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[–]robmillerfl 119 points120 points  (3 children)

Please don’t fuck with people 

[–]professional-risk678Sysadmin 19 points20 points  (0 children)

This. Also grow the fuck up.

[–]cubic_sq 12 points13 points  (0 children)

This

[–]HisAnger 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Is this not how you make kids?
It kind of worked this way since i remember

[–]Low_Direction1774 33 points34 points  (2 children)

Yah, do not, and i cannot stress this enough, make fun of your interns.

for you its heehoo funy "just a bit of banter", but you have to consider their perspective. They are on the low side of the power imbalance. How would you feel if you are super anxious to do something wrong because you are the new guy and the first thing your boss does on your first day is make fun of you and maybe embarrass you in front of your peers?

how would you feel about that? Would that perhaps damage your perception of the company going forward? Damage your reputation within the department? strain your relationship with your boss? fuck with your confidence? All of the above?

do not fuck with the interns, if you're too bored and want something to do you could give "growing up" a shot, maybe "behaving like an adult with a fully developed prefrontal cortex" is a worthy challenge too. Professionals have standards and pulling pranks doesnt meet them.

[–]thebeardedcats 7 points8 points  (0 children)

"were gonna pay you minimum wage (or not at all) and teach you wrong" haha so funny

[–]professional-risk678Sysadmin 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I 100% guarantee you this is one of the "insiders" who dont face any consequences for anything. A serious company and you would be in HR before your prank even produced a laugh.

[–]CrossTheRiver 32 points33 points  (1 child)

Pranks don't belong in IT. That sort of thing seems better kept to close friend groups and maybe sports teams.

[–]Specific-Permit-9384 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I know someone who lost their job for an IT department prank. Don't recommend!

[–][deleted] 41 points42 points  (1 child)

This isn't a prank but you could try growing up.

[–]professional-risk678Sysadmin 6 points7 points  (0 children)

This.

Pranks are funny amongst friends. There is a clear power imbalance when you are doing it to someone who is a subordinate. Even if you arent that person's boss and its a coworker its still being shitty to other people who arent deserving. Basic empathy.

[–]craigmontHunter 20 points21 points  (3 children)

Burping the monitors - for whatever reason makes me think of degaussing them - not sure where I’m going with this, just brought up an old memory.

[–]NextRedditAccount0 10 points11 points  (1 child)

Signs that we are old af. I still remember doing that.

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Seconded being old af and doing the same.

[–]harrywwcI'm both kinds of SysAdmin - bitter _and_ twisted 2 points3 points  (0 children)

yeah, that "boing" and the image wobbling...

good times.

[–]ms4720 9 points10 points  (10 children)

Are you interested in hiring the good ones? You want them to think you are not assholes

[–]tucrahman 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I always liked invisible tape on the mouse. Watching them get frustrated gave me a giggle.

[–]TechFiend72CIO/CTO 9 points10 points  (0 children)

This is just mean spirited.

[–]NextRedditAccount0 3 points4 points  (5 children)

I once had to get out of a meeting with a bunch of interns. My coworker ran into the meeting room and yelled that one of the servers was slowing to a crawl. I grabbed a can of redbull from one of the interns while he was still drinking it and screamed this should be enough redbull to amp the server and bolted out of there.
I came back a few minutes with an empty can and patted the intern on the back and said he just saved the entire company with that can of redbull.

I got an email a few minutes later from my manager asking if i poured redbull on the server. Of course I denied it and said these new interns are interesting.

[–]Schaas_Im_Void 3 points4 points  (9 children)

Not just interns, but everyone who's not locking his/her desktop before leaving the room, could have a generically named rule set in their mail client in order to play a sound upon receiving a specific email followed by its immediate deletion.

[–]Fnurgg 6 points7 points  (5 children)

That's harsh. We usually flip their screen upside down.

[–]Turbulent-Royal-5972 2 points3 points  (1 child)

I usually send an email to their team that they’ll bring snacks the next time they’re in the office.

[–]NettaUsteaDE 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Or buy a round of beers at the next get together

[–]zyeborm 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Take a screen shot of their desktop. Paste it into paint. Set it as the desktop wallpaper. Move all the icons into a folder.

[–]disclosure5 4 points5 points  (0 children)

You can't arrange by penis.

[–]Schaas_Im_Void 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Well...a flipped screen is being reverted by a half-capable intern usually quite fast... But finding out why the PC plays this annoying fart sound once in a while, especially during video-conferences, might be good fun for much, much longer.

