Excuse me, but I believe you have my milton.

I promise that all my blog posts won't be nearly as long as this one. I've been sitting on this story since February 2006, and I thought it was high time I told it to the world.

This story involves a prank on someone with no sense of humor. You'll see soon enough how badly he took it. And he's not the type to let something go. Ever. Even though I don't work there any more, I would bet you anything that I'd hear from him if this ever got back to him. I don't care if he can't do anything about it, I really don't want to hear from him.

Therefore, to reduce the story's googlability, I've avoided using certain words. The first is the generic name of a common piece of office equipment, and the second is a particular brand. I thought long and hard (approximately seven minutes) about the code name I would use.

The object depicted in this photo was issued to me by my current former employer at my request. (They are good were people, and they trusted me with nice things. I took it home when I cleaned out my desk.) Let us call it a "milton." Specifically, let us describe it as a red Slingwine 747 milton. This milton has nothing to do with the story - I just wanted to show it off. It is a symbol of, well, you'll see.

(I should probably explain now that at my old job, Office Space was considered a sacred film - more like a documentary, in fact - and the Milton schtick was so beloved that we even named a project after the brand of you-know-what that Milton had so much trouble with.)

Enough preamble. MOVIE SIGN!

Some time in 2005, at my old job, my boss got us a big gray Slingwine 777. It was better than the crappy, constantly-jamming Bostitch miltons we all had at our desks, and it was great for fastening thick stacks of paper. He put the 777 on his desk and sent an email to the whole department saying that he got us this supermilton and it would be on his desk.

Soon afterward, someone from another group used the supermilton and put it down near the printer, a few feet directly in front of Boss's desk (also a few feet away from me). I said, "That goes on Boss's desk." And Boss generously said, "It doesn't matter where it is, as long as we all know where it is." Famous last words.

A few months later, one of my coworkers needed to use the supermilton several times. Each time, he would take it from Boss's desk and leave it near the printer, since he knew he would need to use it again soon. (Boss had a ton of meetings that week, so he never saw this happen, but it's not as if the coworker meant to be sneaky about it.) Later, the milton would mysteriously wind up on Boss's desk again.

I didn't see any of this, because at this point I was in a cubicle. Most of my coworkers were not in cubes yet, and could still see the printer and each other.

Late one morning, the coworker left the supermilton by the printer, and when he came back from lunch, Boss had left the office for the day, and the supermilton was GONE. The coworker quickly discovered that Boss had left it in his desk drawer. (Boss locked almost everything, so it didn't seem like snooping to look in one of the few drawers that wasn't locked.) This was the Boss who had once stressed the importance of everyone knowing where the supermilton was.

Coworker then wanted someone other than himself to post an innocent-sounding companywide email asking the person who had borrowed our supermilton to please return it.

I said, "Don't look at me - he probably thinks I'm the one who's been moving the milton anyway." (Coworker was Boss's second least favorite person in the company. I was his very least favorite. This was common knowledge. Coworker and I were both actively looking for new jobs, mostly because of Boss.)

We didn't end up sending out an email, but we laughed about it and also considered 1) simply taking the milton out of Boss's drawer and putting it next to the printer, 2) taking the milton out of Boss's drawer and putting it in his mailbox, and 3) encasing the milton in jello, except that would probably ruin it and then we'd have to buy him a new one, and given his total lack of a sense of humor, it might not be worth it. Also, it would be a waste of jello.

Coworker and I conferred with our other coworkers later that day. Boss had been extra-dickish to all of us lately, and for once nobody was willing to let it slide. The idea of getting a duplicate supermilton for mischief was so appealing to the others that in less than 60 seconds, I had all the donations I needed to pick up a new one after work.

We weren't sure yet what we wanted to do with it. Cover it in pink nail polish? Cover it in Harley Davidson stickers? Drag it behind a car for 10 miles? All we knew was that it was his turn to be vexed at our expense.

I brought the milton in the next day. I gave it to the aforementioned coworker and his confederate. Then I went back to my cube to mind my own business. My part in this prank was finished - or so I thought.

Boss went home for lunch. A few minutes later, I heard a strange clanking over by the printer, and some giggling. Here is what I saw.

The original milton was still in his desk drawer. The key was on his desk in plain sight. Nobody felt that there was any need for overkill. He would notice the key and/or chain immediately, then soon notice the other. He would then unlock the milton, try to put it back in his drawer, see his own milton, and be amused. The whole gag would be done within minutes.

Instead, it went on for 18 hours.

Boss came back from lunch. For many hours, nothing happened. I emailed the confederate, who had the best view, and asked if anything had happened. He said he didn't think Boss had noticed yet, even though the scene you see above was less than ten feet directly in front of him.

Time passed. Everyone else went home. Finally it was just me in my cube, and Boss a few desks away. At this point, you might think that Boss had already noticed the milton and was either pretending not to in order to save face, and/or was plotting a clever revenge. You would be wrong on both counts.

I started composing this email to a friend:

I guess our boss hasn't noticed the milton and gigantic chain on the table across from his desk.

Then I heard the printer wheezing. Then Boss's chair sliding back. Then footsteps. Papers rustling.

I started typing again, partly to report the goings-on, and partly because I realized it would be a good idea to look busy.

Ooh, he just printed something. I can hear him rattling the chains now.

Then a grunt, followed by rapidly approaching footsteps.

I think he's pissed. Gotta go

He walked into my cube and towered over me, trying to be intimidating. He looked like he was struggling to control himself - which was actually a nice change of pace, although I wasn't sure he wouldn't lose it at any moment. If I had not been used to this kind of behavior from him already, I might have been scared.

