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Warn Workers Not To Be April Fools
Today is the first of April, April Fool's Day. Its origins are uncertain, but this unofficial holiday is a time for pranks, jokes and hoaxes. Beware of what you see, read and hear on the radio, TV and, above all, the Internet today. But if your interest is safety, you need to keep April Fool's Day out of your workplace.
Safety and Pranks Don't Mix
Pranks and practical jokes in the workplace undermine safety in all sorts of ways. Want some real life example of jokes gone bad?
- Consider the humorist who decides to nail his workmate's boots to the floor. Says the victim: "I damn near sprained my back pulling them free!" The boots now have holes in the soles, too, which makes them useless as safety footwear.
- Another prank, traditionally played on all new workers at a certain facility, involves pushing the victim under the showers. This particular time, though, the victim is taped into a chair. No-one realizes that the water pouring over him is hot until he begins screaming. The victim receives third-degree scalds.
- One man, startled by the old "joke" involving a spring-loaded cloth snake in a harmless-looking tin labeled "nuts," jerks his head backward and slams it into a steel shelf, requiring eight stitches.
- Sometimes, the recipient of a "joke" becomes violent. High-school student Jordan Manners is shot to death in Toronto. The suspected motive? Retaliation for Manners's throwing a firecracker at another boy.
- Michael Keith Williams of Roanoke, VA, "nearly eviscerates" Jonathan Freel with a knife in the parking lot of a sports bar after the victim gives Williams's friend a "wedgie."
- A South Carolina student jumps a train with friends as a prank, but falls from the train and is run over.
- Sheridan "Danny" Dalqhuist's Bradley University, IL, roommates set off fireworks in his dorm room, intending to send him running outside in his underwear. The room catches fire and Dalqhuist dies.
- A 12-year old Manchester boy pushes a 14-year-old into a local river as a birthday prank. The older boy can't swim. He drowns.
Conclusion
Even if a prank goes off "harmlessly" as planned, there can be unpleasant results. The victim may feel resentful, which can poison the atmosphere at your workplace and make working together uncomfortably stressful. Or the victim may try to exact revenge, leading to a series of escalating pranks, which may eventually hurt someone.
So instead of encouraging or playing tired old gags today, why not spare a thought for safety and suggest your workers do the same? Because there are plenty of old jokes around, and not as many old workers as there ought to be.
DUMB PRANKS IN HISTORY
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| Rest in Pants |
The Great Pants War
True story: Two brothers-in-law traded the same pair of pants back and forth as a Christmas prank gift for 20 years. It started in 1964, when Larry Kunkel re-gifted a pair of moleskin pants to his brother-in-law, Ray Collette. With each subsequent re-gifting, the wrapping got more and more inventive.
Collette took the wrapping element of the prank to the next level when he decided to stuff the pants into a 3-foot-by-one-inch piece of pipe. The game was afoot. Kunkel, by way of return, baled the pants with wire into a 7-inch (15-cm) cube. Collette, not to be outdone, sealed them in a crate of rocks, banded with steel. And on it went, with the two men agreeing that the pants would not be harmed and that only "legal, ethical and moral" wrapping and methods would be used.
In various years the pants were embedded in concrete and rebar, stuffed into the glove compartment of a 1974 Gremlin which was then crushed, embedded in an eight-foot (2.5-meter) tire containing 6,000 pounds (2800 kg) of concrete, and baked into a cement Rubik's Cube, which was itself encased in 2,000 board feet of lumber (630 meters).
Finally, Collette tried to cast the pants into 10,000 pounds (4500 kg) of broken glass he had lying around in his yard. During the casting, molten glass touched the pants, which caught fire. They now rest on Kunkel's mantel in a brass urn.
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