As I've mentioned in a previous post, I was working when personal computers first came out. They were very expensive, but I got my boss to get one for our department just by doing a report so quickly. I didn't have to make the computations nor did I have to have our secretary type it up - time savings!
Well, because personal computers were so new, and they became a status symbol, my boss (an Assistant Vice President) decided he had to be seen with the computer. That meant he had it placed in an area where it could be seen well.
But not only that, HE had to be seen with the computer. Did he know what to do with it? No. But he decided he had to do something with it, so he had me train him on how to turn it on and get it ready for the day (this was well before Windows, you know DOS days).
Ok, that's easy enough, but the difficult part was I had to wait until he was good and ready to turn it on before I could use it for the day, because he said that was now his job.
Ok, let him have his fun, but I decided I was going to have some fun, too. I decided to create a short little program to put into the autoexec.bat file.
I let one of my friends in the office know about this so she would understand when I went into her office to be "away" when it happened.
My boss came out of his office to go to the computer table and turn on the computer. I walked away and hid in my friend's office. His back was to her office, so we had a good view.
He turned on the computer and waited when all of a sudden things didn't look right. He just looked at it, but decided to continue on. The screen said, "Hit enter to continue."
After he hit "enter" you could see his face change color and all of a sudden he started yelling my name trying to find me.
What happened? When he hit "enter," the computer started making a "going down the drain" sound and stated, "erasing files as requested."
My friend and I were laughing. I had to compose myself so I didn't look so guilty when I went out to "find out what his problem was." When he saw me he started saying that he had no idea what happened, but that all the files are being erased off the computer.
I couldn't hold it in any longer, and my friend came out laughing, too. We explained it was all a joke and the files were fine.
He never touched the computer again - well at least not as long as I worked in that office (I transferred to another office a few months after that).
Yes, there were people who saw something happen and wondered so much they had to ask him. He did admit he was the victim of a practical joke. He became the talk of the office for a few days.
Was it a good practical joke for the office? Or was I too mean?