Factory pranks

[neksmerj]

I bet all of us at some stage have had a prank pulled on you in the factory, or else where.

How many apprentices have been sent down the street for a tin of stripped paint, or a left handed hammer, long weight etc or told to ring Mr Lion only to find the phone number is the zoo.

Of course you can't get away with pranks today, it could be called harassment and might evoke a visit from OH&S.

When I worked for the SEC, we always pulled pranks on one of the lift drivers, Harold, who was a few kangaroos short in the top paddock. Brown paper soaked in water can be moulded into the most realistic dog sh*t and was frequently dropped in his lift.

I could go on but I'd like to hear about the pranks you pulled.

Ken

[texx]

old bloke at work back in the 70s always had a snooze at luch time with his feet up on his welding bench , me being a you pr**k undone his boot alces very very carfully then tied one to the other and welded a strap across the knot of the laces then stayed well out of the way for the rest of the day .
same old fella used to cart half a chemist shop of tablets that he lived on in his lunch port which was an old gladstone bag some of you will know what they are . anyway late arvo he would have hos gladstone bag ready on the end of his bench ready for a quick getaway at knock off time grab the bag and run for his fc holden in an attempt to miss some of the traffic rush . he made the mistake of going to the dunny one day so i tacked the corners of his gladstone bag to the bench , he charged through the workshop and grabbed his bag on the way through and all he got was the handle he ripped it clean off.
it was all revenge though for the stuff he did to me and another young bloke .
there was another fella that worked there as a welder he had polio as a kid and had those metal strap things down both sides of one leg s o of course he got welded to the bench when ever he nodded off at lunch .

johno

[YBAF]

I seem to remember acetylene bombs were always an attention grabber :U

[KBs PensNmore]

That was a real bugger, welding on pipes and some clown would set the oxy acetylene down the pipe till it got to where you were welding, scare the bejesus out of you and bring the dust down from the rafters and trusses. The other trick was to put paper between the welding lenses so you couldn't see, or carbon soot inside the cutting goggles, you ended up with a dirty mark where the goggles sat. Measuring to a long length or squaring and they held the tape over or under so what you thought was the correct length wasn't or wasn't square.
Kryn

[sacc51]

Not really a prank but:

My first job was in a metal fab factory in York St Subiaco. The factory used to be a house many eons ago so it had the obligatory outside dunny down the back. Behind the dunny about 20’ away was the spray booth and paint locker. Also behind the dunny, about a foot away was a 44 gallon drum used as an incinerator. Great place for an incinerator, no OH&S in the 60s.

Every morning the incinerator had to be lit and the previous days rubbish burnt off, a job normally given to the left handed hammer and long weight fetcher - me. Standard method was to chuck in a liberal amount of thinners, stand back and chuck in a match. One morning I dutifully chucked in the thinners, realized I didn’t have any matches so went off in search of some.

Not too long after that Fred the painter came down, saw I hadn’t burnt off yet so he also chucked some thinners in the incinerator (probably called me a few names) and as he wasn’t a smoker went off to find some matches also. Whilst Fred and I were rummaging around, inside looking for matches blissfully unaware of each other, the foreman came down, saw the incinerator wasn’t lit yet (probably called me a few names also) and he also threw in a liberal amount of thinners (that’s three lots now), the foreman was a smoker and he did have matches, sooo ???

As luck would have it (good or bad, depending on your viewpoint) Jeff, one of the welders was in the dunny for his morning constitutional when the foreman chucked his match in. Jeff and his father lived above a cool room, dad picked up bodies for a living and Jeff helped him after hours for extra cash (another story). Not sure what dad looked like, but Jeff was a tall skinny fellow who always wore gray overalls and looked remarkably like an undertaker, although he was possessed with a sense of humour and was always laughing at something.- not this morning however.

The resulting explosion knocked a few bricks loose from around the cross shaped vent at the back of the dunny (remember those) and they went tumbling down inside the dunny, much to Jeff’s dismay I’m sure, a couple of them glancing against his shoulders and head and knocking a bit of bark off, The foreman, standing a little too close, didn’t enjoy the resulting fireball a great deal either, but he did get a free singe for his hair and mustache.

Fred and myself heard the almighty bang and raced outside just in time to see Jeff crawling out of the dunny on all fours, overalls around his ankles, an unseemly looking undertaker

The boss, a Czech with a very heavy accent (couldn’t say ‘lamington’ so every lunchtime when I asked what he wanted for lunch he would ask for a ‘freckly black ni22er cake’, but he’s another story) and a strange sense of humour was killing himself laughing, leaning one hand against the wall sputtering ‘you Australians so funny’ .

