Do you ever change marks to just have fun with it?
Years ago we had to add marks so plates were loaded into the bender the correct way. We decided to have a little fun with it.
Bender points the way into the bender.
I forgot to add, tail end of the plate has Breakfast Club Bender
your marks are so kind to the press operator!! ;D
I used to put a picture of a particular pressman we had named Crazy Larry on the plates for his press.
Another one I like to do is to add tiny text to the color bars and wait to see how long it takes for someone to notice. It is often years before I hear about it. I'll put little jokes, puns, or something silly. Just have to make sure that if a customer ever saw it it's nothing too bad.
I had a customer long ago that wanted a proof of a banner he was ordering for his company. I made a proof in the correct ratio showing how much space his saying would take up. He said he couldn't visualize it. He wanted to see what the grommets would look like in the banner.
I made drawings of grommets with the word "duh" filling the middle.
Quote from: Tracy on March 29, 2022, 09:20:24 AMyour marks are so kind to the press operator!! ;D
We actually bend the plates in Prepress, but they come in handy when a less experienced person needs to bend plates.
Love these!
I did use this once, made it comically big on a press test.
Pressman probably got that in register and let everything else go! :rotf:
Or they were so use to seeing it "yeah good to go" ;D
I guess we all have experience with some good press ops ;D
I had a fiasco with a job a couple weeks ago, made me want to make a T-shirt
SHEET SIZE MATTERS ;D
Quote from: DCurry on March 29, 2022, 09:36:16 AMI used to put a picture of a particular pressman we had named Crazy Larry on the plates for his press.
Another one I like to do is to add tiny text to the color bars and wait to see how long it takes for someone to notice. It is often years before I hear about it. I'll put little jokes, puns, or something silly. Just have to make sure that if a customer ever saw it it's nothing too bad.
I knew a Crazy Mike, I wonder if they're related?
Quote from: johnny_jay on March 29, 2022, 10:35:15 AMI did use this once, made it comically big on a press test.
Might file that one for future use. Maybe use it to create havoc once I have moved on. ;D ;D ;D
Enjoy!
Quote from: born2print on March 29, 2022, 01:19:51 PMI knew a Crazy Mike, I wonder if they're related?
There's no shortage of crazies in printing.
I did used to put jokes in the plate identifier mark on Preps, but no one ever noticed. At one time I changed the side guides to scratch marks, so it looked like it got mauled by a bear. I had a few other fun marks, but the two owners of that place were so grumpy it didn't last long.
My two favorite pranks of all time were pulling up the M and N on my boss' keyboard and swap them. Also, every day he would "misplace," his cup of coffee. I typically helped with that. Usually I would get on a ladder and put it 12 or more feet high up on a shelf or rafter or something.
I like to put a small post-it on the bottom of someone's mouse so it blocks the light. Back when mice had a ball, I would take my boss's mouse and replace the ball with a Milk Dud.
Also fun to take a screenshot of someone's cluttered desktop, then make it their desktop picture. Even better if you move all their desktop folders somewhere else so none of the folders or files they double-click on will open.
Instead of post-it, use semi-clear tape. The mouse kinda works. Quite funny watching what they do to figure it out.
Quote from: DCurry on March 31, 2022, 05:20:09 AMI like to put a small post-it on the bottom of someone's mouse so it blocks the light. Back when mice had a ball, I would take my boss's mouse and replace the ball with a Milk Dud.
Also fun to take a screenshot of someone's cluttered desktop, then make it their desktop picture. Even better if you move all their desktop folders somewhere else so none of the folders or files they double-click on will open.
My sis in law would keep 100 items all scattered on her macbook desktop. She came to me once because it was running slow. First thing I did was create a folder in documents "desktop items" and moved it all there, added a shortcut and placed that on the desktop. I ran disk first aid and it seemed to be much better. I gave it back and when she saw I moved everything she was in tears and said I had ruined her filing system. In all other aspects of life, she is super organized.
