Try working in a maintenance shop sometime. I’ve seen toolboxes filled with baking powder, welded shut, hooked to 110 volts or hoisted into the rafters. It’s also very hard to drive home when your steering wheel is shrink wrapped.
No kidding. I've seen tool boxes totally wrapped with masking tape when the mechanic was on vacation. He had a good idea who did it, so when that guy took off he (built like a bull) took that guy's top box, turned it upside down and shook it. There was a drawer that the guy kept small parts in and he had to take every drawer out to clean all the bolts, nuts and cotter pins so the box operated properly again.
Another guy (military) told us about a prank someone pulled at his shop. Someone dumped about a gallon of dirty diesel oil into another mechanic's tool box. That guy had to spend a whole day cleaning his tools. He found out who did it, and when the prankster was off, he drilled a hole into one of his boxes, put a grease fitting into the hole and used an air powered grease gun to fill the entire box with grease.
I served 20 years in the Navy as an Electronics Technician.
Some of the favorites, usually done to the new guy who just checked on board:
Send him out looking for batteries for the SOUND POWERED phones, relative bearing grease, fallopian tubes, or down to Engineering for a BT punch (BT’s or Boiler Techs, were some of the biggest, meanest guys on the ship).
Or my favorite......get a capacitor (which will hold a DC charge) and charge it up with a megger (which uses high voltage to test insulation). Hold the capacitor by it’s body (not touching the leads) and when someone comes into the space say “here, CATCH!!” and throw it to them. Great shock value!! Or just leave it charged sitting on the workbench.
I forgot one good one. Putting a new kid on the “Mail Bouy Watch”
You tell the kid that the mail is dropped off at a bouy (in the middle of the ocean, yeah right!). His job as Mail Bouy Watch is to locate the mail bouy and retrieve the mail bag using a large boat hook.
He must be safe, so the watch is outfitted with all kinds of gear. Hardhat, safety harness tied off to the ship, kapok life preserver, binoculars, pants tucked into his socks, LONG boat hook.
Then he is stationed out on the bow with strict orders that he better NOT miss the mail bouy. And everybody who comes by just messes with him.