The Prank That Only Requires Three Fingers
A comedy article
by Madness  4,366  10
09/01/2010 08:41 PM 54917 views
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I am a retail grunt in an electronics store. Last week, I had a customer storm angrily into my store, where the following conversation took place.
Him: This goddamn monitor you sold me is broken!
Me: OK, what's wrong with it?
Him: The desktop, all my programs, EVERYTHING on it, is always upside down!
I'm pretty sure this is how I looked.
I thought that somebody with access to his computer might have been playing an elaborate practical joke on him, possibly a fan of ZUG.com. As I searched the internet, I discovered that holding Ctrl + Alt + an arrow key will rotate the display.
(Author's note: This stunt depends on your graphics card. Your mileage may vary.)
And that's when it hit me. Wait a minute! I have access to computers that I don't own, and I'm a fan of ZUG.com! It was perfect because I was closing the store that night, and opening the next morning with a newbie, and an oldbie. And by "oldbie," I mean "somebody who is so old they think anything bad that happens to a computer is the result of a virus or the Illuminati."
Before I left the store that night, I did my dastardly deed. The next morning, I sauntered in fashionably late, to overhear the following exchange.
Newbie: What the Frost! All the screensavers were upside down or sideways, so I tried to go to the Windows desktops, and they're Frosted too!
This background might make more sense when viewed this way
Me: What? Frosted if I know. Everything was fine when I left last night!
Oldbie: Everything is flipped a different way ... it's probably a virus!
I also have complete creative control over the backgrounds on our terminals.
Oldbie: I'm gonna call tech support!
I quickly grabbed the phone and offered to call tech support myself, wanting to milk this a little while longer. I dialed the long distance number of our corporate support line, and got connected to the regional tech support manager.
Tech: What's the problem?
Me: All the monitors are flipped around.
Tech: Somebody's pranking you. Hold Ctrl+Alt and hit up.
Me: So you don't know what the problem is offhand?
Tech: Wait ... what?
Me: You'll look into it? Keep me posted. Thanks a lot.
Tech: But I just sa...
Me: *click*
I began to wonder if this prank was worth my job.
After expertly bullShakespeare-ing my two coworkers, the store opened and we were forced to ring through sales and help customers with our heads sideways to do Shakespeare properly. I'm sure customers thought we had some form of tetanus or, in my case, severe dementia, since I was laughing to myself all day.
WHERE IS YOUR GOD NOW?!
The worst part of this is that although the display is rotated, the mouse fuctions the same way, so what feels like natural movement results in complete disorientation. It's like your computer has just gone several rounds on the Tilt-A-Whirl.
After the prank got stale, I fixed the displays when nobody was looking.
I shared the secret with Newbie, and we went on to repeat it on another newbie and our manager.
Oldbie remains convinced that the regional tech support manager remotely fixed the problem from his end.
Remember: CTRL + ALT + ARROW KEY = THE PRANKSTER'S BEST WEAPON!
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Like This? Rate It!
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Hilarious
14 votes
4.4
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Hilarious
1 votes
4.0
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Drewcifer aka JackyMaille 46,366  58
09/01/2010 10:08 PM
That's awesome! I'm thinking I might have some fun at work tomorrow.
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Hilarious
1 votes
4.0
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Madness 4,366 10
09/02/2010 01:26 PM
There are now reports of the prank appearing at other stores across the city.
This prank was either a resounding success, or, if they all call tech support and get the same manager, a crushing failure that could result in my unemployment.
Just in case I should learn how to give a good blowjob.
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Funny
3 votes
3.3
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PacificPhi - Back In Action 1,860 6
09/02/2010 01:31 PM
Just in case I should learn how to give a good blowjob.
Never hurts regardless.
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Hilarious
8 votes
4.4
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Gonzo 20,522 17
09/03/2010 03:37 PM
An alternate version of this prank requires keeping the monitor in the upright position and rotating the universe around it.
It's a little more difficult, but the result is worth the added effort.
