I’ve got this boss.  He’s a  great guy most of the time easy going nice to work for.
Except he has an annoying habit of sneaking up behind me and slamming his hand down on my desk while I’m working.  It’s startles me, makes me jump and he snickers and skulks off.  I have talked to him about it a couple times and each time he says he will stop but after a couple weeks he does it again.  I want to punch the B*stard out!  I don’t want to talk to his boss or HR (he’s still my friend).  But he’s driving me nuts!
I don’t think it’s practical joke time.

Advice?

If something doesn’t change I am going to quit or snap and I don’t want to do either!

Yeah , go ahead and kill him...

I always tell my friends and family that trying to startle me is not a good idea.  I figure if someone does startle me, they must want to be shot.

I'll second the notion---kill him.

...thumbtacks on the desk.

then throw hot coffee.

Keep in mind that dead human bodies are usually identified via dental records and sometimes by finger prints. Lose these areas of the corpse and the authorities will be none the wiser.

A good policy is 'three counties per one dead body'.

Fake a heart attack next time.




If you are lucky, they will stick you out on disability for trauma.

No, I don’t work at the post office.
I didn’t mention he is a foot shorter and 100 pounds lighter that me.

But don't use a frirearm! You'll fuck it up for the rest of us! [:)]

You DON'T think it is practical joke time?  I say the guy likes you and enjoys teasing you.  If he is already a joker, get into the spirit and return the favor.  

Rubber snakes in his desk?  Real spiders released in his office?  Even the old electric hand buzzer.  

Give it a whirl.  Turn the tables.  

Here is a good one:  Tell him, the next time you do that I am going to put sugar in your gas tank.

He WILL do it again, right?

Once he does it, slip down to his car and open the outer gas lid.  Open a few packages of sugar and sprinkle some around on the opening, on the ground near the tank, leave the packages.

The whole thing is he THINKS he has gas in his tank.  Goes nuts.  You wait until he is going to call a wrecker before you tellin him, Gotcha!

FWIW, a small amount of sugar IN the gas will not hurt anything, British tried to it for sabotage during WWII.  Ineffective.

The beauty is you DON'T put the sugar in at all, just let him scare himself.

After that, we can get real nasty  ...

TheRedGoat

PS.  Relax, have fun, turn the tables.

I've learned never to be friends with my boss.

Take it up with him. If he does not stop go to his boss.

HR is the last resort.

Av.

Some possible solutions:

Take Valium.

Change the orientation of your desk so that he cannot sneak up on you.

Get one of those hunting hearing aids that you can use as both an enhancer & a sharp noise reducer.  Maybe it would even be tax deductible.

Start sneaking up on him & hitting his desk when he is unaware.

Start doing other annoying little things like that & then offer to stop if/when he does.

Create a crisis that will divert his attention.  He obviously has too much time on his hands.

Delegate upwards.  Give him some of your work on the theory that you are too rattled by his interruptions.

Take him to the range with you & rap off 5 quick shots before he gets his hearing protection on.  After that make sure that he is immediately to your right so that the hot brass lands on his skin.  A little pain might divert his attention.

Overact.  The next time that he does this fall off of your chair & act like you are having a heart attack.  Make it last for a full minute so that he doesn't think that you are faking.

Put a trip wire around the perimeter of your area using tin cans with stones in them.  Claymores?  May be too much at this point.

Define your office space with tape on the floor like Les Nessman on the old WKRP in Cincinnati TV show & tell him that he must knock before entering.

Eat foods that make you gassy.

Get a thicker skin.

i think i like the "Sugar" joke so far.

Don't quit and don't snap. And whatever you do, don't react with any kind of "startled" physical response- this could end up being used against you.

Tell him _now_if he does it again, that what he is doing makes you uncomfortable, affects your work performance, and that you will go right to his boss, and if that doesn't work to your satisfaction, then you will go to a lawyer. THAT should get their attention.

Nobody deserves inappropriate treatment on the job, esp. after being told to stop it. He is abusing his position of authority. If he were your friend, he wouldn't do this stuff...

Of course, remember, for every action there is a reaction, so you might want to consider the consequences of any reaction at all. Consider the following:

Sometimes the best response is to move out of there? Some people are incorrigible, but...

Whatever happens, don't resort to any sort of physical or angered response, esp. on company property! No property damage, and no immature "revenge" fantasies- don't go there!

Write down when and what he does and says in a notebook- this can be used against him later.

Basically I think your boss is a bored, inadequate soul with a streak of sadism, who does this because he knows it gets him attention. However if he values his own job more than his sicko jollies, then maybe he'll back off.

I have had wack-job bosses like that in the past. They deep down don't think they are good enough for the job, so put others down to make themselves feel better. These people are snivelling weaklings, who only change when their jobs are on the line.

But sometimes, not even then.

I knew of a supervisor in a tap and die factory I worked in for a little while in Greenfield, MA, in the late 80s while in grad school, who used to abuse women and older male employees, esp. behind closed doors. The employees from this rural area were generally uneducated with little knowledge of their rights or sufficient skills for better jobs. He seemed to specialise in harrassing unmarried women who had no skills (who generally had dropped out of school- not even a HS diploma), who were raising kids....I'll let you fill in the rest. He was one sick character! One day, one woman finally said enough, and told his bosses that if this didn't stop, she'd call the newspapers and the TV stations, tell them what he had been forcing her to do in his office, and sue them for everything they had. Well, enough other people suddenly came forward with similar stories about this creep, that he was summarily fired, and upper management had him literally escorted him out the door with armed guards. People were throwing things at him as they left.

