HAVE YOU SEEN THEM?

Loyal followers, I must apologize for being so delayed in my next post. As you all probably know at this point, I have been languishing in a Houston Hotel waiting for my Saudi Work Visa to be completed. Needless to say, what was a nice visit to Houston has turned into an expensive nightmare for the company.


One thing this trip has reminded me of, is all the shenanigans that take place in the Houston office. I’m not talking ruthless political backstabbing, but all out pranks being played on people in my old department. So here is my salute to the men who make the nightmare of anticipation a reality for so many unsuspecting souls.


The Culprits

Jack Mason                                                                  Clinton Williams

Byron Phillips                                                               Eddy Kyzer

Cal Leavitt

Jeff Matulnes



The prank basket is full beyond belief, and I don’t have the space here to write a novella, so I’ll just represent with two classics that were recently played, and a classic look back to the original jokes that started the whole run.




Prank 1: Texas vs. Texas A&M

Those of you who have lived in Texas are used to the constant bantering between Texas and Texas A&M graduates. For those of you who aren’t familiar, think of it terms of the English and the French: respect at some deep level that nobody can find, but general pot shots back and forth.

About 6 weeks ago, Cal Leavitt (Texas A&M grad) thought it would be funny to put a Texas A&M sticker on Charlie Tresselt’s (Texas grad) truck. Well, by the time Cal got to gettin’ that there sticker, it was going into the inside of the car, right on the inner windshield, behind the rear view mirror; the thinking was that this would be harder to notice. Sure enough, the sticker was applied on Friday and wasn’t located until Sunday, when Charlie’s wife got into the truck and saw it right away. Ding, rack one up for the A&M team.

In a normal office environment, with simple pranksters, this would have precipitated a response from Charlie pretty quickly. But in this department, the culprits are always acting as double and triple agents. Monday morning, Jack Mason and Byron Phillips apply a large Texas Longhorn sticker on the back of Cal’s truck. Now Cal is a good Wilson employee and backs into his parking spot, so he could not see this sticker unless he walked around the back of his truck. All Monday long, Charlie says nothing to Cal about the A&M sticker. Cal, not wanting to ruin the joke, stays quiet and heads home at the end of the day with a big Longhorn sticker on his car.

Rather than explain the moment, here is the actual email excerpt I got from Jack:

As you know Cal put a sticker on Charlie's truck last Friday, plus been telling him UT sucks. So today we put on Cal's truck the attached. We watched him drive off with it. Extremely funny because I witnessed Cal a few earlier tell Charlie UT sucks in front of JK. The funny thing is Cal will think Charlie put it on the truck.


Also put in Cal's office UT fight song.

When Cal approached Charlie about the UT sticker, Charlie’s response was, “I didn’t put that sticker on there…I got something special planned for you.” Ring one up for the Culprits.


Prank #2: Steady Rollin’


Craig Winkel joined the Wilson Business Development team about 2 months ago. Craig is a great guy, but had no idea what he was walking into. Before leaving for Saudi Arabia I told him, “This group is ruthless with pranks, so be on the lookout and don’t trust anyone.”

As part of his package, Craig receives a company car that he can use as long as he’s with Wilson. Well for a number of reasons I can’t put my arms around, we’ve gone to the Chrysler 300, shown below.

Well for some reason, Craig’s edition has chrome wheels and tinted windows like the one above in the picture -like Craig's rolling to a Lowrider competition. Well Byron and Jack thought the car deserved some upgrading that would better represent the Lowrider culture.

When Craig rolled into his driveway that night, his family must have wondered why his name was decked out on the back windshield in Old English letters. Likewise, when Cal pulled into work the next day and saw Craig getting out of the car, and then noticing the name on the back windshield, all he could think was, “Look at this guy we just hired in the department.” Another winner for the culprits.

The Pranks that started it all

5 years ago, in a galaxy far, far away, a group of us engaged in an epic struggle for office domination: Who could apply the funniest background to someone else’s computer. Now this involves some scheming once the game is underway. The first time someone heads to the bathroom, it is easy to run into their office and save a picture to their background. Once everyone gets a nice addition to their computer, you have to start building alliances and developing nifty ways to get into an office without getting caught by the resident. Needless to say, there are a number of ways to tackle these logistical issues. So when you get back to your desk, you might be greeted by the following on your desktop background:

Kenny Rogers and Lionel Ritchie eating some fruit together

Gary Coleman and David Hasselhof giving the thumbs up in front of Knight Rider

Hillary posing just for you!

Flavor Flav and his TV women (Scary when Clinton could name the women!)

Vladimir Putin and Obama embracing

The options are endless, and they produced hilarious laughs when we took the challenge to other departments. These poor folks had no idea how their backgrounds were changed, and when they came to ask us, of course we had changed ours as well: “I don’t know, someone is messing around…”
So I think I’m heading back to Saudi Arabia in a week. Being here for so long has made me appreciate these pranks and laughs. I have been blessed with an awesome group of people in my work time here, and I’m looking forward to continued pranks in the years to come.