Welcome Back
Welcome back,
Your dreams were your ticket out.
Welcome back,
To that same old place that you laughed about.
Well the names have all changed since you hung around,
But those dreams have remained and they're turned around.
Who'd have thought they'd lead ya (Who'd have thought they'd lead ya)
Here where we need ya (Here where we need ya)
Yeah we tease him a lot cause we've hot him on the spot, welcome back,
Welcome back, welcome back, welcome back.
I returned to my office yesterday to find all the stuff in my office either upside down or turned around. My two guest chairs had been swapped with my desk chair. My keyboard, mouse and all the papers (which is a considerable amount) had been turned over. My monitor, printer, phone and laptop docking station had all been turned to face backwards. Even the binders (including a few that do not belong to me) in my cabinet had been turned backwards so that the spines faced the back of the shelf.
I knew immediately who was responsible - basically the only person on this side of the building who talks to me - my brethren alumnus. (He still needs a blog name, so I'll call him Li'l Brudder until something better strikes me.) I thought, "Great, all the catching up I have to do and THIS is the first thing I have to deal with." But ultimately, it means I'm fitting in here. There's no way anyone would ever have played a prank on the previous person to have my job. She would have freaked. However, I learned a long time ago not to make a big deal out of pranks. If you don't give a big reaction, people won't think it's fun to prank you and they'll leave you in peace.
So when Li'l Brudder came in and asked about the state of my office, I told him it was perfectly normal and then leaned forward to block his view of the printer that I'd forgotten to set right. I got a good reaction from that. Evidently, a woman saw him and another guy fixin' up my office last week and she freaked out in my behalf. She complained to the HR guy and Li'l Brudder's boss' boss. Thankfully for Li'l Brudder, no one takes this woman seriously, so no harm came to him. So when I told him that it was all completely normal, he assumed that she had come in on Friday evening and cleaned up after him. Well, that was a fun way to turn the tables on his joke.
But it doesn't stop there, we each had more planned for each other. After I righted my keyboard, I found that I couldn't log in. It vaguely crossed my mind that Li'l Brudder had done something to my network account, but I knew he didn't have the ability and the IT guys don't seem like the type to go along with that kind of a joke. So I called the IT Director to report that I was having trouble logging in. He changed my password, but that didn't do it. Well, the first rule in computer problem shooting is to reboot. So I did that. Still no dice. Then I decided to completely reenter my user name and password. That's when I discovered the problem. My user name wasn't filling in according to the keys that I was hitting on the keyboard. I looked down and realized that two essential keys had been switched. It's very easy to pop keys off and put them back on. I had a quick reference next to my keyboard just by opening my laptop to look at that keyboard. I found about four pairs of keys that had been switched. So that explained why Li'l Brudder left my office so quickly when I called the IT guy to report that I couldn't log in - he was about to bust out laughing.
Well, I got the last laugh. Back when I started talking about my trip to China, Li'l Brudder asked me to get him a shirt from the Great Wall. He'd been to China (on an almost identical tour) when he was in high school. One of his favorite souvenirs was a yellow shirt that said "I Climbed the Great Wall." His wife claims that it was one of only three shirts he wore when they began dating. It is now all stretched out and unwearable - I think I've blogged about this before. Anyway, I did buy him the shirt (for $2) but decided on my way to work that I would act like I'd forgotten. His wife started working at our company while I was out and I knew that she would be in the office yesterday morning for her weekly staff meeting. I brought along a little cloisonne bracelet for her and decided that I would enlist her help in teasing Li'l Brudder.
So the first thing I did when I saw him was to act like I'd forgotten about his shirt. I apologized profusely - y'all know I'm a convincing actress. Then when she was out of her meeting, I called her into my office, told her that I had his shirt but had told him I didn't and I gave her the bracelet. I asked her to go into his office to show it off. She laughed and said that he had called her as soon as I told him I forgot the shirt to complain to her. So while he didn't react in front of me, he was disappointed enough to whine to his wife. She thought my joke was great and had a good time showing off her bracelet. I waited about an hour to finally go into his office and throw his shirt at him.
Good times.
[and now a word from our sponsors...]
