ticked off

I’m sure you’ve all heard tales of the practical jokes played on people new to a job.  Like being sent to the stores to get a bubble for a spirit level, a bucket of fresh air or a left-handed screwdriver.  There are many examples of this type of initiation tomfoolery.

And I was involved in one of my work place’s pranks.

One of my early jobs was as the senior officer in a small office in the council’s audit section.  I was responsible for carrying out monthly bank reconciliations mainly, but also for handling our stock of blank cheques (remember cheques?!) for all the council’s bank accounts, and various other exciting administrative duties.   As auditors, we of course had to “tick” things as they were checked.  We even had special purple pens that were exclusively for our use.

It was these “ticks” that were the subject of our prank.

A new starter would be sent to my office to ask for a box of audit ticks.  Of course, no such boxes existed, and generally, people would quickly latch on to the fact that being asked to collect them was a joke.

Apart that is from one poor soul who presented at our counter one morning and asked for a box of ticks.  “How many?” we asked him.  He didn’t know so we sent him back to his office to find out.  “What size?” was our next question, and he was sent on his way again.  “Colour?”.  Back he went again.  And so it went on and still he didn’t have a clue.

After about half an hour we sent him on his way again, telling him to come back in 15 minutes to pick them up.  In the meantime, we found the largest box we could, sealed it and labelled it up and awaited its collection.

Bang on time the unfortunate subject of the prank turned up, picked up the clearly empty and extremely light box and returned to his office with them.

I only wish we could have been there when he opened it.