[Quinn01]

So I thought itd be funny to talk about what pranks get us through the long hot nights.

I worked with a guy that always used to take the half gallons of milk and grab the chocolate syrup from the bar and make the whole thing chocolate milk and keep it in his low boy to nurse throughout the night so one day I and another guy I was friends with grabbed his milk when he wasnt in the kitchen and poured it into a pitcher put it under our lowboy and then took a thing of buttermilk poured that into his container added chocolate syrup and put it back. Then a few hours later we hear from the other side of the kitchen BLAHHHHH OH WHAT THE ****!? WHO DID THIS!? and we just started dieing. He was so unhappy to say the least. hahahaha

anyone else?

[chrose]

I would never play a joke on a co-worker We got pretty juvenile sometimes. We would put a metal skewer through a baguette and the wait staff would grab a knife to cut it up, and not be able to. Fun stuff eh? Tie the sauce boat handle and turn it around for when they tried to grab it and it would slip out of their fingers. and the old whipped cream in the ear piece of the kitchen phone, and then call from another and see who gets it. Ahh good times

[Quinn01]

HAHAHA I like the kitchen phone one. I think I may just use that......

[Gummy-Bear]

I work in a local Chinese restaurant. 85% of our orders are takeout and delivery so we get pretty bored with dine in. Our waiter that participates in all of our pranks ordered kung pao chicken at the end of the night, and I slipped about 1/2 a bottle of siracha sauce into his meal, a couple of extra peppers, and made sure there were seeds. He cried it was so spicy. Granted he got me back the next night. We have fun.

[Botanique]

When I took over as sausage maker at one of Seattle's restaurants, the previous "gentleman" wasn't too happy about it. On his last day, we punched out an amazing amount of sausages.... Ground the meat, prepped the seasoning, casings, made the links.... At the end of the day we were both exhausted, and in the middle of grinding the meat for the Italian sausage he said "don't worry, go home, I'd like to finish up here alone." I figured, ok, I can understand that, last night and all.... I said thanks and took off. Later that night I received a phone call from the restaurant owner. "What the *#$^! did you do to the seasoning for the Italians????!!!! Can't you follow a simple ingredient recipe?" Evidently, out of spite, Mr. Sausage wanted to leave with a bang, and added the spice rack kitchen sink. There were more herbs and spices in those links than protein.... Unfortunately, the whole batch was tossed. He never did come back for his last pay check.... Ahhh, I did love that job though....

I like having fun when working in a professional kitchen. You need it for the relief, and the release! Anger comes out in the food, and a little silliness every once in a while can make light of some very stressful situations.

The cook that taught me from when I was knee high to a grasshopper is married to a chief pathologist -- brilliant man. I came for a lesson one day and to prepare and serve for a physicians dinner function, and found him plopped in front of the tv, laughing hysterically. He was watching some idiotic show like bloops and blunders or something. I looked at him completely puzzled. And he simply turned to me and stated "every once in a while, it is good to not think, not do, laugh at life, and try not to take yourself too seriously in the moments that you can...." Or something to that effect. So I went back to my mentor, swearing at the ratatouille because she added lamb to it and was told there were vegetarians in the group protesting and refusing to eat... I can't tell you what she did, but all I can say is, it was definite comic relief! Amazing what we remember.

Personally, I like the jello in the clogs bit, but that is so tame

[OregonYeti]

These aren't exactly kitchen things, but anyway . . .

At work once a friend of mine squished a brownie, shaped it like doggie doo, and set it on a clean table. He was working nearby and keeping an eye on it. A cleaning person came around and looked at it, startled. My friend nonchalantly went over, picked it up and started eating it. The look on the cleaning person's face . . . I wish I had a picture

One April Fool's day our boss was away at her desk at the start of the shift. We all called her one at a time saying we were sick and couldn't come in to work. That was before caller ID.

Once an engineer e-mailed his boss on account of all the engineers in his group, about something they weren't happy about. He said they were all thinking about going for work in another department. He cc'd lots of high-up management, well at least it looked like it--he slightly misspelled their addresses so they didn't really get it. His boss freaked out--that scared the heck out of him and he was ready to let them have whatever they wanted

[OregonYeti]

Good thing that boss had a good sense of humor

[jnbennett168]

I am getting some terrible ideas. Thanks everyone! The whipped cream in the phone is just plain diabolical.

[jnbennett168]

PS. Oregon Yeti, is your name at all related to the Billy Nayer Show?