[shedhappens]

I was doing a factory extension at Mornington a few years ago and a drinking buddy of mine was doing some brickwork there, his name was Chris,
I knocked off this day and went to open the car door, an XE Falcon, and there hiding under the handle was a cleverly placed large amount of
graphite grease, I looked over at the brickies and none were looking my way but judging by their body movements there was an immense amount
of chuckling going on, I laughed and quietly swore as I was wondering what to do with these gooey black fingers.
I was sitting watching the idiot box later that night pondering the come back...... and there it was, divine intervention you could say.
A huntsman bigger than my hand wandered out from behind the squawk box, this bricky mate of mine was huge rough and tough... but he was
very very scared of spiders, even idy biddy little ones. hehe.
I caught him and put him in a tupperware container and went off and found a Doctor Pat tobacco tin, he used to keep his hoochy cooch in those tins so
I thought this would be a good attraction to him, I wrote inside the tin with a texta "To Chris from greasy' and then knocked 3 or 4 holes in the bottom with a nail and
placed my new little hairy friend within.
The following morning I found his bucket of rust (brickies tools in a 20ltr drum) and I deposited the Dr Pat tin under a couple of trowels.
Unfortunately that day was a no show for Chris, then it was a no show for another week and a half, Chris had gone on a bender.
His bucket of rust was moved to another job and with time marching on I wondered how my new hairy friend had faired a couple of
frosty mornings with no tucker.
Eventually Chris turned up to work, disheveled bleary eyed and with his tail between his legs.
From what I was told the brickies labourer took the bucket of rust up onto the 2 mtr scaffold and as Chris reached in to grab his trowel
and immediately the treasure and plucked it out, he said the labourer have you given me a prezzie? No replied the labourer, Chris shook
the tin beside his ear and said with glee "there's a bud in here" and with that he twisted the lid and brought the tin to his nose and opened
lid just slightly to smell the glorious aroma, but instead of a sensuous aroma he felt tickling in his nostrils and the brickies labourer jumped.
Chris instantly cast his now wide open bleary eye's on the tin to see my new friends long hairy legs sticking out the crack waving frantically,
spoze it was lucky that Chris was standing longitudinally on the scaffold eh, there was a catastrophic burst of three directional explosive energy,
the tin and lid shot forward to left and right at supersonic speed and Chris time warped rearwards about 8 feet, the labourer told me that
after about 5 seconds the startled and shocked look on Chris's face changed to one of anger with murderous intent as he beamed his gaze
at the labourer, "no no no it wasn't me" he said as he now feared for his future, lol
Chris now held his chest as his pump had nearly exploded and the labourer retrieved the tin and lid for a closer inspection.

"To Chris from greasy" the mind was churning over, "what" "who"
"when I find out who did this I'm going to .........."
It took him 3 days to work out who greasy was
and he told everyone he was gunna do some serious damage to me, hahaha, I met him up the pub and we drunk about 30 pots and laughed like hell.

shed

[grd]

First job out of school and I was sent to get a "long weight". "Oh ffs, how stupid do you think I am?" and headed off to the canteen where I sat and read the paper for half an hour or so when the bloke who sent me off came looking for me.

[RayG]

Send the apprentice to the store for a can of striped paint, or a bottle of blue sparks. The ones that complain the most are always the first to play the same tricks later when the next batch of apprentices arrives.

Handing someone a charged capacitor and wiring reversed tantalums (they explode with lots of smoke) are the electronic equivalent.

I recall a crew from Melbourne visiting a local transmitter site with a VERY VERY expensive RF modulation analyser ( I think $100,000+ ), they wouldn't let the locals touch it, so when they went on break, one local guy slipped a lit cigarette into the back of the cabinet, when they came back, there was smoke pouring out of the back of their expensive toy... the panic was something to behold.

No sense of humor those guys.


Ray

[sacc51]

Many years ago a tea boy decided to play a trick on one of the tradies, he cut up a piece of foam rubber, iced it and rolled it in coconut. When the trady asked for a lamington the tea boy went off and came back with his home made one. Trady hopped into the lamington, the foam got stuck in his throat and said trady choked to death.

[wheelinround]

I saw sadly at two places I was an apprentice serious injury and total degradation of a couple of apprentices I was glad to see the end of it. I was not one of those.

Yes bucket of sparks. long wait, left handed screw driver they were all done no harm and the one I got done with was sent to the store for I can never recall but the storeman and I had a great chat for ages, he then asked shouldn't I go back to work! Why? Its my turn now to make the mechanic wonder whats taking so long. Sure enough Alex the supervisor walked round the corner and hit the roof. 7 apprentices were missing on missions to locate stupid requests.

