Story mode.
I worked at a place that did network stuff over one-way satellite. It was a fun job, great people.
There were quite a few personalities working there, and we had a great deal of fun. One of them, let's call him "Maggot," was a bit of a troublemaker.
The trouble was, he could never think of anything to do to people.
Me, on the other hand, I'm the opposite. I come up with horrid things to do to folks, but I would never even consider doing any of them.
It's not that great an idea to mix two folks like that tho.
Well, one day, we drive down to the NOC because we're too lazy to order our own food - we make the NOC supervisor go out and pick up our food (on the condition that we pay for his food, so not such a bad deal). While he's gone, I notice a box full of packing peanuts.
"Wouldn't it be funny," I said, "If he got back from getting our food and found these packing peanuts spread all over his desk in thanks?"
Mag's eyes lit up. He raced over, grabbed the box, bounded back to the super's desk with a Stimpy-like joyful expression on his face, and upturned it grandly. Peanuts scattered everywhere around his desk.
But immediately you could watch him deflate. The moment was gone now and it wasn't as satisfying as he had hoped.
So he discarded the box and with an impish grin started picking up individual peanuts and finding hiding places for them.
Several peanuts went in the Christmas gifts he had bought for his family (wife and son). Several peanuts went in his pen holders, and other assorted items on his desk. Drawers were not immune to the spread of peanuts. I eventually was persuaded into involvement and put some peanuts within a jigsaw-puzzle-vendorware (those six-sided foam puzzles). I placed a few slices of packing peanut in his CD cases, which were neatly sorted on the wall, as well as sandwiching a few inbetween the empty slots.
But the piece de la resistance...I removed the foam cover from the end of his phone headset, crammed a peanut in it, and put it back on.
He thought it was pretty funny. By now he'd gotten used to Mag's antics. He took it remarkably well, but managed to make both of us very happy by finding the peanuts slowly over the course of the evening (and we were making no attempt to help him). "Fuckers!" he'd cry every 10 minutes or so. Then over the course of the next few days we'd get intermittent "Subject: Fuckers!" email from him, describing the peanut he had just now found. It was a gift that just kept on giving.
We forgot about it until he found the peanuts in his gifts on Christmas day. We told him it made our Christmas.
Two years later, I'm working at a different company. I get email from him. The subject is, "You Fucker!" which wouldn't normally be all that strange except that I hadn't heard from him since leaving.
He had just found the peanut in his headset. He explained that he had, for the last two years, been shouting to customers over his headset, had repeated problems losing his voice because of it, and was just in the process of trying to convince his management to buy him a new headset when he found the peanut.
I closed my eyes and relished the moment. It was a good day. It lasted two years.
I worked at a place that did network stuff over one-way satellite. It was a fun job, great people.
There were quite a few personalities working there, and we had a great deal of fun. One of them, let's call him "Maggot," was a bit of a troublemaker.
The trouble was, he could never think of anything to do to people.
Me, on the other hand, I'm the opposite. I come up with horrid things to do to folks, but I would never even consider doing any of them.
It's not that great an idea to mix two folks like that tho.
Well, one day, we drive down to the NOC because we're too lazy to order our own food - we make the NOC supervisor go out and pick up our food (on the condition that we pay for his food, so not such a bad deal). While he's gone, I notice a box full of packing peanuts.
"Wouldn't it be funny," I said, "If he got back from getting our food and found these packing peanuts spread all over his desk in thanks?"
Mag's eyes lit up. He raced over, grabbed the box, bounded back to the super's desk with a Stimpy-like joyful expression on his face, and upturned it grandly. Peanuts scattered everywhere around his desk.
But immediately you could watch him deflate. The moment was gone now and it wasn't as satisfying as he had hoped.
So he discarded the box and with an impish grin started picking up individual peanuts and finding hiding places for them.
Several peanuts went in the Christmas gifts he had bought for his family (wife and son). Several peanuts went in his pen holders, and other assorted items on his desk. Drawers were not immune to the spread of peanuts. I eventually was persuaded into involvement and put some peanuts within a jigsaw-puzzle-vendorware (those six-sided foam puzzles). I placed a few slices of packing peanut in his CD cases, which were neatly sorted on the wall, as well as sandwiching a few inbetween the empty slots.
But the piece de la resistance...I removed the foam cover from the end of his phone headset, crammed a peanut in it, and put it back on.
He thought it was pretty funny. By now he'd gotten used to Mag's antics. He took it remarkably well, but managed to make both of us very happy by finding the peanuts slowly over the course of the evening (and we were making no attempt to help him). "Fuckers!" he'd cry every 10 minutes or so. Then over the course of the next few days we'd get intermittent "Subject: Fuckers!" email from him, describing the peanut he had just now found. It was a gift that just kept on giving.
We forgot about it until he found the peanuts in his gifts on Christmas day. We told him it made our Christmas.
Two years later, I'm working at a different company. I get email from him. The subject is, "You Fucker!" which wouldn't normally be all that strange except that I hadn't heard from him since leaving.
He had just found the peanut in his headset. He explained that he had, for the last two years, been shouting to customers over his headset, had repeated problems losing his voice because of it, and was just in the process of trying to convince his management to buy him a new headset when he found the peanut.
I closed my eyes and relished the moment. It was a good day. It lasted two years.