My favorite “concept” prank (feature, Jan. 19) was swapping whole floors of offices in Fine Tower. Each floor in this tower is almost exactly like the others, except for the view out the windows. Sufficiently far from the ground, they’re interchangeable, except for the usual sorts of “personalization” on the various doors.
What could be more natural, then, than swapping two floors’ worth of door numbers and decorations, with a few quick adjustments to the elevator machinery ... and, as it turned out, I could go right down to the University’s facilities building, pull the University blueprints for the elevators and their control wiring, have the blueprints duplicated for me at University expense, and then have the University staff re-file them for me. Then just a few measurements and the cutting of a few extensions for the wires, and the stage was set ...
Unfortunately, I came down with a migraine headache when the time for performing the caper approached, and the folks actually doing the “work” decided for some reason just to cut and splice the wires. The prank was not so funny when the contractor who had to repair the kludge charged the University something like $750 to reconnect things to code.
My favorite “concept” prank (feature, Jan. 19) was swapping whole floors of offices in Fine Tower. Each floor in this tower is almost exactly like the others, except for the view out the windows. Sufficiently far from the ground, they’re interchangeable, except for the usual sorts of “personalization” on the various doors.
What could be more natural, then, than swapping two floors’ worth of door numbers and decorations, with a few quick adjustments to the elevator machinery ... and, as it turned out, I could go right down to the University’s facilities building, pull the University blueprints for the elevators and their control wiring, have the blueprints duplicated for me at University expense, and then have the University staff re-file them for me. Then just a few measurements and the cutting of a few extensions for the wires, and the stage was set ...
Unfortunately, I came down with a migraine headache when the time for performing the caper approached, and the folks actually doing the “work” decided for some reason just to cut and splice the wires. The prank was not so funny when the contractor who had to repair the kludge charged the University something like $750 to reconnect things to code.