I was in the Marine Corps and worked on radios in the Air Wing. Our favorite ploy was to send the new guy to requisition some "frequency grease". We actually had a dummy requisition form for that that had to get signed by various officers.
The officers in our squadron were all aware of the ruse so they'd feed into it by approving it at their level and sending the poor guy to the next ranking officer. Once in a while, he'd get all the way to the CO to "requisition some frequency grease" but most of them smartened up enough well before then.
We'd also send newbies "down to the basement" to get something. Of course, our squadron building didn't have a basement and it was always fun to see them checking all the doors in the building looking for the basement stairs.
But the best one of all was the one we would pull at the 29 Palms combat center. For those who don't know the place, it's an isolated (but very large) base smack in the middle of the Mojave desert where combat operations are simulated.
The newbies would always be put on guard duty rotation where they would have to patrol the buildings at night. There was one particular building surrounded by barbed wire fences and was where we kept our cryptology radio gear and other high security stuff. At night, the fences were locked and only the one Marine on guard duty was left there to walk the perimeter.
Well we would tell some of the more gullible ones them that there was a top secret submarine base there and that there was a underground tunnel full of seawater that ran all the way out to the Pacific - about 150 miles away. We also told them that this was top secret and that if they ever repeated this to the wrong person, they would be made to "disappear" or die in some "accident", like some other Marines before them. Some would immediately call BS but others would get that wide-eyed look and you knew you had them! At least for a little while.
Suppose you did this to a black coworker and he struck back by filing one of the many harassment options available. Or, suppose you did it to everybody except the black (or woman or lesbian or gay) and they complain because you haven’t treated them the same. The world has changed and things that were once viewed as harmless are now viewed through a different lens.
Making somebody feel like an idiot is never a good idea.
Our joker once complained that nobody took him seriously. I rattled off the most recent six or seven times he’d fooled somebody and he wailed, “but this time I’m serious.” He could have claimed the building was on fire and because he’d said it no amount of smoke would have convinced us.
OMG, lmao. I hope you know that there's people on Coast to Coast who actually heard
this and believe it to this day. Some have changed it to say the Russians use it, and
the area of our country where it ends. I always wondered where those nuts got
their information. And it probably started with a guard who believed it which means
somebody talked..