[OregonYeti]

My name is because I lived in the Himalayas and trekked a lot (the Yeti part), and now live in Oregon. I don't even know who Billy Nayer is

I made my own web site too, OregonYeti.com

[foodpump]

Me play pranks? Stodgy, sour, crusty, old fart like me play pranks?
Never!

However.... Wherever I went, pranks would be played out on co-workers, but never me.... Particularily the egg trick. See, an egg would be hollowed out, a length of butcher's twine threaded through and a paper-clip tied on to the other end. This assembly would be hung on the the back of aprons or pockets. Nothing quite like th sight of an egg dancing between the legs of some poor unsuspecting schmuck as s/he goes about their business.

And then there was the pastry chef. Largish sort of guy, 2 m (6') big, with an uncommonly large, uh, girth--built like a sattelite dish, if you know what I mean. For some un-explained reason he would always carefully hang his work pants outside of his locker at the end of his shift. And what pants they were too--enough material to do a dozen curtains for the back windows of Winnabagoes(sp?). Now he always used a pair of suspenders AND a belt, and the sight of this pair of pants--un-protected as it were, was too tempting a target. The pants ended up pinned on the staff bulletin board one day, resulting in a bit of embarassment and a heated bet going on between the housekeeping girls as to the waist size...

And then there was the waiter... It wouldn't of happened to him if he weren't such a, um, obnoxious person. Waiter-boy would always hang out on the other side of the pass swilling a glass of wine and bragging about the tips he earned. One day a cook decided it was too much and cling filmed over his wine glass when the waiter-boy went out to check on his tables. The whole team was watching the cook, and all waited for a lull so waiter-boy could come back and brag some more and swill his wine. Everyone expected him to try to drink from his glass: Ha-ha and all that. But waiter-boy came back with the remains of a bottle of wine and tried to add it to his glass. Wine all down his front. Needless to say he was P.O'd, and screamed at the Chef for dry-cleaning compensation. Chef pointed out to him (rather tartly, too...) that drinking while on duty was verboten, but if he wanted to take up the matter with the Owner, it was up to him.

And the cook who couldn't keep his new expensive designer glasses on his head. I mean, they were left on the prep table, on top of the printer, by the sink... Chef told him to either get a chain for them to hang around his neck, get contacts, or keep the effing things on his head. One day the glasses were found next to the fryer and it was just too much. They were cling filmed and then pasted with mayo, one lense dipped in parlsey, one lense in parika. Guy finds them, freaks out and starts to wash them, mayo runs off and the cling film starts to peel off. Guy really freaks out now, moaning about how his new glasses had just melted. He showed up next day with a chain for them.

And then there was the new guy who got conned into straining the fryer oil the "easy way"... And the girls who complained that someone had stuffed a urinal puck (Pina-Colada scented...) in the grille of the a/c diffuser in the girl's change room, and then there was the .......

[OregonYeti]

I made up a good one once.

My work is heating and air conditioning service. Each guy has his own work van.

I got a mountain bike inner tube and cut it into about 12" pieces. Stretched it around the tail pipes of 2 guys' vans and secured them with nylon zip ties, kind of like floppy extensions of the tail pipes.

When they started up their vans it sounded like flatulence and when they were on the highway those things were SCREAMING like an industrial-powered party horn. They figured that out pretty fast though. Darn.

[oldschoolcook]

And don't forget the panstretcher for the newbies, peeling capers.....

[Just Jim]

I've always been a fan of getting their coat wet and hanging it in the freezer.
I've sent noobs to mop the freezer, and had one bagging steam from buckets of hot water to store in case the steam table breaks again.

Not exactly kitchen related, but that's allways where it happened....someone would tell the new guy to ask me how my father danced, said I was very proud of him.
They come up and say "how does your father dance?'
I'd get the red face going and scream "That's f'd up, you know my dad doesn't have any legs!" and move towards them. (I'm 6'2", 300 lbs).
I had one dishwasher backpedaling off of the line as fast as he could, and I'm trying not to bust out laughing.

[mycroftt]

I had a buddy who worked as a bartender at a restaurant a couple miles from a dive bar where we all hung out. One night a bunch of us were drinking at the dive bar and had some girl call the bar at the restaurant where our buddy was working. Our buddy answered and she ordered a couple of dozen clams on the half shell. He asked her if she was coming to pick them up and she said "No, I want them delivered to the dive bar" and hung up. We all got a good laugh at the prank order until about 20 minutes later he shows up at the dive with 2 dozen clams, lemon, cocktail sauce, napkins, the whole nine yards, and asks deadpan "Who ordered the clams?" Outpranked!