April Fool Pranks in Sun Microsystems Over the Years | Hacker News Reader

April Fool Pranks in Sun Microsystems Over the Years

tech.gaeatimes.com

75 pointsohjeez12 comments

I joined Sun slightly after Sun Quentin and from about that point on, it felt like a very different place. That is, very engineer-friendly and exciting, but I joined the tech workforce at about the time when you had to start being more bland and concerned with everything you did and said. I'm not talking about whining about politically correct things. I'm talking about simple sarcasm and humor or being just a little odd for the fun of it. It sounds like they used to be joyous fun times in the industry, but for most of my time, I've felt very constricted and aware of my every word. To the point that I wouldn't even, say, talk about playing video games, because you never know who might overhear and equate video games with being a child and wonder what is wrong with you.

Still, I am grateful to have Sun on my resume and to have been there near the tail end of the good times. It is one of the most memorable periods of my entire life.

The comment in the article deserves to be on that list:

"I was at Sun headquarters for several of these, but the most participative was in 1992, the water fight between Sun Labs and SunSoft. The goal was to get the President of the respective business unit soaked, and elaborate measures were taken to prevent it, even enclosing Ed Zander in a plexiglass container. Sun t-shirts were distributed to either side and employees showed up in shorts and eye protection. There were super-soakers and waterballoons aplenty. When it was over, there wasn’t a dry eye in the place."

I was at that water fight. I was headed to a party afterwards so I stopped at a liquor store to buy a sixpack. The lady at the counter looked at me very weird, asking me repeatedly if I was okay. I didn't think much of it and just answered "sure". Just before I packed my beers, her manager stepped over to me and asked me the same thing, so this time, I was getting a bit irritated. He then explained to me "Sir, it's just that your eyes are very red and your clothes appear to be damp, so we're not sure we should be selling you alcohol right now...".

It took some explaining.

I'm not sure that "there wasn't a dry eye in the place" is the correct expression. Unless it was very moving and sad. Or is this just a local usage (New Zealander checking in).

It's just referring to the futility of the eye protection (mentioned just before) against all that water.

For lots more great stories about Sun, check out Nancy Householder Hauge's blog: http://consultingadultblog.blogspot.com/

She did HR at Sun for years. Look for the entries titled "Life in the Boy's Dorm" on the right sidebar. When I found these I couldn't stop reading them.

This blog has the picture I remember seeing of Bill Joy's car in a pond. http://tmacwords.wordpress.com/2008/04/01/april-fools/

A lot of these seem to be of the form "A in B" where A and B are distinct elements in {office, car, pond}. The crown was the "Pond in Car in Office".

Yes, they became a "series." It started with (Eric Schmidt's) "car in office" and "office on grass." The final one being "water in car in office on grass." That's when we put Andy Bechtolsheim's car (911 Porsche) inside his office, carpeted with real grass, and a huge water tank with catfish inside the car. The car was a couple of inches longer than his office, so we had to move a wall.

It was epic fun.

> Sun execs walk into Apple’s staff meeting wearing masks of Apple execs. Scully was not amused.

That last line just does it :)

I was expecting the pranks to be better.

I miss working at PAL1.

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