[sacc51]

I can remember a young bloke starting in York St, fell for every single setup, they never let up on this bloke. Ever day his mum and sister would come to pick him up, his sister had downes and was quite sociable with everyone. A couple of the younger blokes thought it would be funny if they were to tell her I was keen on her. She paid quite a bit of attention to me after that, followed me everywhere, I wondered what was going on. Eventually they let me in on the 'joke' and I just laughed it off. Even though I never played long with them, looking back I think my behaviour was abysmal, I really should have said something, hindsight is a great thing in hindsight. Shortly after someone let it slip to mum and not long after the young bloke left. Different values back then, not everything was good in the good old days!

[Mike4]

Send the new apprentice to get some rubber electrodes to join the conveyor belt, weld the senior fitters toolbox to the bench, fill lunch bag of the guy who was always first out the door at finish time , with 1" plate offcuts.

And the usual oxy acet filled paper bags.

Michael

[simonl]

On night shift we are allowed to go to bed after 11:00pm once all our duties are finished for the night. We each have our own dorm and bed which we usually make at the start of shift. Some smart ar*e decided to get a saline drip from one of the ambo's and put it between my matice and base, with the drip line sitting just under my sheets. Of course once you jump into bed, your weight squeezes the bag and saline goes everywhere under your sheets.

Putting a clock radio locked in someones locker, set to go off at some ridiculous time is also another oldie.

My boss was due to attend a formal occasion requiring the wearing of his formal dress uniform. Our dress uniform usually sits in our locker 99% of the time doing nothing, until you need it on some special occasion and so you never really inspect it and assume it's all OK. I decided to bring in our sewing machine and sew a seam across one leg of his trousers…..

In recruits we bricked up someones locker. When he opened his locker, all he saw was a brick wall.

In the days when all computer screens were CRT's, one particular person (who was a computer geek) took the boss's computer screen apart and re-installed the actual screen unside down back in it's case so that the image was "upside down". The poor boss (who was computer illiterate) spent the whole day fidling with vertical hold and every other adjustment of the screen and then ended up nearly throwing it!

That same person I remember running after me trying to zap me with a megger.

I've had my locker filled with bean bag beads. I've had the legs of my bed removed and then they sat the bed on coke cans.

When someone buys a new car and won't shut up about how good it is, well there's a couple of options here:

inject about 100ml of diesel into their muffler. When they get down the road and it warms up, it starts to smoke like crazy. or, put a couple of large cable ties on their drive shaft. The excess length will make a terrible noise when driving. A tin of tuna or sardines down the air vent is probably going a bit too far…..

Occasionally, a 12V siren my find it's way under someones bed and somehow manage to be remotely activated.

Door to a dorm may somehow get superglued shut so that when we get a call, the only way out is to climb through the window.

During rescue training in the old days it was not unusual for the "victim" in the stretcher to be hoisted vertically up the hose tower and left for half the morning.

I remember spending nearly an hour hiding in someones locker, waiting for them to go to bed so I could jump out and scare the out of them.

In the time before we had keyless entry in cars, it was a good prank to freeze peoples car keys in a block of ice in the freezer. In fact we went through a period where anything left lying around would end up in the freezer. Shirts, keys, coffee mugs, etc. etc.

There was a time when people would come in off the street to hand in distress flares after they had expired. We used to use them for training….. well until we got a bit silly and nearly burn someones car. Now they are banned….

In the old days when the entire shift would sleep together in a single room, every bedside table would have a bible. In the middle of the night it was not unusual for a "bat" to fly across the room and hit you in the head!

It's rumoured that many years ago a goat was found wandering in a 000 call centre.

Hundreds more where these came from...

Simon

[neksmerj]

Simonl, what an absolute vandal you were, you must have been a mischievous kid, same as me.

At Tech school, it was a good prank to lift the teacher's small car up on blocks so the wheels were just off the ground.........

Not really a prank, but something else I did in Tech school, make a .22 single shot pistol. 99% finished, a Prefect dobbed me in to the Principal.

I was severely hauled over the coals after being complimented for my ingenuity and fine machining. Just loved those Hercus lathes.

Mysteriously the next day, the same Prefect's bike had badly buckled wheels........

Ken

[BobL]

At the end of my first week as a trainee science teacher in the early 1970s, instead of going to the pub the head science teacher said he and another teacher were going to "dispose of some excess chemicals" before going to the pub and did I want to come along and see the disposal. The wink in his eye told me this was going to be interesting so I tagged along and 2 minute slater I was sitting in the back seat of his Holden HK along with about 7kg of solid sodium metal in 10 or so rusty tinplate cans each containing 500 and 1kg amounts.

