As the title says, I pick on David. A lot. Probably more than I should.
For those who don’t know, David has been my boss on and off since 1999. He’s also one of my closest and dearest friends. I often compare him to the older brother I never had. I’ve been very blessed in my life to work with someone with whom I get along so well. David is easy going and good natured, which are great qualities in a boss.
But, partly because he’s so easy going and good natured, I pick on him more than I should.
I love a good prank. And David sets himself up for pranks pretty regularly. Yesterday, for example, he left his laptop in my office while logged into Twitterific. So added something to his Twitter feed: I think Ted is crazy hot. Ted is our network administrator.
Now you have to understand something about my pranks. It’s never my goal to hurt, only to amuse and occasionally embarrass. But even then, not in a big way. So, when you think about it, I could have posted something far, far worse on his Twitter feed.
Today, I posted to his Twitter feed again: “Tom may be even hotter than Ted.” Tom, of course, being another co-worker. Dave deleted that one and wasn’t very happy with me. Rightfully so. Once was funny, twice was just being mean.
So this is my public apology to David. I’m sorry, my friend. I really am. I know I pick on you a lot, but it’s all honestly in good fun.
Having said that, here’s an abridged history of the pranks I’ve played on David.
– Changed his time and date settings to Swiss French and Catalan.
– Took a screenshot of his computer with many open windows then set that picture as his wallpaper. He actually re-installed his operating system because of that one.
– Wrote a program to play the mosquito sound at random intervals and installed it on his computer. I didn’t realize at the time that he would be using his laptop to demonstrate something for the scouts that evening. Oops.
– Same as above, only with a Sam Kinison scream instead of the mosquito sound.
– Rotated his iMac’s display by 180 degrees. I was actually unable to set it back, and it took some serious finagling (mostly by Mike) to fix it.
– Repeatedly set his wallpaper to a “Bisexual and Proud” picture prominently featuring a rainbow.
– Intercepted the replacement iPod hard drive he had ordered and switched with a standard 3.5 inch ATA drive.
– Stuffed a beach towel into the ductwork leading into his office. This was in the middle of a very hot summer.
– Disconnected his peripherals and ran dummy cables to his computer. He couldn’t figure out why his iPod wouldn’t synch.
– Made a modern art arrangement of iMac “hockey puck” mice and hung it from his vent (this was actually Ted, and not me).
– Sent him a before-and-after video of his office challenging him to find ten (non-existant) differences while he was out of the office (this was mostly Tom and Ted).
There were more, but you get the idea.
David, all of us in the tech department love you. We wouldn’t trade you for any other boss.
Except maybe Ted.