Fooling Around at Work

A decade ago I was young, babyish even by youthful standards, and working on a very serious financial newspaper, a state of affairs I handled by regularly sending spoof electronic messages from colleagues’ computers.

The standard prank involved going up to the terminal of an editor and sending someone a “witty” note along the lines of: “you’re fired”. Another common “joke” involved sending messages to the news desk, volunteering to write absurd stories, or posing silly questions like: “Can someone help translate a document into Asian?”

But the message I recall most vividly and always with a shiver, was one I sent from the unattended computer of an intern working in the Washington DC bureau. Someone had just, I think, sent a serious query to the whole company about the timing of some economics and I followed it up with: “Can anyone tell me who Alan Greenspan is?”

Like all my own jokes at that time, I found it hilarious: Greenspan was the Chairman of the Federal Reserve and querying his identity on a financial paper was the equivalent of asking the Daily Sport news room if they knew who Jordan was. But nobody else found it funny, not least the poor intern who was flooded with messages from various economics commentators, inquiring how someone so ignorant had managed to gain employment on such a prestigious organ.

I recount the story because the intern in question, Aravind Adiga, has just had his first novel published. It is called White Tiger, it is a masterpiece and I want to take the credit: if I hadn’t scuppered his chances as a financial journalist he may not have blossomed into such a promising writer. Also, the story illustrates some key points about humour at work…

Read atTimes Online