In Germany we ask apprentices to fetch a spare bubble for the spirit level.
Spannungsabfalleimer gotta be my favorite.
I just shake it as hard as I can. There ya go lotsa bubbles.
That actually seems like it could be a legit thing, like a replacement tube.
Other classics are in aviation asking them to grab a bucket of prop wash, and then the numerous automotive ones like blinker fluid, muffler bearings, etc.
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
Is this how the apprentice becomes the tool crib guy?
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.
When I worked in a hardware shop in the 90s an apprentice mechanic came in and asked for halogen for headlight bulbs
I went into the storeroom and brought him one of those giant packing bubbles
He was chuffed as fuck
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.
Shopkeeper should glue a fake label to a can and actually sell it to the kid. Get both the kid and the dad lol
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
Embarrassing someone for not knowing something is stupid.
It’s critical thinking. In life, it’s not always about knowing but about understanding.
It’s also about having thick skin and the ability to take a joke. Nobody is hurt, it is funny when you think about it, and it will encourage you to think about things in the future.
I do not need to know turn signals don’t require blinker fluid. Because it’s a fuckin light bulb.
The people in this comments section are acting like this is somehow traumatic. How fucking sheltered are you people?
It’s a very good motivator for critical thinking though.
We know that, through much study, it really isn’t. And the negatives outweigh the positives especially compared to other methods. It’s a trauma response more than anything at that point and if it does work they probably just used those skills to realize what an asshole the shamer was/is.
Good lord, of this is your definition of trauma, you’ve had an incredible life
I’m not here to play olympics with people who struggle to empathize with others. I’m sorry awful things have happened to you, that doesn’t give you any right to invalidate someone else’s pain.
My god guys it was terrible, my Dad sent me to the store for a bucket of steam, and the cashier laughed at me.
How was I supposed to know steam didn’t come in pre-packaged buckets? Nobody ever explained the particulars of steam packaging!
Literally nothing worse could ever happen to me. Now I’ll be in therapy for years.
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.
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…
All these comments analyzing the trauma behind a joke, no one mentioning the anger issues of kicking in the front door
We should definitely overthink this.
there’s something in computer networking called Cisco discovery protocol and I used to teach new interns about it by making them find every Cisco access point we had in the building.
Router#Show cdp neighbor
unless you fuck with naming convention and make them walk around with a wifi analyzer on their phone.
late ass reply. but nah, no fancy naming, they absolutely could’ve done that (if they had opted to spend 30 seconds googling to find out that’s something you can do) but for the most part they just wandered around looking up
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.
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!!!”
