5:23 am, August 28, 2014
I’VE been reading these confessions for about two years now, and they have given me lots of inspiration for my own pranks at work. One that I liked was a chap who put a salmon (or some sort of fish) in the suspended ceiling of his old showroom before leaving for his new job.
So, it came to my last day at an independent dealer, and I found myself in a similar position: I was about to move on to the franchised world and was very much looking forward to the challenge ahead. Although I’d had some good times at the independent place, I’d never really seen eye-to-eye with the guys there so I thought I’d do the same as a leaving present. What would make it worse was the fact that I knew that the boss, who I found to be a particularly disagreeable character, hated fish with a passion.
Anyway, on my final day I got in early, put four fish in the suspended ceiling and one on the top of the wardrobe in the sales office. They were big old rainbow trout and smelled pretty bad already. The day went by with only a few people asking what the smell was. But other than that, it was quite normal. Anyway, I left and went on to my new job. A couple of weeks later, I met up for a pint with the one guy I got on with from my old place.
He proceeded to tell me all about how they had been infested with rats, mice and even cats at the dealership. ‘Oh really?’ I said.
‘Yeah, the place stank!’ he exclaimed. ‘In the ceiling there were four dead cats, about 10 rats and a handful of mice. Not to mention a swarm of flies hanging around the place. In the end, we had to replace 23 ceiling tiles, three sections of carpet, a wardrobe and redecorate the sales office. It cost us £3,000!’
‘Oh dear, what caused that then?’ I asked as innocently as I could. ‘They have no idea, probably the hot weather or something,’ he said.
Now, my confession is not only to my old colleagues for the disruption, but to the owners of the cats that went missing. I am truly sorry for your loss.
Even though I actually hate cats, I never meant for that to happen!
