and we really enjoyed working as a team. One summer, I showed up and there was a new foreman. He was already used to working with the other 'full timers', but for some reason he just took to being a real jerk towards me. After one particularly gruelling day, I had a talk with him. I asked him why he was so interested in trying to humiliate me. He gave me a bunch of B.S. and told me I should lighten up.That evening I was over at a friends house with the gang. These guys were a pretty clever bunch of jokers. I was in a crappy mood and they decided it was a good reason to make my mood worse. One of them opened up a couple bags of potato chips and filled a bowl. He started passing them around, however, no one would share with me. I was ticked off and not about to take more abuse, so I barged in and grabbed a handful of chips. As I started to eat them, I noticed they had also put out a bowl of dip. Once again I had to fight my way to getting some. Once successful, I managed to greedily stuff my mouth full of CAT FOOD!The next day on the job site, I was sharing a bag of chips with the guys. The foreman came to help himself, and I told him to get lost. When he got upset, I told him to get a sense of humour. Eventually I offered him some chips, while one of the other guys made sure he would see the dip.Best lesson my friends ever taught me!
*For about a week we had been locking guys in the port-a-potty with 2x4s, the forklift or whatever was handy. One day I see my buddy go in, so I hop on the forklift and back up to the door to lock him in. Just as I'm getting ready to set the brake, my foot slipped off the clutch and knocks the potty over .That guy chased me around for half an hour.
*I am with aj and Ed. I have seen to many near miss acidents because someone wanted to have some fun at anothers expense. The behavior usually escalates with a life of its' own untill someone is hurt, fired, or gets in a fight.A coworker once nailed my boot lace to the roof when we were nailing off felt paper. Fotunately there was a 3 foot parapet wall at the end of the roof. I turned to start a run back the other way and almost sh*t myself when I fell. He got a bruised arm deflecting my hammer, and I got laid off. One bad joke!
*Here's one with a good outcome....(hopefully, that's the point, aside from a brief humerous diversion)My rehabed house is an old farmhouse. I had my drywall sub out, he had finished with the hangers and the next day the tapers came out. The D.W.'s son headed up the taping crew and he was the sort, being the bosses son, felt that the rules didn't apply to him. Of course, this caused a bit of resentment with the rest of the tapers. One of the things the son did was to show up late. And usually a little grumpy.Well, on this fine day the crew showed up, (less the son) and got started. At the time, bag mud was the way to go and the crew, (less the son) got to work.At about 10:00am the son shows up, a little grumpy, and did a walk-through, and anounced he was going to mix some mud."Where is the water" said the son.With out missing a beat, one of the other tapers said "The f#*&^ng plumber hasn't done the service entrance yet. We gotta use the hand pump out front"."The hand pump! Your sh#@$ing me!" exclaimed the son."Yeah, it's a bummer, but whatta gonna do?"So the son graps a bucket and heads out front, grumbling and now quite grumpy. He goes up to this ancient hand pump that hadn't tasted water in about 64 years and starts cranking this handle up and down, grumbling louder as the pace of his stokes increased."Faster" yelled one of the crew, as they assembled on the porch to watch the man make water."It ain't coming" cursed the son."Meybe you'll have to reprime that pump, we had to this morning" said one of the tapers named Jim."How do you do that?" said the son."Well, you take that hose over there and squirt some water down the spout". said JimAnd the son actually grabed the hose, dragged it over to the pump and was about to stick it down the spout, when he had his moment of clarity.He turned to us grinning and beat us to the laugh and we all roared. For some reason, the son showed up on time for the rest of the job and was a lot less uptight around the crew.Luck
*Guy with the best lunches (usually me) got his corned beef replaced by a shingle, roofing felt, window gasket...and a little caulk instead of mayo.
*On industrial jobs we usually ask the new apprentice(the bigger the better)if he's strong enough to bend ten welding rods around the back of his neck.Flux crackles down your shirt for an itchy afternoon.Most of these thread entries are all in fun and are part of the trades.Tipping the sh---er over though,you're asking for a beating.