The story was that the head science teacher was new and had just been at the school for a few weeks when he discovered a cupboard full of old chemicals including the sodium. Back in those days if you didn't request your full annual school "Chemical Allowance" it was cut by the same amount in following years so most schools kept requesting chemicals whether they needed them or not. The problem for this particular school was that the previous head teacher was terrified of most chemicals so no teacher was permitted to use any except the most harmless stuff.

The sodium was in large sugar cube size lumps surrounded by a paraffin oil inside the cans.
The proposed disposal method was to drive t a local metro beach, pierce the Canned peach size cans containing the sodium in multiple places, pour the paraffin liquid onto the sand and hoike the can into the water.

It was a relatively calm, warm mid afternoon, Perth February day with relatively few people around.
All up there were a few dozen sun bathers and some, kids, Joggers and several dog walkers on the beach.
We fortuitously moved up the beach to a spot where there were no one in the water.

After the first can went in it took about 10 seconds before something happened, but the resulting KA-WHOOMPH and water spout shooting into the air, was like a small artillery shell with the addition of small marble size fragments of sodium fizzing about on top of the water for 30s or so afterwards. It was quite impressive until I realised that they were the cans containing just the half kg amounts.

At that point the head teacher sent me back to the car to get a clipboard and a lab coat from the back seat of his car - he said put the lab coat and make like we were doing something official.
As I came back down to the beach one of the 1 kg lumps was tossed into the water. The much louder KA-WHOOMPH made everyone on the beach sit up and everyone turned to see the water spout and more sodium shrapnel fizzing on top of the water. Several people continued to stare and the head teacher told me to check my watch and make out like I was writing something down on the clipboard.

Then we decide to try two cans together. By then a group of about a dozen people had started to gather about 30m away from us and talking amongst themselves and pointing at at us. In those days teachers wore ties and business shirts and together with short shorts, long socks and sandals we hoped we looked like a group of boffins doing something boffinish.

We disposed of two more cans and now someone from the group came over and tentatively said "What's going on". The head teacher said we were from the local Uni and to please stand back as it could be dangerous and it will be all over in a few minutes.

By now cars and trucks driving along the beachside road were seeing the water spouts and hearing the noises, stopping and drivers were getting out of their cars to come over to the roadside to look.
The head teacher looked at a can and called out a sort of code.batch number and said "!,2,3" and we threw the remaining cans into the water - I furiously pretended to write something and kept looking at my watch.

The head teacher called out "All clear" and we then strode nerdishly back to the car and drove away.

As we drove away I noticed there was still a 1kg can that had rolled off the seat onto the floor and drew this to the head teachers attention.

As we neared the Fremantle Bridge he turned and said "I know a quiet place to dispose of that" and we drove under the bride where there was a small shaded carpark.
As we pulled into the parking area we parked a couple of bays away from a Kombi right by the waters edge, with curtains drawn and a few towels acting as curtains on the front windows. The Kombi was oscillating strongly suggestion horizontal dancing was underway inside the van.

The head teacher said "Quick open the can" - which I did - "Now pour the oil out", done. I handed it to him and he threw in in the water relatively close to the van.
Being under the bridge and he surrounding river banks and buildings seemed to make the sound even louder.
The next thing we saw was two very worried faces peeking through the curtains as they watched the water spout drop onto their van and within 5 seconds the van was off.
Did we have a good story for the rest of the teachers at the pub.

We did so many silly things with chemicals, rockets, etc in those days when OHS was largely non-existant and I don't know how we didn't injure or kill someone in the process.
I have many stories like this and have forgotten a few as well, maybe I should write them down before I forget them all.

[RayG]

Speaking of blowing things up.

I was in California one 4th of July, and one of the guys I was working with always helped out with the fireworks each year, this particular year for the first time they were going to electrically fire some of the mortars, so I got invited along to help wire up the control system for the big show, we worked from 10 in the morning till late in the afternoon wiring up mortars, They were in banks of 10 and I think all 4", more than 500 of them in tubes aimed out over the river, the tubes bedded into the sand and wooden support frames, Then there was about twice that amount of all different sized mortars that were fired manually.

When the show kicked off, we were right in the middle of it, every thing went according to plan and the electrically fired ones were to be the grand finale, the guy running the show just went and fired the lot in one hit. The 500 4" mortars we spent an entire day wiring up all went off together. Very loud and impressive looking back, my ears were still ringing hours later. The guy doing the firing had a mortar explode in the tube and got hit in the shoulder by a lump of wood from a support frame, he didn't even notice till about an hour later when the adrenaline rush started to come down. The procedure for misfiring is to pour a bucket of water down the tube before getting too close.