Quote from: DCurry on March 31, 2022, 05:20:09 AMI like to put a small post-it on the bottom of someone's mouse so it blocks the light. Back when mice had a ball, I would take my boss's mouse and replace the ball with a Milk Dud.
Also fun to take a screenshot of someone's cluttered desktop, then make it their desktop picture. Even better if you move all their desktop folders somewhere else so none of the folders or files they double-click on will open.
I did that in college to all the iMacs in the classroom before class started. My professor was none too pleased.
LOOK WHAT WE'VE DONE, to a funny thread about "Benders"... :stopwar: !
Are we really going down the path of the Dark Side here, with all the bad things we've done? (I feel bad but I did the mouse thing too!)
Do we need a "Prepress Confessional" thread?
I used to lock myself in the plate room to "load plates" in the dark, but was actually just working and keeping the CSRs away.
I provided proof to the union that the PTB were in bed with the union and useless to our workers so they leave me alone about not joining which led to a mass exodus of workers.
I put black ink on the delivery button on the press.
I cut plates on my supervisor's guillotine cutter bc I was too lazy to do them my hand and he had to change the blade the next morning.
I would trap the owner's dog in the prepress so he could be my dog while I worked. I fed him French fries.
I shot a rubber band at a folder operator and it landed in the rollers and messed up his production time.
I filled my supervisor's trunk with 1' round hole punches.
I shrink wrapped a coworkers keys and items and then shrink wrapped all of the items together, then wrapped their coat around it and shrink wrapped that.
I plastic wrapped a few coworker's cars.
You mentioned the EVIL of deliberately moving Reg marks...
I used to give the owner a "heated" plate when he said he was going to running the web-press, normally Magenta because it was closer to where he stood.
Basically, same effect as running your chemistry too hot,. but only for that one plate ... add's a few % to the dot gain making white people lean to red and jacking all process builds. He had it coming with safety shortcuts and talking smack on my co-workers.
... Standing on the stitcher, loading books "What's with the color?? All these red people... geez!?!" ... owner storming out in a huff! :mom:
OMG Skryber lol
I covered a coworker's car in snow (mind you this is San Diego)
I cut a piece of mylar to look like spider fracture and put on windshield... or in contact frame with a stupid-tall register pin and call the rookie over to ask them "what the hell did you do?!"
The funnel trick
The hot ink trick
ahhhhhh - good times 8)
Quote from: Skryber on March 31, 2022, 08:54:28 AMI plastic wrapped a few coworker's cars.
We did that one night, he was sleeping in the car at the time.
Our stitcher operator was super meticulous about his area with his teas and snacks and supplies and the night crew would take his stuff. Sometimes I would rearrange all of his things. He'd be mad and cursing the night crew until he saw us laughing at him.
There was a dude way back that would prank me good, and I could NEVER get him...
until I figured out a way.
I just kept looking at him and grinning, he drove himself mad looking for what I had done...
which was nothing.
The student became the master that night.
:ninja:
You can't mess with anyone at the shop I'm at now. They are kind of touchy and will get mad. Which sucks for the bf because now the shenanigans flows onto him.
So not work related, once while we were out with some friends, he showed me something on his phone and I went into his keyboard text replacement and added a few replacements. So if he text "10-4" and hit send, it would send "I concur." Or "hey" changed to "Good day to you kind sir." Or "Copy" changed to "I'm a little lad who loves berries and cream." I think there were a few others.
So I was drinking and forgot about it and we were out at breakfast the next morning and he yelled, "WHY IS MY PHONE SAYING STUPID SHIT??" It was then I remembered what I had done. He had sent all of them bc I had picked common phrases bc cops all send the same texts. One of them went to the mayor. He was really mad and had to explain to his guys I messed with his phone and I about died laughing.
:lmao:
Aw crap! Tomorrow is April 1st... watch-out for Skryber!
I once put a dead mouse in the lead pot on a Linotype machine. Stunk up real bad for a week and the Lino operator had to drain the whole pot, clean and reassemble. He was not happy.
Back in the dark days of hand combining, I once got an apprentice to paste up the round waste punch holes from the film onto a piece of clearbase over a grid sheet.
