So it’s April Fools Day tomorrow and naturally the jokers of Technopark will be out in full strength. Past April Fool’s Days in Technopark have seen techies play some practical jokes like turning a colleague’s computer’s screen display upside down or calling for a fake treat - just to make a colleague pay for lunch. They’ve deliberately misplaced lunch bags and even made a fake call to production support - in an American accent, no less - to report about a glitch that never happened!
L.R. Franoh
Software developer LR Franoh is one the serial pranksters. “My favourite trick is to hide plastic insects, spiders mostly, here and there or throw them at unsuspecting colleagues. I love hearing their frightened squeals. It gets every one laughing and lightens up the work day that’s usually filled with high voltage codes,” says Franoh, who has also been known to pour water on the chairs of other unsuspecting male friends of his, “just for fun.”
His family is also often the butt of his jokes. Last April Fool’s Day, he prank called his dad. “He’s normally very even tempered but that day he really blew his top on the phone! Then, another day, while I was driving, I pretended that the brakes in the car were shot. I wish I had a camera on me to record my wife, Felicia’s utter panic at the news,” he chortles.
Renjith Rajaneesan
Renjith Rajaneesan, a senior software engineer, also often spearheads tricks on colleagues. Like the time he got a massive box delivered to one of his teammates. “We wrapped the box nicely and even made the online delivery guy call him on the phone. We had to let the security guard in on the joke for parcels this big are not usually allowed into the office. Our teammate kept opening box after box inside the box only to find a note that said April Fool’s Day,” explains Renjith. “We sometimes call colleagues in panic saying that the office has been flooded in the rain and they want all of us on hand immediately for cleaning duty. Some people actually believe it and turn up,” he adds with a guffaw. “These kind of light-hearted interactions are sometimes necessary in the high intensity world of codes and systems, time schedules, tasks and deadlines,” he muses.
While techie Anu Rachel John has never been the butt of jokes, she says she has pulled off a few good ones, along with some of her friends. “We once connected the wires of a computer to the adjacent one, to master control it. Our unsuspecting colleague couldn’t figure out what happened to his computer. Every time he wondered aloud about it, we all would burst into laughter,” she says, with a laugh. That’s not all. They once substituted the vanilla cream of a cream biscuit with toothpaste. “It was meant for one friend but it backfired spectacularly when another friend ate it!” she laughs.
Software tester S. Hari and his friends, meanwhile, took a leaf out of Sreenivasan’s Paavam Paavam Rajkumaran and started corresponding, in the guise of a woman, with one of their friends. “He fell for it hook, line and sinker and started making plans for dates with the mystery woman. The day they were supposed to meet, we broke the news to him and he was left red faced,” he recalls.
Jokes apart, sometimes pranks can go overboard and the perpetrators can get pulled up. Like the time when a guy switched the signboards of the men’s and women’s restrooms! “We’d just moved to a new bay in a building that was not yet completed. They had tacked paper signboards on the doors of the restrooms. A colleague thought it would be hilarious to switch the signboards, with the idea that he would yell ‘April Fool’ when his colleagues realised their ‘mistake.’ One of the ‘victims’ did not find it amusing and complained to HR that she was being mentally harassed. The guy was duly slapped with a warning that went on record. Now, who’s the joke? In an environment where you are expected to be on your best behavior, they are really walking a thin line between a trick and a misdemeanor,” says Adarsh Chandran, an HR professional.