The people we talked to after thought it was one of the better fireworks shows, they'd seen.

Ray

[Combustor]

Some years ago a cable laying crew had a work camp a liitle way from town in our wet South west. Two young trainee guys would spend most nights chasing women in town and could rarely be roused in time for the truck to take them to site. Foreman and his crew picked them up sound asleep complete with bunk beds, dropped them on the truck in pouring rain and delivered them to site.
So it was payback time. The foreman cook and kitchen hand stayed late in the kitchen with some liquid refreshment and finally they departed for their quarters. Foreman not wanting to wake other sleepers, let himself in quietly after wrestling in the rain with a wet slippery door knob. In darkness he found his pyjamas and put them on, then decided to step out again for a pee. Came back in and decided to light a smoke before retiring. Struck a light and found that his hands, his pillow, pyjamas and the end of his manly appendage were all coated with green paint which the boys had applied generously to the doorknob!
The payback event which followed this act is best left to a future time as I still chuckle aloud when recalling it.
Combustor.

[Harry72]

At my work sometimes a full round house sledgey swing onto a steel plate floor a foot or so behind you is a bit of a surprise... :D

[BobL]

The high rise formwork construction gang I worked with was a bit like the united nations with a few aussies, some brits, irishmen, lots of southern europeans, and a smattering of other nationalities, and they were always taking the out of each other. One bloke, a Turk with a severe case of smelly feet and very poor english, was constantly being taken the out of, and he would not always understand so sone of the kinder blokes would try and explain what was meant by ". . . taking the " which the Turk took literally as "you drink ".

Once we got above about the 10th floor visiting the portaloos on the ground involved using one of the lifts which were always slows because the were being loaded or unloaded on one of the lower floors or going down and up 10+ flights of stairs. There was a rule of no sneaky peeing behind a pile of whatever so some blokes including the Turk started keeping small bottles to pee into in amongst their stuff. This was also not permitted but they still did it anyway.

One day the Turk got very angry over repeated referenced to his smelly feet and said "You say I takeda de , so you takeda de too" and stormed off. A few days later a number of the perpetrators of the taking noticed that the water in their drinking water bottles had a faint yellow tinge in it and put 2 and 2 together and a couple of them cornered the Turk and accused him of the deed. The Turk was a big bloke and could look after himself denied it and he was left alone. Nothing happened for a few days but then the yellow started appearing again. While the Turk was being cornered again I noticed one of the young scrawny Italian chippies laughing extra hard about the situation and later I asked him whether he knew anything about it? He reached into his top pocket and pulled out a small bottle of yellow food colouring. I didn't say a word but few days after that at smoko the Chippie lifted his own water bottle to his lips for a drink and gagged. His water bottle was covered with styrofoam so he couldn't see the colour and when he tipped it out sure enough it was real pee. No one admitted to doing this but whoever it was had gone to the trouble of also adding ice just like the chippie did to his water.

This was one of many things that went on at these sites.

[eskimo]

hahaha

you are all mob of mongrels...i never did anything to any apprentice......:wink:

well not much anyway...usual plastic bag filled with acet and oxy, stripped paint, long weights etc, charged 400v capacitors just in case I wanted to play catch with newbies. oh and the odd insulation test to check ones resistance....mine on 3 volts and theirs on 500v (with a meggar)

[BobL]

Another job I remember that was not on that list of jobs I posted (probably because I wanted to forget about it) was the 2 weeks I spent one school holidays working in a rebar factory.

I already had a job at a concrete works but a friend's Dad who was a friend of the rebar manager got us the job said this place was always looking for workers and paid good money so my mate and I turned up very early on a Monday morning. The foreman made it clear he didn't like us from the beginning. I could understand this in part - we were only going to be there for two weeks, we were pretty useless for a couple of days as we had to be shown how to do stuff, and by the time we'd got up to speed we would be leaving..

Our first task was in the yard cutting up weld mesh sheets with bolt cutters to size which was easy enough.

Having worked at a number of factory type places before, at smoko I was well tuned for a bit of pointed questions and taking as we were the new boys on the lot. However, I was surprised to see how quite smoko (and later lunchtime) was, and it soon was clear that there was going to be no chat, banter, or shenanigans of any kind at this place. A small clique of blokes sat in the lunch room around the foreman who talked constantly in a loud opinionated voice, but the majority of blokes moved off off to various parts of the yard or sheds to drink their coffee and have a smoke alone or in 2's and 3s. It was clearly not a happy place.