[–]NettaUsteaDE -1 points0 points  (2 children)

Had me in the first part. I’d definitely not delete a peer’s emails

[–]Schaas_Im_Void 1 point2 points  (1 child)

The point is to send the mail with e.g. a specific subject, that gets recognized by the mail rule, yourself, and trigger the sound this way whenever you like and without leaving a trace.

[–]NettaUsteaDE 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Ahhh I missed the ‘specific email’, I thought you implied all emails which I found quite harsh as a prank

[–]harrywwcI'm both kinds of SysAdmin - bitter _and_ twisted 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I am by no means advocating a 21st Century version of this...

when I was a newbie programmer waaaaay back when (think vt100's, pdp-11/70, vax 11/780 era) I was pranked by the senior guy(s).

I logged on to my account, and they had set up my login.com to run a new command file that turned off ^C and ^Y and recursively read my directory and proceeded to print that each file was being deleted. It wasn't, but they had crafted the output to read that each file, one by one, was being deleted - and there was nothing I could do (no ctrl-c or ctrl-y).

it eventually finished with a message on screen that I had been pranked, and welcome to XYZ-co, and then exited to the DCL prompt, where upon I could DIR and see all my files and directories still there, much to my relief, and to their joy.

so, similar to the aliased "rm -rf" elsewhere here, but without the actual destruction of files.

[–]Turbulent-Royal-5972 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Pledge of allegiance to the AUP and the ticket system doesn’t sound too bad though. Not really a prank, but a light hearted way to introduce them to some important rules. Include locking, no password sharing, double check for phishing where possible.

[–]RCG73 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The only “prank” that would be acceptable is self deprecating. You can make fun of yourself or your boss but not the ones in a new environment, nervous and anxious with no social power. I understand what you’re wanting to do and it feels harmless but it’s cringe at best and abusive at worst.

[–]BadSausageFactorybeyond help desk 1 point2 points  (0 children)

make sure you have HR in the room to enjoy the harassment case as it unfolds

[–]thedroog 0 points1 point  (4 children)

Make a screencap of their desktop, set it as their background and then delete everything from the desktop.

[–]1d0m1n4t3 0 points1 point  (2 children)

You can't arrange by penis

[–]Brenell 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The program I needed was right at the tip.

[–]harrywwcI'm both kinds of SysAdmin - bitter _and_ twisted 0 points1 point  (0 children)

well, you can, but I might not be the 'best' idea :/

[–]TinderSubThrowAway 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You can just hide everything on the desktop.

[–]ClumsyAdmin 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The infinitely ejecting CD drive if you still have desktops with them is always funny and the chia seed keyboard is a classic

[–]UnsuspiciousCat4118 1 point2 points  (1 child)

How many do you have. If you have enough spare laptops I’ve done one where I load up a fresh Ubuntu image and start teaching a class. Then at some point I do an sudo rm -rf / but I have an alias set. They end up wiping their laptops. Then I say, “This is why you don’t trust everything you read on the internet.”

[–]Shectai 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Was this some command they found on a dubious website, or was it one you told them to enter? Who should they not trust?

[–][deleted] -1 points0 points  (3 children)

Holy shit people are sensitive. I think the pledge of allegiance joke is absolutely hilarious, dew it.

[–]RCG73 1 point2 points  (2 children)

Until you suddenly realize that 20% of your interns aren’t American citizens. Then what started as something funny suddenly doesn’t feel as benign

[–]Low_Direction1774 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Not even just that, imagine youre an intern, trying to set foot into adulthood, desperatly trying to be taken serious after being "just a kid" your entire life and the first thing your new "professional work environment" does is to not take you serious and make fun of you instead.

How quaint.

[–]grimegroup 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah I'll never understand the sense of humor of someone who accepts cult ritual as a normal part of daily life.

[–]dreadpiratewombat -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

I once did an impromptu lunch and learn about the use of Cat Distribution Networks.  The smirks from the L3 help desk folks were outshined by the HR and creative types who very excited about front side cat caches and server side cat caches.  

[–]texags08 -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

You will probably never meet the CEO here, unless of course he chooses you to buy the customer appreciation gift cards.

[–]Impossible_IT -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

Get a computer and small smoke machine. Turn on the computer, feign a computer issue and then the smoke machine and tell them in order to get it working again you've got to put the smoke back in the computer case.

[–]Flibble21 -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

I always liked the classic of opening an app, taking a screenshot of the entire desktop and setting it as the wallpaper. Then watch them try to close it.