The first words out of his mouth were "Did you do this?" (A natural question, since I am always drilling holes through things and then chaining them to other things.) He then asked if I was the person who had been "playing games with" his precious milton. You know, the one that was for all of us to use, as long as it was kept out where we all knew where it was, that he had hidden in his desk for no one to see or use. That milton.

We had a brief conversation, in which I admitted only that I was aware of the situation, and that the milton had been chained to the table intentionally. I could tell he didn't think it was funny, but I had no idea that he didn't even recognize that it was a prank. He took off to seek a "solution."

Time for a new email - this one to my coworkers.

He noticed when he printed something out.
He is asking Maintenance Guy for bolt cutters.
Now he is telling people it's his milton and thinks [uninvolved person] is involved.
He is planning some countermeasure.
I don't want to spoil the surprise for him when he looks in his drawer.

He wants to know who did it. I said it was a group effort, but declined to identify the group. I told him I didn't personally attach the lock and don't have the key, and I think he is now assuming that I wasn't a member of the group. Will straighten this out tomorrow if necessary.

I went to my parents' house for dinner and called the confederate from there to warn him that he would be the first to face Boss's wrath the next morning. We discussed whether or not we should just explain it to him and put him out of his misery.

First thing next morning, the confederate emailed us the following (paraphrased):

Hamster called last night to tell me about Boss's reaction. I called Boss to find out how mad he was. He said at first he thought someone was crazy, then he realized it was a joke and didn't let it bother him.

("Didn't let it bother him?" Is that what you call it when someone practically shits his pants?)

I told him it was an duplicate milton, and that his original milton was still wherever he hid it. He was still confused, so I told him "we" (unspecified) bought the duplicate. I didn't explain why.

He gave a phony laugh and said he was going to leave a present for me. I'm here now and I haven't found it yet. The chain is still locked to the table, but the duplicate milton is gone. So is the key we left on his desk. His old milton is still in the drawer. I don't see anything special at any of our desks.

Boss showed up a little later, but before I did. He grumbled some more, not really getting the joke, and the confederate AGAIN told him "That's not your milton." Apparently, this fact hadn't registered with him when the confederate told him the night before. He had to be told explicitly, again, that this was a different milton which we had purchased on our own, and that "his" milton was still wherever he had hidden it. The confederate also felt it necessary to explain to him why we had done this, and then suggested to our Boss that he look for "his" milton now. Which he did.

I am told that at this point, he finally understood why it was funny, or at any rate he pretended to, minus the laughing.

As for the little surprise he had left for us, we thought maybe he had left conjunctivitis germs all over our stuff or something. But nothing ever materialized. Including the duplicate milton.

We were hoping the outcome would be that we would have two supermiltons, but for a little while, we didn't have any. We eventually found the original supermilton "hidden" behind the printer, and it stayed near the printer for the rest of the time I worked there. Supermilton II was never seen again. Which suggests to me that he never did get the point of the joke, namely: you just don't know how to share, do you?

We never touched "his" milton, which originally was OUR milton. He made the situation a lot worse by jumping to conclusions that I'd never guessed he'd jump to. But he actually stole ours! After we paid for it ourselves, labeled it properly, and locked it up to prevent theft. Oh, I guess the joke was on us, ha-ha, don't we feel foolish now!

Are you kidding me? That was the closest any of us had been to wanting to show up at work in ages! I know he thought that pretending not to react was depriving us of our payoff, and that's the funniest part of all. We were relieved that he failed to bring down the wrath of HR on us (we didn't know if he'd try or not). That was the only reaction we had been worried about. Beyond that, it was all gravy.

Failing to lose one's temper is not the same thing as not reacting, and he actually gave us quite a lot. He proved our point without even realizing it. If you think of it as an experiment rather than a prank, it revealed a lot about him:

• His first assumption was that one of us had maliciously stolen something out of his desk and damaged it. If you're working for someone who thinks you're that untrustworthy, it's best to find out sooner rather than later.


• He acted on that assumption without any investigation or thought - starting with ME. He didn't take a moment to assess the situation. Instead he went off on the first person that was handy.


• He acted like it was an emergency to get that chain removed immediately or else he wouldn't be able to use the milton and the sky would fall. (The milton was quite usable, even with the chain on it, so it's obvious that he was more interested in repossessing it than in using it.)


• Some people, if they really thought someone had been in their desk, would check all the drawers to see if anything else had been taken. He was too focused on the milton problem. (Okay, this doesn't prove anything, but it struck me as bizarre, and therefore worthy of a bullet point.)
  


• Even after being told twice that we never touched HIS milton, he still had to be told to look in his drawer before he understood that it was a different one. Up until then, I had thought I was the only person who had trouble communicating information to him, and even wondered if he was just being thick on purpose to annoy me (because it was hard to believe he could be so clueless).

---

I told some of my friends about this when it was happening. They thought it was hilarious. So did my parents. One thing these people all had in common was that they had already been hearing True Tales of Horror about my boss for nearly three years. I hear the story didn't get as many laughs when they told it to other people. Maybe it's not as good without the three-year warmup. Me, I'm just happy I got out of that crazy place and lived to tell the tale.

As for Coworker, he quit not long afterwards, and he even told Boss that he, Boss, was the reason he was leaving. Coworker came back briefly as a part-time consultant, reporting to Confederate, but within a few months was grateful to have an excuse to quit again, because Boss kept interfering.

Useful Spanish of the day:
Perdóneme, pero creo que tienes mi grapadora.
(Excuse me, but I believe you have my milton.)