After smoko we were shown how to use one of the half dozen or so big rebar twisters. The twisters (we started on the smallest one) were brutes of machines, a bit like a long bed lathe with fixed position drive chuck at one end and moveable (up to 10m away) fixed chuck at the other. We used a gantry to bring in a bundle of untwisted bars, put each bar in turn into the chucks and threw a switch which put a specific number of twists into each bar bars. Then use the gantry to deliver the complete bundle to the length cutting and bending station.

After.being shown the basics we started working on our own on the twister. We over twisted and broke some rods and under tightened others and the foreman yelled and swore at us a few times for wasting bar, not going fast enough and not doing things exactly like we were told. Some of his methods were clearly foolish and inefficient but you could not question. I also saw him constant yelling and swearing at most of the other workers during the day and although it was a loud environment I realised pretty quickly this guy was partially deaf and also an out and out bully. I had experienced this style of foremanship before and just let it wash around me, but my mate found it difficult to take.

It was dirty, loud and dangerous, with no guards on anything,lots of sharp pointy bits and heavy things falling everywhere. The only PPE we were given were some worn out cloth gardening gloves, all the older timers had their own leather gloves, ear plugs and hard hats. While the twisting was underway you had to stand clear because sometimes the bars would break and although it wasn't rotating that fast it was still dangerous. One of the worst things were the trip hazards, the most likely being simply treading and rolling your ankle on a piece of rebar so we fell over many times. There were several big and many smaller forklifts, and 2 big gantries that were constantly crossing each above the main factory floor, and several smaller gantries outside, so there was flying bundles of rebar every where. We should have all been wearing steel caps ( I had regular boots but my mate only had joggers), hardhats and muffs AND I later found out that we should have had a ticket to drive the gantries,

At the end of the day we were knackered and my ears hurt. The foreman took us aside and said we'd have to pull our socks up or he'd be sacking us. My mate's response was not to come back - he didn't really need the work but I had to work because I had already given up my job at the concrete works. Next day I at least had ear plugs and some leather garden gloves and by the third day I had a hard hat for which I got ridiculed and thumped on the head by the foreman. I also got verbally abused by the foreman for my mate not turning up even though I said he had a sore ankle.

Over the next couple of days I got paired with one of the old timers (who was also deaf) and found out the reason they needed workers all the time was because the foreman constantly harassed and verballed workers he didn't like (which was pretty well everyone) and was always looking to hire his mates and their mates, but most of them also left. The old timer said if you last the week there will be someone new he will pick on next week. It was a of a job but I managed to last the week and sure enough at the end of the week 2 blokes left and a new bloke started the following week and I was left alone and although I was shouted at the swearing stopped.
They pay was slightly better than the concrete works but not worth the agro.

When I left the foreman asked me if I wanted a job next holidays just to let him know and he would personally arrange it.
It then dawned in me that he thought I was one of his buddies.
The following week I rang the concrete works to see if they had any weekend work and they were glad to have me back.

The next holidays I got the job on high rise formwork construction at double the pay I was getting at the rebar place.
It was very dangerous and dirty - we had to supply all our own PPE but we could not get on site without it.
The foreman was prickly, but he could still take a joke and it was possible to reason with him over methods, in fact he encouraged this, and taking standard was above average so we had a lot more fun.

[KBs PensNmore]

As we pulled into the parking area we parked a couple of bays away from a Kombi right by the waters edge, with curtains drawn and a few towels acting as curtains on the front windows.
Thanks Bob, I've now got tears rolling down my cheeks from laughing. :2tsup:
Kryn

[BobL]

As we pulled into the parking area we parked a couple of bays away from a Kombi right by the waters edge, with curtains drawn and a few towels acting as curtains on the front windows.
Thanks Bob, I've now got tears rolling down my cheeks from laughing. :2tsup:
Kryn

Oh I wished we had phone cameras back in those days for all the stupid things we did. Or maybe not as it could quite embarrassing.
I dined out on that story for years. It was strange that when I met the head teacher some 35 years later he couldn't remember a thing about it but a couple of years later I did meet up with the other teacher who is only a few years older than myself and I cross referenced the story with him and we also had tears of laughter on the recall.