Last I saw of this guy he was sitting in his white Oldsmobile in downtown Greenfield with a forlorn look on his face....and, unemployed, after years invested in his job, no employers would touch him because of his rep.

"Time wounds all heels", as they say.

I'll bet you're not the only one who's getting this treatment.....check out your options first, and talk to somebody else whom you can trust about this.


(Edited, bec. I still can't type for s*it, even after earning two degrees...[rolleyes])

Go to your boss, and tell him that your doctor has decided that the stress is killing you,  and it's his fault. Tell him he has ordered you to quit working. Have a neatly signed letter, make it look official.  

Tell him you are putting in for a pension based on an on-the-job injury, or workman's comp or whatever sounds good, and are considering a lawsuit. Tell him your lawyer says you can sue just for making the work place unpleasant, never mind any actual injury done to you.

And then, when you see his reaction, decide whether its a joke or the truth...

Hold the phone there guys and gals.  Think this through.  Do you all really think getting an attorney, threatening to sue, confronting your friend about legal responses is the way to handle this?

Seriously.  It is a FRIEND that is going over the line.  A nice guy that is missing the point when he is asked to quit.

Heart to heart, face to face with the guy and tell him in NO UNCERTAIN terms you want it to stop is the solution.  Why escalate this thing?  

Why let a prank ruin a friendship.  

Really, come on.  If a friend of yours suddenly walked up to you with threats of a lawsuit, letters from an attorney, or you heard from YOUR boss that an official complaint is now on YOUR record over something that could have been handled better.  Would you still have that friend?

Why burn bridges, or ruin a friendship, over a misunderstanding?

Play along, or handle it face to face like a FRIEND would do.

TheRedGoat

95thfoot has the best info. Since the boss is your friend, you need to make your objection more emphatic. You need to explain how it makes you feel, and that it is impacting your work. If you have a formal review and feedback process, raise it as a documented issue.

Three words: Mirror

LL

Man, this is so easy. Next time he does it act more startled that usual and fall out of your chair. Lay on the floor and roll around yelling about your back. Try to look like you are in real pain. Make sure you yell a lot and get everybodies attention.

Then you can either:

A. Wait until he gets really excited about causing your injury and hop up and tell him "just kidding".

B. Continue rolling around on the ground until the ambulance shows up and take a few weeks of paid time off to sit on ar15.com all day or maybe make a few trips out to the range. Enjoy yourself, after all, you earned it.

Either way he will probably quit scaring you. If you go for option A and he continues to scare you, just keep pretending to get hurt, except get louder and more obnoxious with it each time.

[img]http://cmp.felk.cvut.cz/~svoboda/Demos/Omnivis/SphereChr/input.jpg[/img]

[url]http://webphysics.davidson.edu-END Of Applet Attempt-
s/optics/spherical_aberation.html[/url]

DAMN !!! I just LOVE the title of this post !!
[stick] [kill] [frag] [chainsawkill]

Should you pursue this course action there is a fellow down in your neck of the woods you may wish to consult with first (or even after!)...

(hint: wears a pointy helmet like this [>]:)])

you could always try the age old favorite... ketchup packet.. ;) *smack* *SPLAT*

A few drops of liquid soldering flux in his coffee cup will have him too busy on the toilet empying out through his pucker to sneak up on you.

Haha, this is some funny stuff.

As someone posted before, reorient your desk so your back is NOT facing the door. (Hard to do in cubie workplaces)  

How about
Next time he does that, take out a boat horn and blow it right back at him.  I said STOP.

Tell him again politely to stop or you'll have to tell HIS supervisor what he is doing.

rosin or acid type flux?

Man, oh man.  What happened to the NICE 308wood that was not wantint to go for practical jokes?

Come to the dark side, 308wood, give yourself to the Force...

TheRedGoat

f### off Yoda.

the dark side is more fun.

ah yes the pleasures of life after a couple pints of Guinness. [beer]

Ahhh so true.  And the pleasures of alcohol and posting on a public forum.  What a lovely combination.  [:D]

TheRedGoat

ps.  BTW, Yoda worked for the Good guys, not the Dark Side.  But, hey, who am I to argue without a Guiness to back me up?  [;)]

Put a bumper sticker on his car that says "Proud To Be GAY". It may be days before he spots it.

Shop lifter mirror and a tube of super glue. Just before that mofo slithers into your cubicle blow a load of super glue on the desk where he plops his hand down. The first thing the dumbass will try to do is wipe it off with his other hand or on something. Then thats his ass! Just have a bottle of fingernail polish remover handy if you want to let him off the hook.

I have a boss who I consider a friend but we don't get brutal in our pranks. We keep it friendly and try to out think each other more than cause pain. Of course if I get a good one on him he sends me to some boring meetings for revenge.

I think you have the exact same problem described in this thread- consider reading it and using the advice offered there...

[url]http://ar15.com/forums/topic.html?id=105845[/url]
Especially the advice to "Pinch him on the neck, while growling "gerr, geerrr"."

I had the same problem.  Talking didn't seem to work so I did it back to him.  After he caught is breath I looked at him and said....see that shit isn't funny....grow up,  your the boss so set an example.  He never did it again.  Good luck because that shit ain't funny.

Let him see you keeping a log of these events...