Told him that was how we made stipple masters. Then had him put it in the gallery camera and shoot a negative at reduced sizes to get different percentage stipples.
He didn't last much longer, was a real dumbshit.
A co-worker & I once "reverse taped" another guy into the bathroom. We covered the entire door frame with clear packing tape, sticky side IN so when he walked out he'd get web-stuck. In theory.
We also flipped the breaker for the shop lights in that area, so he wouldn't see the packing tape. Cool, huh? Turns out, we accidentally hit the breaker that controlled the Boss Man's fairly expensive aquarium. By morning, the whole tank was full of floaters. None of us EVER copped to it, we blamed it on an overnight brownout.
I have a million more, what's wrong with me? I'm won't bore you with anymore after this one. Not work related.
Our subdivision has a yard sale every year and on that day, we were hanging out with our neighbors. After some of them went in for the night, I went around and grabbed all the crap people put at the end of their driveway to throw out or hope someone would take that they didn't sell at the yard sale. Furniture, decorations, wall art, yard sale signs, etc. I set up an entire living room with a couch, recliner, coffee tables, curio cabinet, tv, a floor lamp, a wreath, a framed poster of Audrey Hepburn, toys, knick knacks, about 30 yard sale signs, a big plastic Santa, stuffed animals, fake plants and trees, I mean a ton of stuff.....in my neighbor's front yard. This was another drinking time where I went to sleep and forgot what I had done. The next morning I got a text from that neighbor that said "touché." Took me a sec, I was just as surprised as he was. :rotf: He was having a Memorial Day party that day and had to get rid of all that stuff before people came over. I wish someone took a picture of it before he tore it all down. It was glorious. He swore he would get me back worse, but never did. He doesn't live there anymore, but I wait.... :ninja:
We once shrink wrapped everything on a guy desk; the stapler, the tape dispenser, all his pens/pencils, the phone, his keyboard... everything. It was funny. Also put a for sale sign on a guy's '69 Mach 1in the parking lot with his hone number on it. That was good too.
Did an upper decker at a place in Fresno when they fired me on my 89th day after coming to work late because I was in a serious car accident and passed out, even though I showed up at work late with broken ribs. Woke up in the shop manager's car taking me to the hospital. On day 90, I would have got medical benefits, and PTO, and they didn't want to be on the hook. It took 2 years +, a bankruptcy, and a lawsuit, because I sued my car insurance company for payment because they only gave me 75% of the bills, but I won all the costs and then some. The only eyewitness was a CHP officer, who wrote in the report, "100% NOT my fault." Insurance fought the claim because he was not a, "licensed accident reconstructer."
Quote from: born2print on March 31, 2022, 10:07:28 AMThere was a dude way back that would prank me good, and I could NEVER get him...
until I figured out a way.
I just kept looking at him and grinning, he drove himself mad looking for what I had done...
which was nothing.
The student became the master that night.
:ninja:
I've been messing with people this way for decades. It's amazing how well it works, and you don't even have to do anything. The mind is the best tool.
Madbugger, I had to clean out the "back room" at a small newspaper once. Found a dead bat. Put it on the desk of the daughter of the owner, one of those entitled brats.
I once hid in the darkroom with the lights out. The kind of darkroom with the revolving door. The manager came looking for me, went through the door, saw it was dark, then went back out. I swear her nose wasn't more than a few inches from mine. I got some funny looks when I "reappeared."
Born, I had a CSR once that was always worried people were talking about her. Was doing some hand sorting with another co-worker and said watch this. I started smiling at the CSR and acting like I was whispering to my co-worker. Only took three times and the CSR comes out yelling "what are you saying about me?"
From 4th-6th grade we used to go into the school library and "update," the dictionary. For example, if we found a spider, we smashed it, while retaining it's form, and placed it on the definition of spider. We did this with, bee, ant, fly, wasp... well, you get the idea.
Jeeez! Did you pull the wings off first? :freddy:
No. We left them intact. For visual reference.