I work with a team of programmers that has a good sense of humor and is regularly joking with each other. We had a government lead who was partially responsible for setting priorities as to what needed to be added to the software we were prototyping, which meant that he was important enough we had to talk to him, or about him, a number of times each day. He had always gone by a certain nickname during that time, and we were used to calling him that.

Then, we got a new developer who had the same name, except our developer’s legal name was the nickname, so he jokingly argued he had dibs on it. Our government lead admitted he used to hate the nickname as a kid and insist on his real name, so he didn’t mind being called by it now. Thus, we all sort of agreed each person would go by their legal name to avoid confusion in the future. The only problem is that we all kept calling the government guy by his nickname out of habit, to the regular confusion of our new developer.

One day, the new developer came in with a Nerf gun, which is honestly not that uncommon to see in an office like this. His explanation for it?

New Developer: “I’m sick of you calling [Government Guy] my name. It keeps confusing me and driving me postal. So the solution is obvious: from now on, when someone drives me postal by using the wrong name, I will simply have to shoot them!”

He was true to his word. Any time someone called the government guy by the developer’s name, he would turn around and shoot the offending party with a Nerf dart before going back to work. There were even a few times when it was clear we were about to mention the government lead and the developer would grab his gun and jokingly shake it menacingly at us to remind us to use the right name.

This was all done in good fun and we all had a laugh at it. We even kept a running tally on a whiteboard of who got shot the most. The funny thing, though, is that it worked; we all very quickly got used to using the new name under the threat of being shot!

A little while later, someone much higher up in the government, who we rarely saw, came down to speak with us and she called our government lead by his nickname. She didn’t notice that we all immediately glanced at the new guy as soon as she said it. For his part, he clearly looked down at the gun as if debating it, but he wasn’t brave enough to shoot her. As soon as she left, we all jokingly teased him about not shooting her.

New Guy: “I have this silly policy about not shooting people that have the ability to decide whether or not I get a paycheck, you see.”

I worked in a call center, and after a few years, we had a girl from another project transfer over to our project and take over as team leader.

Something she was stringent about was security. Admittedly, when you have a room of twenty-odd people you work with every day (and hang out with after work), you subconsciously trust each other, and we’d become far too lax.

If we had a piece of paper out on our desk with customer information printed on it, [Team Leader] would stand next to us and glare at us until we finally guessed it and put the paper safely in a folder or in a security box to be shredded if we no longer needed it. Something else she was strict about was employees stepping out of the room without locking their computers, as we didn’t like having to enter an annoyingly long password after coming back from simply grabbing a cup of water from the cooler in the hallway.

This was a bad habit we needed to break, especially since our previous team leader never enforced it. But it seemed like no matter how hard and heavy she’d come down on us, we’d just keep forgetting.

Then, one day, I made a quick dash outside after noticing the project manager passing by in the hallway. After a brief forty-five-second conversation, I ducked back in to see the team leader comfortably seated at my desk and humming to herself. My first guess was that she was examining a transaction I had done, so I didn’t think anything of it… until I sauntered over and immediately noticed that she had my email client open and was emailing the human resources manager:

Email: “Hey, jerk! YOU SUCK! And your wife is fat as a cow! Your daughter is so ugly, it gives Freddy Krueger nightmares!”

Me: “What the h*** are you doing?”

She pressed the send button.

Me: “WHAT THE H*** ARE YOU DOING?! THAT’S MY EMAIL ACCOUNT!”

I tried to reach for the keyboard, but she nudged my hand away.

Team Leader: “Nope. Stand right there.”

She then opened a browser and started Googling things like “big booty girls,” “panty sniffers support groups,” and, “Is it weird that I’m attracted to my sister?”

Me: “I don’t what kind of a joke this is, but the IT department sees things we browse on the Internet—”

Team Leader: *Big grin* “Mm-hmm! They sure do!”

Me: “I’m trying to see what’s so funny here because, so far, I’m not laughing.”

