After graduating with a Master of Religious Education degree from Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, I went to work for them as a Supervisor of Building Maintenance.
The arrangement of the rooms in our maintenance building was as follows:
- When you came in the main door, there was a hallway.
- On the left side a door led to the shop area.
- On the right side were three offices.
- Directly down the hall, at the end, was a single shared restroom.
The three offices were as follows:
- First was the director’s office,
- then the receptionists office in the middle,
- and finally a supervisor’s office, which was shared by both the Supervisor of Custodial Services, and myself as the Supervisor of Building Maintenance.
In the supervisor’s office, the two of us each had our own desk and phone.
One of our receptionists had a fairly loud voice which could easily be heard in our offices. One of the things that seemed to happen to her frequently, was when she would head to the restroom, the phone would ring. We heard her “complaints” many, many times that the stupid phone always rang when she headed to the restroom. This was often enough, that we used to tease her about it, which annoyed her immensely.
One night I had been working late, when I got a “brilliant” idea. I drilled a small hole in the baseboard of my office, directly thru to the inside of the restroom.
Then I fed my phone cord thru the hole, and took my phone and connected it to the cord, placing it directly under the commode. Since the light was usually off in the restroom, it was not easy to spot (especially since no one would expect a phone to be there), until you were settled onto the commode.
The next day, I patiently waited until our receptionist headed to the restroom. Waited a short amount of time, and then used the other phone in my office, to dial my number.
From the restroom, you could hear my phone ringing, multiple times. Shortly you also heard “I’m Going To Kill Whoever Did This.”
Yes I did that—I’m just a practical joker by nature.