And i realized there hasn't been much pranking in my life. It's kinda weird to think that i've managed to dodge acquaintance with pranksers all my life, and that i, myself, am not generally given to such behaviour (not because i frown on it or anything, but because i'm really not a very funny person). But nobody lives an utterly prankless life, so i dug deep and finally remembered one! Unfortunately, it's going to require my going into specifics about my job (sorry for that, but do try to bear with me).
I work in a nuclear pharmacy. The drugs we dispense are radioactive, for use in different kinds of organ imaging, mostly cardiac (if you've ever known someone who's had a stress test, then chances are they've received drugs from one of our pharmacies). The tricky part of working in a nuclear pharmacy is that EVERYTHING has to be shielded in lead or tungsten, and we work in fume hoods that have lead and leaded glass blocks to protect our torsos and faces from receiving too much exposure to radiation. Here's a photo of a hood similar to the ones we use, to assist your imagination:
Ours have less glass and more lead than this one. Anyway, on with the story:
A few years ago, we had a pharmacist we'll call "Bob". Bob was your typical know-it-all, you're-just-a-tech-so-you'll-do-all-my-work-for-me kind of schmuck we all love to hate; the kind of professional who liked to plant his ass in the chair, and let those who collected less than a third of his salary see to the proper running of his profession while he dicked around online. This guy literally thought the sun rose and set on his pharmacist greatness. Unfortunately, due to his dodgy work ethic, he fucked up a lot because he was hoplessly out of practice. In short, all the technicians hated him because he had no idea what sort of cock-up he really was.
But we did!
One Friday morning, after one of his more relentless weeks, we decided we'd ruin HIS day for a change. He was running about 20 minutes late, as usual, so we went to the hood he liked to work in and began our plots.
Bob was a tall fellow. He had difficulty looking through the tiny shielded window on a good day, so that's where we decided we could inflict the most inconvenience. The shielded glass area is pretty small, maybe twoish square feet. We started taping strips of lead to the inside of the glass shield, which is standard procedure for covering up contamination. We managed to obscure all but three or four inches of viewable space with lead, down at the bottom of the shield. Plenty of visibility to get the job done. . . if you're 5'3.
Then we hung more lead in random places on the inside of the hood, strategically covering up the more convenient working areas, and on the bottom, so that it was nice and bumpy. We stood back and surveyed our handiwork, but something seemed missing. We needed a final insult, the proverbial cherry on top. A stroke of genius on my part: a note taped to the glass, explaining that a vial had ruptured during the previous shift, guaranteeing that he wouldn't attempt to remove any of the lead.
We took up our places in the other two available hoods, so that he'd have no choice but to work in the "contaminated" hood. He finally strolled into the lab and began preparing for third run (and by "preparing", i mean delegating everything but the actual drug compounding to us). He turned to his hood and his jaw literally fell open.
"What the fuck is this?!"
One of the techs, "Jane", pointed at the note and said without the faintest trace of the smile that was threatening to crack my face in two, "Didn't they teach you to read in pharmacy school?"
He snatched the note off the hood and read it quickly. "Who did this?! Was it 'Joe'?!" ("Joe" was rather famous for being sloppy in the hood, and luckily, had already left for the day). Jane nodded and turned back to her hood and continued pretending to work. I had the other hood turned off, and i'd taken out the HEPA filter and was tinkering around with the motor. I probably don't need to mention that there was nothing wrong with it.
He tried to bump Jane out of her hood, but she wouldn't move. He told me to quit fucking around with the motor and put the hood back together. "I can't work in this shit," he griped, gesturing at the lead-draped hood we'd so lovingly prepared for him.
"Find a way, this one's got a busted belt," i retorted.
After about twenty minutes of haranguing and trying to throw his authority around, my boss finally came in to find out what the hold up was. He showed her the pharmacist hood and told her he wouldn't be able to work in it. She told him she payed him a rather nice salary to figure out shit like this, and that if he couldn't, she'd be perfectly happy to hire someone who could.
We spent the next hour snickering at this 6'8 guy hunkering down to his little eye hole, cursing and sweating up a storm as he struggled to get the run out the door. Every "Fuck!!!!" and "Goddamnit!!!!" brought a fresh fit of silent laughter and belly clutching. My face was literally sore from too much smiling xD
My boss thought it was hilarious, but she still wrote us all up for it. It was COMPLETELY worth it, though i doubt he learned his lesson: do not fuck with the people you rely on to make you look good.
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