Fun with newbies

[Sailor]

I am sure all jobs have their fun with the new guy. Lets hear some.

We would tell a new guy it was time to wash the props and send him to the engine room to get a bucket of prop wash. We would also send him down to get a left handed crescent wrench.

[cowpuc]

One of my favorites was grabbing a handful of contaminated arc welding rod, telling the new guy that we had a guy on the site that could bend 8 of em around the back of his neck.. Then watch as he took the challenge to try and top that... The look on his face as flux ran down his sweaty back was always priceless..

[djh3]

When I worked in restaurants we would try to get the new waitress to climb up and get the "bag stretcher"

Also while in the AF send a guy to bench stock (parts room) for some flight line.

[VentureYZ]

Sending the newbie to heat treat with a load of lead babbits to get heat treated.

[WallyG]

In a previous life I worked in a glass shop, we'd regularly send the newbies to go get the glass stretcher, told them they'd find it over by the furnace...

LOL, good times...

[etcswjoe]

Had a new guy on board ask me what I was using to get some wax off a door and I told him "just a little elbow grease" he told me had never heard of that so I told him I was low and needed some more so off he went a couple hours later he came back mad as a hornet. I do not think there was anyone on the ship he did not ask until someone finally let it slip what it was.

[ToyOdie]

Had a new guy on board ask me what I was using to get some wax off a door and I told him "just a little elbow grease" he told me had never heard of that so I told him I was low and needed some more so off he went a couple hours later he came back mad as a hornet. I do not think there was anyone on the ship he did not ask until someone finally let it slip what it was.

 

Should have sent him for a bulkhead buffer while he was out.

[ReinyRooster]

Worked in a steel yard...sent the newbie for the beam straightener...

[bj66]

I used to work in the sheet metal dept of a fabrication plant. A new guy would come in and it never took very long before somebody would get the new guy. They would tell him to stand up with his arms extended straight out from his sides. While he was standing like that they would explain that if they measured from the tip of his nose out to his fingertips (picture doing this with a tape measure) this distance is exactly half the distance of his total height. So they would take the measurement and tell him it was way more accurate than trying to reach all the way across the newbies body. Once they would measure the distance they would turn sideways to read the tape while keeping the end of the tape at the newbies nose and the rest of the tape straight out in front of him. They would read the distance and then drop the tape measure holding on to the end by his nose. With the tape measure locked it is a pendulum, and you guessed it the distance from tip of your fingers to your nose is the same distance from your nose to your groin......Pretty mean trick but kinda funny when your using a 12 foot tape, 25 foot tape.....not so much.

[SilvrT]

I worked in a fishing camp when I was a "green horn" ... they told me to go down to the warehouse and ask the attendant for a LONG WEIGHT ....... I was there a long time!

[Karaboo]

Go grab a can of steam for the galley.

[Motiv]

At the truck repair shop we would send the FNG to the parts store for a gallon of liquid compression then we would call the guy parts store to mark the windshield wiper fluid accordingly. Dump it in the windshield wiper reservoir of the truck and voila that's what makes it run. Can't recall if we ever told them or let them figure it out.

[Great White]

Prop wash, rotor wash, jesus nut wrench, wire pulling lube.....

 

funny thing is, these things actually do exist but they give you the look like youre messing with them!

 

[Daveand Barbie]

Oh the stories........I hope I can explain this well enough to be understood.

 

i have made my living as a musician/conductor/educator for the past 50 years, and my favorite people to mess with have always been drummers. With that said.....

 

i went to to undergraduate school in Kentucky, and occasionally a poor rube drummer would come down out of the mountains to get him some learnin'

 

so, one day during orchestra rehearsal, as we were working on some symphony, one of the drummers noticed that in the 2nd movement his part had "TACET" marked on it in bold letters. He leaned over and asked my stand partner what it meant, and being the smart azz Trumpet guys we were, he suggested he ask Dr. Cooper, the Percussion Professor if he had one to use. We even made sure to inform him that he needed one pitched in E-flat.

 

Dr. Cooper walked in shortly thereafter and the poor kid made the mistake of asking him for an E-flat TACET. In front of the entire world, this kid was berated for not being aware of a very important instrument, and the rest of the semester he would be studying the TACET in great depth.

 

oh, and by the way, TACET means DONT PLAY. Dr. Cooper was cool like that.

[rbig1]

replacing sign posts. O sh*# we put the hole in the wrong spot. Hurry go get the portable post hole before the boss comes. Its in the truck tool box. most of them came right back something about as holes. But had one that searched for 15 min never did find it. lol forgot to tell ya. they started to warn all the new guys about us. WE suckered a new guy into thinking there were two days of holiday off. Boss called him and asked if he was oversleeping. Told on us. Thats when they started warning about us.......

Edited September 13, 2015 by rbig1

[Marcarl]

At the feed mill we sold post holes by the truck load. We also sold the cedar post to put in them.

[ToyOdie]

Prop wash has been mentioned more than once, but here goes. We were on deployment in the Philippines. It was the rainy season and about 100 degrees (that's 37.7c for the Canucks) and 99% humidity. We sent one of our newbies for a bucket of prop wash from a squadron (VRC-50) on the other end of the ramp. We called ahead to let them know he was coming. They gave him a bucket of aircraft soap and sent him back. We he arrived we told him what they gave him was for fiberglass props (C-2) and we had aluminum props (P-3). Sent him off again this time to crash crew in the opposite direction. Again we called ahead to let them know he was coming. Crash crew guys are always prepared. The hooked him up with a bucket of AFFF (Aircraft Fire Fighting Foam). The main ingredient of AFFF is deer blood and it stinks. After waking back over half a mile with a FULL 5 gallon bucket (no lid) of this stuff he had it all over him. He worked the rest of the day in that uniform. He was the only guy who volunteered to work in the rain.

[Pic]

When I was younger and worked construction we used to send the new guys helping the electricians for a wire stretcher. One guy was gone all afternoon. The next morning when he showed up we asked him where the heck he was and he said if you guys are dumb enough to try and pull that one me I just took the afternoon off. We all laughed. Also used to send newbies to go get us a squeegee sharpener or a broom straightener.

[Sailor]

I worked at the airport in Vancouver for a few years. When I was on the ramp one of the duties given to the newbies was driving the " honey wagon" . You would park under the plane, climb up on the back of the wagon and connect the hose to drain the toilets. You had to push the connection up then twist it a 1/4 turn to the right to lock it in place. failure to lock it meant you got the full load all over you. There was one particular newbie who everyone disliked. He was arrogant and unpleasant. The entire time he drove the honey wagon no one explained about locking the connection.