Team Leader: “That’s because there isn’t anything funny to laugh at. LOCK YOUR COMPUTER WHEN YOUR RUMP IS NOT PLANTED IN FRONT OF IT! You have no idea who is doing what on your computer when you are away. You can talk all you want about how you all know and trust each other, but what about people outside the project? A year ago, someone in the accounting office stepped out to smoke a cigarette and left her computer open. Someone dipped in and sent a rude message to a customer that had been aggravating him. How many late-night shifts have there been where there were only two or three of you, it had been hours since anyone called, and you both took a quick break outside?”

Me: “Oh… I guess if you put it that way… but are you gonna tell them—”

Team Leader: *Getting up* “The HR manager already knows about the email and Google searches. I cleared it with him first because I just can’t seem to get through to you guys that this is serious.”

Point definitely taken! People began being vigilant about locking their systems when away after that.

About a week later, I casually logged onto my workstation and saw that my wallpaper had been replaced with a photo of Miley Cyrus and Justin Bieber, and the desktop themes had been changed to pink and glitter. (Note: I was a thirty-five-year-old man!). My web browser had been changed with pink Hello Kitty themes. My files had been replaced with Miley Cyrus photos.

I looked over at the team leader and just folded my arms.

Me: *Deep sigh* “How did you get into my system?”

Team Leader: *Smiling* “It wasn’t very hard at all!” *Nodding toward my desk*

Me: *Looking around* “What?!”

Team Leader: “Warmer… warmer… definitely heating up… There ya go!”

Me: *Picking up my notebook* “This?! It just has all my work notes from cases I was working on.” *Flipping through the pages*

Team Leader: “Mm-hmm…”

Me: *Flipping further* “Just notes!” *Pauses* “Oh.”

I found a sticky note that I’d written my password on and attached to a random page, but I had forgotten about it.

It took two more Justin Bieber/Hello Kitty/Miley Cyrus stunts with other employees to get them to stop writing their passwords down and sticking them in inconspicuous places like under keyboards and calculators or writing them in notebooks that were left out on their desks.

Eventually, we got along with [Team Leader], and we all became aware of how important data security really is and that intrusions really, really do result from simple carelessness.

Back in the late 1980s, my brother and I had a band that played pop/rock music. I was the drummer. One of our annual gigs was a local fire department’s Christmas party. I got a call from my brother the afternoon before the gig.

Brother: “The fire chief just called me. He has some concerns about tonight.”

Me: “Okay, what are they?”

Brother: “Well, they’re afraid that your cymbals are a fire hazard.”

Me: “Huh?”

Brother: “Yeah, they said there’s a risk of sparks when you hit the cymbals.”

Me: “But… the sticks are wood. There’s no way.”

Brother: “Yeah, I tried to explain, but he was adamant that you can’t use cymbals tonight.”

Me: “But how is that going to work? I have to have cymbals, or it won’t sound right!”

He had me going for about another minute before cracking up and laughing his head off. Miss you, Bro.

A couple of years ago, I left my retail job. Before I left, I printed out about 200 little pictures of my face and hid them everywhere in the store — behind fire extinguishers, under shelves, in drawers, and pretty much anywhere I could find. Even a couple of years later, I still get messages like this.

Former Coworker: “We just found another one!”

I met with the owner of a small nightclub to discuss designing several items for him. I’d never seen this guy before, but he asked me to visit his business so he could show me this printed poster that he loves as an inspiration for my work.

When I arrived at the nightclub, I was greeted by someone and he introduced himself by name as the owner. He escorted me back to his office, told me to sit down, and angrily gestured to the poster on his desk.

Client: “Do you always design nightclub posters that look as if they have been drizzled in [ejaculate], set on fire, s*** on, used for target practice outside with a shotgun, and then scanned into the computer like some sort of f****** JOKE?! I mean, I’ll still pay you for the work here, bro, but this s*** is f****** pathetic and you should be ashamed. My ten-year-old boy could do better s*** than you, f****** joke!  Now, what do you have to say for yourself, a**hole?”

After a long silence…

Me: “You know, that’s not my work… You called me in here to take a look at it for reference.”

At this point, another person entered the office and started yelling at the client.

Actual Client: “What the f*** are you doing back here? Go back to work!”

Apparently, one of the bartenders had decided to play a prank on the designer scheduled to come in for a meeting by posing as the boss.