The April Fools joke that might have got me fired

I think the real value in this writeup up of a clever little prank is the way the author/prankster could map out the social reactions and how the spirit in which the prank was received cascades through a whole entire organization in ways that hinge on little cues, little things about who knows who and whether you're physically present before a particular impression crystallizes in people's minds.

It's just such a great example of how people could react either with uproarious laughter or by feeling that some boundary has been violated and can think that either reaction was the most self-evidently obvious one in the world and the reasons for it were entirely contingent. It's something where you can only really witness the irrationality of it if you're in the author's position.

I once heard it speculated that philosophy might have emerged in Greece because the circumstances of being merchants engaging in interstate trade, you could see the way that certain things regarded as received knowledge were really customs, peculiar to certain cultures and locations. When you're the prankster and you can see different people reacting in different ways that seem to be tied to patterns of the circumstances of how they experienced it, you can kind of witness the contingency of those reactions playing out in real time.

Is this overstated?

i.e. I wonder about the gap between clever little prank and sending a dry email to everyone re: a new printing policy.

Much of this hinges on the gradient from the "uproarious laughter" they received from some, to the frustration from others...which I find hard to believe as self-reported, in what context would this be uproariously funny?

I see the value as a simplistic fable re: empathy, and in having it before, not after.

I almost feel like I missed something huge in the email that signals it's a joke, or adds another layer of humor, but after multiple readings, it looks identical to a janitor emailing everyone on campus to tell them keys will be required for bathrooms from now on. Although, that is significantly more implausible than the IT worker emailing everyone on campus to tell them there are charges for printing.

I agree. It seems like hardly anyone got to experience the fun part of the prank - the number of people who actually saw INSERT 5 CENTS on their VFD panel was probably close to zero given "By 8:30am it was chaos". So for 99.9% of people the entirety of the prank was a dry email stating campus was going to start charging for printing, which was true.

For 99.9% of people, the funny of the prank would only hit later. Ie, upon finding out it was a prank, and hearing about the "insert 5 cents" part that they probably didn't see with their own eyes. Plus the retraction, and 2nd retraction. And reactions of other staff who fell for it (and caused chaos) before 8:30.

And then extra value upon retelling all of the above to others.

Someone relating that sequences of events to me as funny, especially if they said it was only funny after the pileup, would significantly adjust my prior as to dark triad characteristics in their psychology.

"prank" = IT guy sent campus wide email saying some printers will now charge $0.05/page

"that they probably didn't see with their own eyes" = they did not check physically very every printer on campus to verify none of the printers had the characteristic, the only way to falsify what the IT guy said, that some printers had a characteristic.

"Plus the retraction, and 2nd retraction." = 3x the time wasted for everyone on campus

"And reactions of other staff who fell for it" = people who believed the dry email from IT

"(and caused chaos)" = chaos isn't funny

"And then extra value upon retelling all of the above to others." = It sounds like we're assuming the relayer would get value from relating this, but the extra value is to the listener, it'd only harm the relayer.

As a listener, now I know that I have to verify 100% of everything the relayer tells me. They think a good prank is when you leverage your professional role to lie and cause chaos, which is justified because those poor sheep were complaining about something they didn't even verify with their own eyes. i.e. thousands of people should have gone through an absurdly onerous verification rather than trust communications you make in your professional role.