First days on a new job are usually nerve wracking, and having coworkers who are troublemakers certainly makes it harder.

How would you handle a poor attempt of a prank on you at your job? One guy shared a pretty epic clapback he had for this exact situation. Here’s what happened.

Sent on a quest for the impossible plint ladder

From working as a temp in several warehouses, I know some of the ways the old guard would mess around with the beginners by asking them to locate something that doesn’t exist.

In kitchens, someone would ask for a ‘holeless colander’ and in warehouses they would send you on a quest for the ‘plint ladder’, which is a ladder to climb a baseboard / skirting board.

They sound like a bunch of wise guys.

So I came prepared.

The warehouse manager send me on the plint ladder quest and I asked him if it could be outside too.

He humoured me and told me he didn’t know where it was stored, so I just had to look for it everywhere.

A harmless, but wild prank.

“Ask around!” he added, because that would make it even more hilarious.

So I pretended to look around until I was out of view, then walked out the warehouse and went to a coffee shop to smoke and read a book.

I didn’t return for a couple of hours, but they didn’t know where I had gone.

He was searching far and wide!

So after several hours had gone by, I returned to the warehouse and reported to the manager that the quest hadn’t been easy, but I found him a plint ladder.

And then I handed him a small Play Mobil toy ladder.

He surely didn’t see that one coming.

I could see the fury in his eyes for me taking the whole afternoon off to come back with an actual ‘plint ladder’ instead of making a fool of myself, but since I had merely followed his orders, he couldn’t dock my pay.

He never sent me out to get anything after that.

Some people don’t prefer the taste of their own medicine. Let’s see what Reddit had to say.

Many jumped at the chance to tell their own version of this story.

Including ones that went wrong.

Some even from different languages.

And others that were just straight up hilarious.

It takes a village to haze the new guy.

If you liked that post, check out this post about a woman who tracked down a contractor who tried to vanish without a trace.