Your dreams were your ticket out.
Welcome back,
To that same old place that you laughed about.
Well the names have all changed since you hung around,
But those dreams have remained and they're turned around.
Who'd have thought they'd lead ya (Who'd have thought they'd lead ya)
Here where we need ya (Here where we need ya)
Yeah we tease him a lot cause we've hot him on the spot, welcome back,
Welcome back, welcome back, welcome back.
I returned to my office yesterday to find all the stuff in my office either upside down or turned around. My two guest chairs had been swapped with my desk chair. My keyboard, mouse and all the papers (which is a considerable amount) had been turned over. My monitor, printer, phone and laptop docking station had all been turned to face backwards. Even the binders (including a few that do not belong to me) in my cabinet had been turned backwards so that the spines faced the back of the shelf.
I knew immediately who was responsible - basically the only person on this side of the building who talks to me - my brethren alumnus. (He still needs a blog name, so I'll call him Li'l Brudder until something better strikes me.) I thought, "Great, all the catching up I have to do and THIS is the first thing I have to deal with." But ultimately, it means I'm fitting in here. There's no way anyone would ever have played a prank on the previous person to have my job. She would have freaked. However, I learned a long time ago not to make a big deal out of pranks. If you don't give a big reaction, people won't think it's fun to prank you and they'll leave you in peace.
So when Li'l Brudder came in and asked about the state of my office, I told him it was perfectly normal and then leaned forward to block his view of the printer that I'd forgotten to set right. I got a good reaction from that. Evidently, a woman saw him and another guy fixin' up my office last week and she freaked out in my behalf. She complained to the HR guy and Li'l Brudder's boss' boss. Thankfully for Li'l Brudder, no one takes this woman seriously, so no harm came to him. So when I told him that it was all completely normal, he assumed that she had come in on Friday evening and cleaned up after him. Well, that was a fun way to turn the tables on his joke.
But it doesn't stop there, we each had more planned for each other. After I righted my keyboard, I found that I couldn't log in. It vaguely crossed my mind that Li'l Brudder had done something to my network account, but I knew he didn't have the ability and the IT guys don't seem like the type to go along with that kind of a joke. So I called the IT Director to report that I was having trouble logging in. He changed my password, but that didn't do it. Well, the first rule in computer problem shooting is to reboot. So I did that. Still no dice. Then I decided to completely reenter my user name and password. That's when I discovered the problem. My user name wasn't filling in according to the keys that I was hitting on the keyboard. I looked down and realized that two essential keys had been switched. It's very easy to pop keys off and put them back on. I had a quick reference next to my keyboard just by opening my laptop to look at that keyboard. I found about four pairs of keys that had been switched. So that explained why Li'l Brudder left my office so quickly when I called the IT guy to report that I couldn't log in - he was about to bust out laughing.
Well, I got the last laugh. Back when I started talking about my trip to China, Li'l Brudder asked me to get him a shirt from the Great Wall. He'd been to China (on an almost identical tour) when he was in high school. One of his favorite souvenirs was a yellow shirt that said "I Climbed the Great Wall." His wife claims that it was one of only three shirts he wore when they began dating. It is now all stretched out and unwearable - I think I've blogged about this before. Anyway, I did buy him the shirt (for $2) but decided on my way to work that I would act like I'd forgotten. His wife started working at our company while I was out and I knew that she would be in the office yesterday morning for her weekly staff meeting. I brought along a little cloisonne bracelet for her and decided that I would enlist her help in teasing Li'l Brudder.
So the first thing I did when I saw him was to act like I'd forgotten about his shirt. I apologized profusely - y'all know I'm a convincing actress. Then when she was out of her meeting, I called her into my office, told her that I had his shirt but had told him I didn't and I gave her the bracelet. I asked her to go into his office to show it off. She laughed and said that he had called her as soon as I told him I forgot the shirt to complain to her. So while he didn't react in front of me, he was disappointed enough to whine to his wife. She thought my joke was great and had a good time showing off her bracelet. I waited about an hour to finally go into his office and throw his shirt at him.
Good times.
[and now a word from our sponsors...]
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1 Comments:
:D tha's awesome
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