Many years ago, I worked at a pub chain. We had checked (sort of) that everyone had left. We had locked the doors and were in the process of cashing up when my manager spotted movement on the cameras. There was a woman passed out or asleep on one of the benches at the front of the pub. She had her coat on top of her, which was the same colour as the seat cover.

We finished our cash up and went to wake her. She mumbled, told us to f*** off, and went back to sleep. This was a problem.

The solution:

Step 1: Open the front door and be ready to lock her out.

Step 2: Get the ice bucket and add some extra water.

Step 3: Move the table out of the way and apply “the ice bucket challenge”.

She shot straight up in the air and then out the door.

I’m not terribly proud of that now.

I work in customer service where I meet clients in real life. I hardly ever have issues, and I like my job. A cheerful man comes inside.

Cheerful Man: “Hello, ladies, I’m here to deliver something! Or actually, I’m going to rob you, hahaha!”

Coworker: *Fake laughing* “I hope not. That would really dampen our day!”

Cheerful Man: “Oh, well, then I guess I have to call off my friends, haha!”

He sees that I’m not smiling.

Cheerful Man: “Don’t worry; I’m just joking!”

Me: “I hope so. I wouldn’t want to relive that moment.”

Cheerful Man: “Eh, what? You’ve been robbed?”

Me: “Yup. And I can’t recommend it. I didn’t really enjoy the experience.”

Cheerful Man: “Oh, and did they use violence?”

Me: “Yes, they did, so I’m very glad you are nothing like them. How can we help you?”

He gives me a form, which I copy for him. Everything else goes calmly and normally, but when he leaves:

Cheerful Man: *Mumbling* “It was a really good joke…”

No, dude, it was not. And yes, I was robbed for real; I didn’t lie. And I also didn’t lie that I can’t recommend the experience.

When I was in high school, I worked at a gas station — one of the ones that pumped gas, washed windows, and checked oil, and had a garage and a car wash. We had to wear uniforms, so we all looked the same.

Directly next door was a veterinary office, with a prominent sign on the main road and on the building itself. A customer pulled in while a few of us were standing in the parking area directly in front of the office. She rolled down the window.

Customer: “Do you know where the vet’s business is?”

I don’t know why this occurred to me, but we were teens and egging each other on.

Me: “Take a left at the end of the parking lot and then the immediate left after that. Then take a left just after the first house and look for the parking lot on the left.”

We all stood in the same circle in the parking lot, right in front of the office, and waited about a minute until she pulled up from the other side.

We all just stood there watching her as she parked. She never even acknowledged our presence.

Back in the early 1990s, I worked at a European science institute developing software. The institute had just purchased a set of powerful, state-of-the-art Silicon Graphics workstations and had set them up in a computing lab.

A group of us working on them discovered that it was possible to write a script that played a sound remotely on a terminal at a set time, so that somebody quietly coding away in an otherwise empty room would suddenly hear a loud belch even though nobody else was present.

Things got out of hand when one of my colleagues refined the script to loop around random computers in the room playing a sound. They uploaded a set of sheep noises and primed the script.

Unfortunately, there was a surprise visit to the computer room from the head of the institute and a number of VIPs. Just as the head was extolling the new computer facilities and the high-quality science they would facilitate, first one and then another of the computers started “baaing” loudly until the whole room was bleating like a flock of demented, angry sheep.

The demonstration had to be redone, and security on the workstations was tightened very soon afterward.

I’m working in a call center. A guy calls in, and I confirm his first and last name. His account information populates as “Ligma Balls”.

If the information populates differently from what the caller says, we have to verify it.

Me: “Hey, the name on my end is appearing differently. Can you go into your settings and provide the first and last name it displays?”

He goes into his settings, and there’s a brief silence.

Caller: “Oh, my God, my friend did this. First name ‘Ligma’… Last name ‘Balls’… I am so sorry.”

It took all of my willpower not to burst out laughing.