*Once slipped my partner's parked truck into 4WD low. He was really flustered leaving the job at 5 MPH that day. Used to be able to set my mobile phone to blow the truck's horn in about 3 second intervals, beep, beep, beep... when a call came in. I was trimming out the 2nd floor of a house one day, and the phone calls kept coming. The other guys started to get a kick out of me runnning down the stairs and through the house in a fully loaded tool belt. Towards the end of the day, the horn starts blowing again, and I charge down to the truck. There's Dave the sider leaning in the window blowing the horn, and everybody else laying on the ground laughing at me. Next day, I let the air out of Dave's tires. You can't mess with just anybody, but you can tell who'll laugh. If you're willing to be the butt of some jokes yourself, and you're aware of the potential for danger, I think the occasional prank can be a morale builder. Four and half years after I stopped building and moved two states away, Dave the sider and I still stay in touch.Andy
*Andy, your story about the truck reminded about the time a fairly short(and good natured)co-worker showed up on the job with a new full size 4x4.We teased him about being able to get in and out.That afternoon,one of the guys wired 2x4 blocks to his brake and clutch pedals and gas pedal too.Clued in, we all waited to watch him get in his truck after work..Great reaction!He then held his hand up to let us know he thought his truck was #1!J.W.
*One day my partner and I were working in a customer's bedroom, putting installing some cabinets. It was really close quarters in there, and with all the tools spread around we were working in close proximity to each other. It was like the devil whispered in my ear. As I raked the tip of a phillips head screwdriver up his back with my left hand, I simultaneously pulled the trigger on the Skilsaw with my right. Naturally, he thought his spine was being severed with a power tool. He just about crapped his pants. Oh yeah, I forgot, these weren't supposed to be cruel.
*One of the guys on our crew got a new truck with all the bells and whistles, including air conditioning. This guy would go out to his truck and start it up a half hour before we were to knock off, so it would be nice and cool (very smug about it too). After a week of this bs I followed him out and when he left the truck I put his heat on instead. The whole crew and subs were on the deck laughing when he went out to a vehicle that must have been 150 degrees inside !
*I ran a framing crew years back and we were always playing jokes on each other. The one that turned out the best involved loading the new guys trunk full of cutoffs. I mean right up to the top. It took him 2 weeks to discover it and then he enlisted our help to return the joke on the Boss whom he had mistakenly identified as the perp. The Boss was good natured about it, but a little confused. I don't remember if we ever let on to either of them who the "real" perpetrators were or not, but i remember rolling on the floor laughing about it afterwards. The other thing that I did (to the same guy- he was really good natured) was to take a dead gopher I found and place it in his nail pouch. Man, the look on his face when he stuck his hand in there and grabbed that gopher!!!! They were always getting me back though. I got quite good at getting my truck off the 2x10 cutoffs stacked under the axles!!
*I've definately seen some good ones on this post so far, but here's more fuel for the fire....I sent my college boy apprentice to the lumber yard for a box of toenails last summer. The guy at the counter asked him if he wanted 8d or 16d.If you run the small 1/4 inch air fittings, you can slip an 8d sinker down the hole of the male end on the gun. reconnect the hose, and the head of the nail will block flow yet allow about four or five shots at a time, before driving the poor bastard absolutely crazy.A similar trick is to fold the air hose and wrap with wire, zip tie, or tape. The elasticity of the hose allows for a few progressively decompressive shots. The operator wont figure it out because the compressor still runs!!Anybody have the balls to give a small tack weld to their best buddies Knaack box yet??Back off the adjustable torque clutch on the someones cordless drill.. Always good for a chuckle.
*Not on the job but probably one of the best laughs I got was on my dad. He's one of those guys who always plays it cool and is real tough to get one over on.So we're looking over my new house and we go out to the shed (15x21). This thing was loaded wall to wall with stuff and we knew there were some animals taking up residence in it. We get in, look around, no animals in sight so we start wading through the junk and dad is investigating the collection of junk on a shelf (he loves junk). I noticed a 3 ft long hand-sickle and picked it up and ran the tip up the back of his thigh. He paused for a moment then leaped across the shed with a loud exclamation of profanity. once he caught on, he said that he wasn't really worried about animals in there but when it fianlly touched him on the ass, he was wondering how damned big it was!Pete
*My buddy Don and I are remodeing this house . Tearing out plaster and wood lath . I like to use a gas mask covers eyes and nose, he has face mask . The dogs were out of food so I go to pet store they sell the best cat toys look like real mice red eyes gray fur . I put this mouse in his mask and go home for the day. the next time mouse is not in mask ,he found it thought it was dead cause [it didn't move] to cheep to trash mask he took A stick and dug it out only to find toy . we took it to lumber yard so the counter guy could play
*Try this one....take a small piece of wire about 2" from from a strand of braided copper wire(speaker wire will work). Wrap it between the two plugs of your unplugged skil saw, and ask the new guy to reach down and plug it in for you. The wire will complete the circuit and make fireworks, it will scare the @#$$% out of anyone....
