In Germany we ask apprentices to fetch a spare bubble for the spirit level.
That actually seems like it could be a legit thing, like a replacement tube.
I just shake it as hard as I can. There ya go lotsa bubbles.
Getriebesand
Spannungsabfalleimer gotta be my favorite.
A tensioned trash can?
Spannungsabfall is voltage drop
Abfalleimer is bin
My friend’s dad thought he could send me to ask my dad for a square drill bit when I was like 10 but my dad had me helping him build an airplane in the garage as young as possible. So I told him
Shopkeeper should glue a fake label to a can and actually sell it to the kid. Get both the kid and the dad lol
On a drive when I was ten, I asked my dad why the tall, skeletal towers had blinking lights. He said so planes wouldn’t crash into them. So I asked what the towers were for, and he said to hold up the lights.
That fucked with me for like ten more years.
My senior manager at work once tried to start a vacuum cleaner, apparently he had never used one before. Anyway the cleaners told him the power cable was in fact a rip cord like on a generator.
My favorite is sending an apprentice to the tool crib for a long weight.
Tool crib guy will say “Yeah it’s out back, I’ll go grab it”, and then go for a smoke
My high school chemistry teacher told me that when he was in university, they’d send the frosh chem majors down to the depot to get a “bucket of mercury”. The depot guys would be in on it and fill up a bucket and laugh at them while they struggle to move it. Even a small bucket would weigh something like 200 lbs.
That seems a bit much for a prank since mercury is a toxic substance.
Not long ago they didn’t care so much about that. He also talked about how they’d play with it with their bare hands. He’s not dead because mercury is only toxic when ingested.
Edit: in retrospect, he is dead. I forgot that cancer got him a few years back and that high school was 30 years ago…
Doesn’t it get absorbed?
mercury is only toxic when ingested
Doesn’t it give off toxic vapors?
Mercury boils at 356.7©
Yes, but every liquid has a vapor pressure because some moleciles always evaporate - else anything wet would never dry unless heated to water’s boiling point.
For mercury it’s fairly low at room temperatures but because it accumulates in the body, frequent exposure to unsealed mercury is harmful.
I’m not an expert, but from what little I remember: mercury doesn’t immediately kill you like other poisons. What it does do is build up in your body until it hits a tipping point and starts causing problems. Your body has no way to process or get rid of it. Which was why accumulations of it in seafood was a big deal because eat enough of it, even in tiny amounts over a long time, and it starts to mess you up. The amount of mercury that you would be exposed to by breathing near an open source would be minimal I imagine. Or something like that. Like I said. Not an expert. Better to just stay away from it entirely, I’m sure.
Ah, I see.
You meant he didn’t die immediately from touching it.
I misread that.
I used to work in a hardware store. One day a guy came in looking for a skyhook.
After we called his boss to confirm the situation (this was well before cell phones), we all had a good laugh. I think the boss was shocked he fell for it.
They aren’t cheap but you can certainly order them https://etel-tuning.eu/produkt/siemens-lufthaken/
Embarrassing someone for not knowing something is stupid.
It’s a very good motivator for critical thinking though.
It really isn’t. Think about a kid embarrassing their parent over some tech thing they don’t know.
*Taking from my other reply:
To understand something (think critically) you need to know the information. So it boils down to embarrassing someone for not knowing things. There is too much in life to know absolutely everything, thus my example on tech.
The parent is supposed to teach the child that information. Not mock and embarrass them for not already knowing it.
That’s an old dog though.
When I was a starting line cook, they told me to recirculate the air in the freezer. I said “what?” They said “recirculate the air in the freezer.” while handing me one of those giant black trash bags. I opened the door to the freezer, opened up the bag fully, and then went “wait a minute…” they had a laugh, and I started eyeing all of their requests through the lens of “is this bullshit?”
Later on, at more professional jobs, they have the same sort of requests. Not ones that are hazing jokes, but just actual bullshit assignments that mean very little, are looked at by nobody, and that accomplishes nothing. Except now those assignments are like 90% of the job. Hooray office work among middle management!
Kitchens will also yell at new cooks to “GO GET THE LEFT HANDED FRYING PANS!!!”
At school in Scotland, one art teacher would send the kids to see the other art teacher to ask if they had any tartan paint left. Alternatively, he would send them to go and ask for a long stand.
I’ve heard of the long wait before.
God I’ve been seeing way too much Gen Z slang that I almost forgot “sussed out” is a real phrase that means actual things.
I’m familiar with the usage here but what does it mean to Gen Z?
“sus” short for “suspicious,” often linked to the video game Among Us which became very popular during the pandemic. I’m not sure if that was the origin; the Zoomers seem to like their abbreviations (“rizz” being short for “charisma” is another example) but Among Us definitely popularized it.
Idk about everywhere else, but “sus” or “suss”has been common slang for “suspicious/suspect” in Australia, the UK and New Zealand for at least several decades.
