Got Them By Hook Or By Crook

(New starters are often sent on fools’ errands as a method of hazing: shopping for tartan paint, rubber nails etc. If you were smart, you wouldn’t fall for it. If you were smarter, you would pretend to go along with it and instead have a coffee break. My coworker was neither.)

Maintenance Team Leader: “[Coworker], can you go to the stores and pick up some skyhooks. DO NOT leave without at least a half dozen.”

(My coworker goes off.)

Me: “‘Skyhooks’? I haven’t heard of that one before.”

Maintenance Team Leader: *looking smug* “Oh, hooks that hold up the sky. He might struggle to find them…”

Me: “Poor sod. They will probably go along with it as well.”

(An hour passes, and my coworker comes back,. The maintenance guys look thrilled that they have fooled another one.)

Coworker: “They didn’t have any skyhooks in stock… so they had to order them.”

(Quiet laughter can be heard.)

Coworker: “They were £300 each, but I assured them that you had to have them.”

(Smiles turn to confusion, which turn to concern.)

Maintenance Team Leader: “What did you order? Exactly?”

Coworker: “Skyhooks. They are for the conveyor, apparently.”

(The team leader rushes off without another word. It turns out the mythical ‘skyhooks,’ are also a term for a rather expensive piece of equipment. The order was stopped and all fools’ errands were stopped along with it.)

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