*When I worked for my Uncle I started out as the gopher, well one day the guys write "honk for good head " on the back of my truck and "hold me I'm gay" on the passenger side ,in the dirt of my dirty truck. So I go to the lumber yard , Burger King , the bank and the grocery store. The whole time people are honking and laughing all the way thru town. I get back to the job site and I still dont have a clue why everyones laughing .I take one load inside the house and return for another and see what was so funny.For about a month before we left the job we would walk around our trucks and look for hidden messages.
*A few years back I was going home for the day. I couldn't find my car keys anywhere. I Looked for a half an hour before is saw the smirk on one of the guys' faces.Got my keys back and went outside. He had a new Cheve. Pulled the wire off his distributer. He missed it and got a ride home after cranking it for half hour.David
*Not a prank exactly ....some years back a friend of mine was helping on a bathroom remodel. He had commented to me about two toilets in the bathroom. Seems he had to go like a racehorse. They heard the tinkle, the flush, and then some serious cussin' ...out comes my friend all wet ......it was a bidet.
*We showed up to trim one day and the painters (we're all buddies) are there. On of them had found a dead racoon stuck in a pretty comical position. He knew that racoon was worth something, so he brought it along.It was January and that guy was extra stiff, standing up with one hand straight out in front and the other straight up in the air. The painter's boss was late, because NC State (his team) and UNC (my team) had played basketball the night before, the Heels won, of course.Lucky for me, I had a little Carolina flag, stuck it in the coon's hand, and put them both in the boss's driver's seat. The coon's other hand just fit on the steering wheel. Needless to say, we better not lose to State anytime soon.Go heels...
*Okay, here's a stupid and dangerous one. An electrician opened a newly wired switch box, and twisted the wires to both ends of a length of pencil lead. Broke the pencil to about 3 inches long, used a knife to expose a 3/8 of an inch of lead on each end and wrapped the wires so electric would flow through and closed up the box.A few minutes later, his buddy turned on the breaker to test. What looked like a pound of smoke poured out of this box. Funny in a scary way.
*Back in highschool I was working in a service station. The head mechanic and I were always playing pranks on eachother. The classic one was to sneek into a car when one of us was under the hood, and either honk the horn, or set off the alarm. The very last time I ever did this was when a regular customer brought in his new Jimmy. Randy (the mechanic) was under the hood. I slipped into the driver's seat and pushed the remote to set of the alarm....The engine started and nearly took off his hands. This was the first time I had ever even heard of a remote starter. I don't play pranks anymore. (yeah...right!)
*I used to work on a crew setting up Home Depot stores. Needless to say there was a security issue once the product started getting stocked-all the contractors & vendors had to check in & out, wear name tags, & have all tool boxes & bags checked for goodies on the way out. A handload of us hit the local pub after most days. A couple days after the sensormatic guys had their stuff set up(the magnetic shoplifting alarm system) I found one of the magnets on the ground & tossed it into a buddies tool box when noone was around. At the end of the day I announce "Last one to the bar buys the first round!"When those sensormatic systems are fresh sometimes they are a bit over sensitive- which is what Jeff thought was the case until the girl at the door made him unload his entire tool box & they found the magnet. Jeff was all smiles & middle fingers walking into the pub- I don't think he had to buy anything that day.gb
*Nice to see the Depot guys treat the contractors with the same dignity whether their building the store or shopping there. :)
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No mean stuff, just the best gags you've performed, been victim to or have witnessed. Inspired by Job Site Joker Topic.
Luck