Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

Just this morning, I was joking around in the StartupNation office with Ric (our editor) who asked me if we "hazed our new web developer yet?"

I replied, attempting to do my best web geek impression, "Yeah, we totally changed his login to the Terminal Server and plugged his mouse into the wrong port!"

Now, I`ve heard some crazy stories of college hazing rituals, pranks on new employees, etc.  Heck, at one of my previous jobs, we sent some poor guy to the basement for printer supplies (we had no basement).  After joking about hazing our new developer...I began to think, "I wonder how computer geeks really would haze people?"

So with that said.............

Computer Geek Hazing Idea 01:  "Rename all their desktop icons and change each default icon image!!!"

Let`s hear your geeky hazing ideas!!!!!

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Brian Cleveland,
Web Producer,
StartupNation

Funny you bring this up.
We were asked to bring in pictures of us as kids and post them on our cubicle walls. I googled the nerdiest kid pictures, printed them, and posted them on the cubes of newer employees.
To cover myself, I now have a picture of a uber-nerd playing the accordion beside my name plate.

Computer Geek Hazing Idea 1: Strip the mouse wires down and plug it into the wall! When the Geek tries to use his machine it will shock the crap out fo them. Then for an added bonus you could set the machine up to blue screen when it boots and says " I hate you, take that!" 

Computer Geek Hazing Idea 2: Install his OS on to Ram, so when he shuts down his OS is gone! :)


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He who gets greedy like a pig, gets slaughtered like a hog!

Ouch now the Mouse idea is kind of harsh, first of all because there`s 110 volts coming out of the socket.
I think the funnies hazing technique I`ve ever played on a new friend was:
When I was in college, in my electronics engineering courses, we used to build circuits on a solderless bread board and we used to wire it and check the current flowing through the circuitry and write reports. So What we did to one of our classmates while he went to the bathroom was, we replaced all his capacitors with chicklets (the green square ones)... So when he came back, he was wondering why his circuit wasn`t working. It took him 5 days to find out that we had replaced them. Yeah we did get in trouble but hey... He was inducted to our Group.
But as for a web developer, that would be a good... How can you? OS on Ram? That`s a good one..
I have to try that one.

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Edgar Monroy
Web Developer / Owner / Consultant
When starting your own business the need to "know-how" is greater than money!
http://www.nuevolution.net

When he steps away from his computer quickly go over there and hit `print screen` open paint and save as a bitmap (for quality), set image as the desktop, close all programs (save files), hide all icons and walk away. When he comes back he`ll see the programs he left open but no matter what he clicks nothing will respond, he will be clicking on the desktop...  it will appear as is the pc is frozen and he`ll likely just reboot only to run into the same thing he just left! it`s funny to sit back and watch how many times he`ll reboot before going   $#!@  ;-)

Heres another one..
Create a simple virus in C++ and drop it in his windows files.
What the virus does is everytime he clicks enter he is duplicating an image of his "My Documents" so before you know, he will end up with a low virtual memory or he will consume all his hard drive space.. Make sure you are not connected to your server. Ive done this and its funny to see their expression.
You will have to format the hard drive and reinstall everything back...

Simply because a developer thinks they know it all and to see that they can`t figure something simple out is funny.. 

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Edgar Monroy
Web Developer / Owner / Consultant
When starting your own business the need to "know-how" is greater than money!
http://www.nuevolution.net

Ok...ElidS....I`m loving the "printscreen desktop background" idea!

Computer Geek Hazing Tactic #02: One funny one I found that works on some Dell computers (maybe others) is to hold down the CTRL and ALT keys at the same time and press the "up arrow" key.  This will flip the computer screen display completely upside down. 

You can also use the side arrow keys to rotate it either clockwise or counterclockwise.  (use the same process with the "down arrow" to put the screen back to normal)

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Brian Cleveland,
Web Producer,
StartupNation

ok - that was fun - just turned my screen upside down. Now I have to go hunting for someone`s unattended computer to play a dirty geek trick!

Speaking of desktop bitmaps, here`s one of my favorites, courtesy of Dilbert:

http://www.unitedmedia.com/comics/dilbert/desktop_diversions /images/dilbert_fakedesktop_w_1280x960.jpg




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Kathleen Grant
Web Developer
StartupNation

SCORE!

(waiting for Jessica`s scream)