Business 102: Friday, Period 3, Class 12
When the students walked in today, they would see every piece of furniture in the room covered in bubble wrap, including their desks and chairs, Jim's desk and chair, the TV, and the dry erase board.
*****
"Well, I had some bubble wrap left over from the staff meeting a couple weeks ago, and I do have a class the day after April Fool's...." Jim made a face at the camera.
*****
"You're going to have coworkers you don't like. It's human nature. Not everyone likes everyone. But then you're going to get some coworkers who just drive you completely insane because they're just so serious, or so clearly a cruel dictator in a past life, or they just reek of beats from their beat farm, or they're just such a kiss up to the boss, or they're just the single most aggravating person you could ever possibly meet in your life."
Jim paused and took a breath. "For me, all of those things were wrapped up in a guy named Dwight."
*****
"I considered making up a fake name just so Angela doesn't know about too many of her future coworkers, but then I thought, 'No, just name him,' and I couldn't really argue with that logic."
*****
"When you really got down to it, it's not like he was a really bad person some of the time. He was just irritating, and seemed to enjoy the reactions he got from people because it proved that he was superior. And since my desk was right next to his, I had to put up with this every single minute of every day."
"And so I made it my mission in that office to take him down a few notches every day. Sometimes I would do that by outselling him, but mostly? I resorted to pranks. I'll be the first to admit, it was childish. It was definitely immature. It was unprofessional. But at the time, it was also a lot of fun."
"I worked with him for about five years, so I had plenty of time to do things like move his desk into the bathroom before he got into work for the morning. Or the one time I got access to the vending machine and put everything from his desk into it. But that one was at a personal expense. I made sure he had enough change to get everything back. Once, Dwight thought it was Friday when it was actually Thursday, so I helped reinforce that idea throughout the day so he'd miss work on Friday, thinking it was Saturday. I made him hit his face with his phone once, which took some work and a lot of nickels. But the best one was one I didn't even come up with. I found his wallet in the parking lot and, at a friend's suggestion, did absolutely nothing to it. I just gave it back to him. Dwight immediately started canceling his credit cards because he didn't believe me."
"So they really range from the time-consuming and way over-complicated, to simple things that just took a bit of work, to doing nothing at all, and they helped the work day move along without me going insane," Jim said, vaguely aware that the point was arguable considering how many pranks he listed. "And while it got on Dwight's nerves, it was all harmless. The phone didn't bruise or anything."
"Anyway, that's how I've dealt with one specific annoying coworker in the past. And I should point out that if you do anything like that to your classmates or teachers, somebody - not me, clearly - is probably going to give you detention. But out in the workplace, if you have a boss who's lenient enough, it can help you get through your day."
"So, with that disclaimer out of the way, who wants to share a prank story? Oh, and I'm not assigning it as homework since that would be wrong, but if you pranked somebody this week and decided to write up a brief explanation of what you did and turned it in to me, I would absolutely not read it and absolutely not laugh a little bit. Just to be clear."
*****
"Well, I had some bubble wrap left over from the staff meeting a couple weeks ago, and I do have a class the day after April Fool's...." Jim made a face at the camera.
*****
"You're going to have coworkers you don't like. It's human nature. Not everyone likes everyone. But then you're going to get some coworkers who just drive you completely insane because they're just so serious, or so clearly a cruel dictator in a past life, or they just reek of beats from their beat farm, or they're just such a kiss up to the boss, or they're just the single most aggravating person you could ever possibly meet in your life."
Jim paused and took a breath. "For me, all of those things were wrapped up in a guy named Dwight."
*****
"I considered making up a fake name just so Angela doesn't know about too many of her future coworkers, but then I thought, 'No, just name him,' and I couldn't really argue with that logic."
*****
"When you really got down to it, it's not like he was a really bad person some of the time. He was just irritating, and seemed to enjoy the reactions he got from people because it proved that he was superior. And since my desk was right next to his, I had to put up with this every single minute of every day."
"And so I made it my mission in that office to take him down a few notches every day. Sometimes I would do that by outselling him, but mostly? I resorted to pranks. I'll be the first to admit, it was childish. It was definitely immature. It was unprofessional. But at the time, it was also a lot of fun."
"I worked with him for about five years, so I had plenty of time to do things like move his desk into the bathroom before he got into work for the morning. Or the one time I got access to the vending machine and put everything from his desk into it. But that one was at a personal expense. I made sure he had enough change to get everything back. Once, Dwight thought it was Friday when it was actually Thursday, so I helped reinforce that idea throughout the day so he'd miss work on Friday, thinking it was Saturday. I made him hit his face with his phone once, which took some work and a lot of nickels. But the best one was one I didn't even come up with. I found his wallet in the parking lot and, at a friend's suggestion, did absolutely nothing to it. I just gave it back to him. Dwight immediately started canceling his credit cards because he didn't believe me."
"So they really range from the time-consuming and way over-complicated, to simple things that just took a bit of work, to doing nothing at all, and they helped the work day move along without me going insane," Jim said, vaguely aware that the point was arguable considering how many pranks he listed. "And while it got on Dwight's nerves, it was all harmless. The phone didn't bruise or anything."
"Anyway, that's how I've dealt with one specific annoying coworker in the past. And I should point out that if you do anything like that to your classmates or teachers, somebody - not me, clearly - is probably going to give you detention. But out in the workplace, if you have a boss who's lenient enough, it can help you get through your day."
"So, with that disclaimer out of the way, who wants to share a prank story? Oh, and I'm not assigning it as homework since that would be wrong, but if you pranked somebody this week and decided to write up a brief explanation of what you did and turned it in to me, I would absolutely not read it and absolutely not laugh a little bit. Just to be clear."