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Side-splitting
1 votes
5.0
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Madness 4,366 10
09/03/2010 09:23 PM
I think I might try that one in my physics course coming up in a week or so.
If you don't hear from me though, assume that in my attempt, I stumbled upon some sort of quantum paradox and am trapped in a bizzare state of pseudo-existance, like Schrodinger's cat dividing by zero, or waking up any earlier than 8:00 AM.
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Funny
1 votes
3.0
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snowfoxrox 754 6
09/06/2010 07:57 PM
I work in a large children's hospital...LOTS of computers! I have a feeling this one is gonna drive our IT huys nuts for a while! Thanks!!
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Funny
5 votes
3.4
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Neophyte 9,956 11
09/06/2010 08:12 PM
I'll only laugh if, as a result, we get to read:
"Woman arrested after compu-prank causes horrific bonfire made of children."
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0 votes
0.0
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John Hargrave 128,751 73
09/07/2010 03:37 PM
Funny story and great idea -- going live on the homepage today!
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0 votes
0.0
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Professor Nutbutter 181,311 35
09/07/2010 04:07 PM
That's pretty awesome and something I shall pull off first chance I get.
I'm just surprised I've never done this by accident.
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Funny
2 votes
3.5
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KChiki - Owner of a Lonely Heart 128,446 98
09/07/2010 04:53 PM
Half our office knows which personnel are vulnerable to this, so every few months I have to remind people how to fix it again. Heh.
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Hilarious
5 votes
4.0
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snowfoxrox 754 6
09/07/2010 11:32 PM
So, last night some fun was had! I have 3 nurses stations on my unit. Each station has 3 computers plus 2 in my office. At any given moment there were at least 5 computers that had been monkeyed with. What made it truly great was that they werent all upside down. A few were facing left, some right and a few upside down. They never caught on that when I passed by to deliver charts that they all switched. Some got fixed and others became afflicted. One nurse even called the IT guy at home. He told him how to fix it, but neglected to say that you had to log onto the system to do so- so now they were all scratching their heads like a bunch of monkies trying to solve complex algebraic equations!
No one even suspected me, because my computer was affected also. Finally after about 2 hours of confusion, I quietly slipped around to each of the nurses stations and corrected them all. They are still trying to figure out what happened. IT came by today, but of course everything was fixed.
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Funny
10 votes
3.6
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Fuck me!! It's Jesus + Socks 4,199 12
09/08/2010 02:00 AM
Ha ha! Good old-fashioned risking patients lives.
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Chuckleworthy
3 votes
2.7
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hotridinghood 20 6
09/08/2010 07:27 PM
I was an assistant manager at a major office supplies retailer for a long time and the company started doing "computer repairs" (every problem was fixed by either "you need a new computer" or "we need to restore your system to factory settings").
Anyway, I was one of the least "techie" person that worked there and accidently discovered this while helping a customer. When I started getting fed up with my GM and co-assistant, I thought it would be fun to mess with them a bit. First I set all our display computers (the ones the customers look at for possible purchase) sideways before I went home one day. My GM asked me to take a look the next day because he was confused. I "looked" at the computer and it was miraculously not like that. That night, I switched the computer we used to "fix" computers and the computer in the managers office upside down and sideways for my co-assistant to find in the morning (he never did anything but sit at the computer and look at sports crap anyway). After spending some time Googling the problem, he figured it out and changed it back. They never figured out what happened and it was fun for those two days giving those to some crap to deal with.
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Amusing
1 votes
1.0
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Contact Lenses 27 5
09/15/2010 03:29 PM
Good joke!
It's easy to make but it's really funny.
It might bring some funny moments to you. And you could play this joke at any office place everywhere in the world. That's great!
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0 votes
0.0
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bshardy123 93 6
09/21/2010 12:05 AM
Dang. Too bad I'm not in high school anymore, I could have pulled this in the library and my computer mantinence class would have had to fix it!
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Side-splitting
1 votes
5.0
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grmachine 5 5
09/29/2010 03:14 PM
You work at The Source, don't you? I recognize that POS... and the SKUs. How sad is that?
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