[sacc51]

I once worked with a fellow named Mick who was shall we say, very wary of the dark. When doing his rounds he very rarely ventured from the light. He also considered large empty hangars devoid of personnel after hours very spooky places and very rarely walked through on his rounds. So, one midnight shift his co workers devised a plan to scare the bejesus out of him:

Firstly one climbed up amongst the steel girders of the ceiling, some 30’ up and armed with one of those orangutan toy things with long Velcro arms and legs made a few practice drops. Next the other fellow got the Duty Security Controller to get Mick on the two way and request he investigate a particular section of the hangar for an alleged insecurity inside. Eventually a very nervous Mick turned up at the hangar and after circling it quite a few times finally worked up the courage to venture inside making a beeline for the area concerned, obviously so he could depart as quickly as possible. When the fellow in the ceiling girders had him lined up he dropped the orangutan and issued an ear piecing scream. As luck would have it the orangutan landed on Mick's shoulder the arms entwining his neck and again as luck would have it the Velcro on one of the arms stuck to another part of the orangutan’s anatomy wrapping around Mick's neck.

Now those who work with dogs know that what ever emotions the handler feels travel straight down the lead replicating themselves in the dog, whether they be fear, excitement, what have you. Rex was no orphan here and as a result could be nervous at times. As the orangutan landed, Mick screamed, Rex did to (probably more as a response to Mick’s screams than anything else, both man and dog ran hell for leather out of the hangar Mick tearing at the orangutan around his neck which eventually dislodged and fell on the floor in front of Rex who thereupon screamed again, making Mick scream even louder. Not long after Mick came racing into the Guardhouse babbling, followed not long after by Rex, much to the Duty Security Controllers mirth.

Dogs can ran a lot faster than we can, I clocked my Police Dog at over 35MPH running next to our Landy, but Mick beat Rex to the Guardhouse, refusing to explain what had happened. Finally he settled down and resumed his patrols – under the lights and well away from the hangar.

Being shift workers and working in small numbers in a quite boring job gave us plenty of time to dream up pranks like this. This one was quite famous amongst our lot. I first heard of it around the early 80s, it was still doing the rounds in 2000 when I discharged. I wasn’t there for this particular prank so can’t vouch for the details being absolute truth, but I did work with Mick for a few years and when I asked him about it he went strangely quiet, refused to talk about it and left. I never did see Mick in darkened areas or in an empty hangar. Rex was a nice dog though, very good at his job and an extremely good attack dog. Mick on the hand never bit anyone to my knowledge, he was a nice bloke. He probably didn’t deserve that story that circulated and followed him for his 10 odd year service.

[KBs PensNmore]

Now that was MEAN.:rotfl: But I liked it. When I was manager of a trailer hire place, the boss's son, about 6'4 and really strong, I weighed in at about 8 stone wringing wet. He would pick me up with 1 arm, put me under his arm and walk around, he was ..it scared of spiders, the only way I could stop this was to leave cob webs everywhere. He screamed if a web came anywhere near him, eventtualy the old man passed on a message that I had to remove all the webs. Dam spoil sport.
Kryn

[sacc51]

Pranks and jokes on workmates are always so much funnier when aimed at someone other than yourself. I'm happy to say I never got caught out by a prank' but, I was the subject of a workshop setups on a few occassions.

On one such occassion I was on the bush phase of my basic PD course, doing some agrressor training with a dog named Prince. Handlers were instructed during the lesson to keep their dogs on a tight leash to prevent them going over the top and biting the aggressor. Prince's handler clearly wasn't listening during that lesson and as I presented the bag and arm suddenly Prince had 5' of leash. These dogs tend to go for the face or neck and as Prince came up I fortunately managed to pull my head in and Prince latched onto my left side pectoral. Basic PD course didn't include common sense on the curriculum so Prince's handler being unaware of common sense gave an almighty reef on the lead pulling the dog off me. Unfortunately, Prince never released his grip and tore the skin on my left pec open leaving a tear shaped like a tick about 3-4 inches long on my chest and b!ood spurting out in what looked to me like unsustainable amounts. I was rushed to the Docs in the nearby town of Crow's Nest and had my chest sewn up and arm strapped in front to ensure stitches remained intact.

Now the funny bit:
Unable to get down to the creek for my daily wash they brought in a bathtub which fellow course members were required to fill with buckets every afternoon. Foolishly I egged them on demanding more water and a quicker fill. Thoroughly sick of my quite reasonable demands, on the second day armed with long handled scrubbers with very stiff bristles, they descended on me in the tub to assist with my daily scrub. And scrubbed I was, very clean indeed. Unable to alight from the tub or protect myself even some my unmentionable parts were thoroughly scubbed as well. Thereafter, I managed to tub in about 1/2" of water, at a time of their leisure of course, but I was happy with that.

Forty years on from that incident I bare no scars from that scrub, but I still bare Princes efforts quite clearly on my left pectoral.

[GTVi]

Good story Bob....that reminded of the days I worked in the Press Shop at the Chrysler factory in Adelaide. No OH&S, usually anything goes, and we were all fresh kids back then, and easy targets.


Another job I remember that was not on that list of jobs I posted (probably because I wanted to forget about it) was the 2 weeks I spent one school holidays working in a rebar factory.

I already had a job at a concrete works but a friend's Dad who was a friend of the rebar manager got us the job said this place was always looking for workers and paid good money so my mate and I turned up very early on a Monday morning. The foreman made it clear he didn't like us from the beginning. I could understand this in part - we were only going to be there for two weeks, we were pretty useless for a couple of days as we had to be shown how to do stuff, and by the time we'd got up to speed we would be leaving..

Our first task was in the yard cutting up weld mesh sheets with bolt cutters to size which was easy enough.

Having worked at a number of factory type places before, at smoko I was well tuned for a bit of pointed questions and taking as we were the new boys on the lot. However, I was surprised to see how quite smoko (and later lunchtime) was, and it soon was clear that there was going to be no chat, banter, or shenanigans of any kind at this place. A small clique of blokes sat in the lunch room around the foreman who talked constantly in a loud opinionated voice, but the majority of blokes moved off off to various parts of the yard or sheds to drink their coffee and have a smoke alone or in 2's and 3s. It was clearly not a happy place.



After smoko we were shown how to use one of the half dozen or so big rebar twisters. The twisters (we started on the smallest one) were brutes of machines, a bit like a long bed lathe with fixed position drive chuck at one end and moveable (up to 10m away) fixed chuck at the other. We used a gantry to bring in a bundle of untwisted bars, put each bar in turn into the chucks and threw a switch which put a specific number of twists into each bar bars. Then use the gantry to deliver the complete bundle to the length cutting and bending station.

After.being shown the basics we started working on our own on the twister. We over twisted and broke some rods and under tightened others and the foreman yelled and swore at us a few times for wasting bar, not going fast enough and not doing things exactly like we were told. Some of his methods were clearly foolish and inefficient but you could not question. I also saw him constant yelling and swearing at most of the other workers during the day and although it was a loud environment I realised pretty quickly this guy was partially deaf and also an out and out bully. I had experienced this style of foremanship before and just let it wash around me, but my mate found it difficult to take.

It was dirty, loud and dangerous, with no guards on anything,lots of sharp pointy bits and heavy things falling everywhere. The only PPE we were given were some worn out cloth gardening gloves, all the older timers had their own leather gloves, ear plugs and hard hats. While the twisting was underway you had to stand clear because sometimes the bars would break and although it wasn't rotating that fast it was still dangerous. One of the worst things were the trip hazards, the most likely being simply treading and rolling your ankle on a piece of rebar so we fell over many times. There were several big and many smaller forklifts, and 2 big gantries that were constantly crossing each above the main factory floor, and several smaller gantries outside, so there was flying bundles of rebar every where. We should have all been wearing steel caps ( I had regular boots but my mate only had joggers), hardhats and muffs AND I later found out that we should have had a ticket to drive the gantries,

At the end of the day we were knackered and my ears hurt. The foreman took us aside and said we'd have to pull our socks up or he'd be sacking us. My mate's response was not to come back - he didn't really need the work but I had to work because I had already given up my job at the concrete works. Next day I at least had ear plugs and some leather garden gloves and by the third day I had a hard hat for which I got ridiculed and thumped on the head by the foreman. I also got verbally abused by the foreman for my mate not turning up even though I said he had a sore ankle.

Over the next couple of days I got paired with one of the old timers (who was also deaf) and found out the reason they needed workers all the time was because the foreman constantly harassed and verballed workers he didn't like (which was pretty well everyone) and was always looking to hire his mates and their mates, but most of them also left. The old timer said if you last the week there will be someone new he will pick on next week. It was a of a job but I managed to last the week and sure enough at the end of the week 2 blokes left and a new bloke started the following week and I was left alone and although I was shouted at the swearing stopped.
They pay was slightly better than the concrete works but not worth the agro.

When I left the foreman asked me if I wanted a job next holidays just to let him know and he would personally arrange it.
It then dawned in me that he thought I was one of his buddies.
The following week I rang the concrete works to see if they had any weekend work and they were glad to have me back.

The next holidays I got the job on high rise formwork construction at double the pay I was getting at the rebar place.
It was very dangerous and dirty - we had to supply all our own PPE but we could not get on site without it.
The foreman was prickly, but he could still take a joke and it was possible to reason with him over methods, in fact he encouraged this, and taking standard was above average so we had a lot more fun.