On Friday, 1-April-2005, I executed an Aprils fool joke inside of WalMart Stores, Inc., Information Systems Division that ended up going somewhat wrong.

The director of our area, Network Engineering, was widely liked, and I'd worked for him, first directly when he was a manager, since 1997. Pretty chill guy, great sense of humor, effective leader. I particularly liked him because he gave my team, Network Management, all kinds of 'air cover' from the rest of the division, which allowed us to do our work in very non-standard but extremely efficient ways.

He happened to be on a business trip to WalMart.com headquarters in California.

So I used telnet to connect to the SMTP port of our main Microsoft exchange servers and issued the necessary commands: HELO, RCPT TO, MAIL FROM, DATA, etc, and forged an e-mail that looked like it came from him and was sent to the whole of Network Engineering, probably close to 100 people at that time.

The e-mail basically said that effective immediately, he was retiring. That it had been great working with everyone, etc etc. I took care to write the e-mail using the same phrases, words, formats that he normally used.

And it worked! Everyone believed he had sent the e-mail. My own manager, who reported to the him, was heard joking around with some other managers, saying that the director was clearly playing an Aprils fools joke on his department, and that they were going to get him back by taking the e-mail to HIS manager, a Vice President, asking for clarification.

My director was in transit or something and didn't see the e-mail he supposedly sent.

Some members of his very first team, the telcom support desk, knew him from way back and were horrified. They had his person cell phone number, and called him directly to ask him why he was doing this!

He was quite confused, and called his managers to ask what the hell was going on.

Once my manager found out that the director has NOT sent the e-mail, his amusement turned into anger. The director wasn't amused, because of the disturbance it caused, but he wasn't super upset.

So around noon, there was an emergency department wide all hands called, and my manager, very angry (but he controlled his emotions well) told everyone what happened, and said that the security team was involved, and that whoever did it should come forward.

So after the meeting, I went to his office and said I did it, that I didn't think it would cause any harm, etc.

So next week, I pressed him: what are the consequences going to be? He was vague, and still quite angry about it. Not abusive, or even passive aggressive, but I could tell.

When the director came back, I apologized to him, and he was fairly neutral, which I took as a pretty bad sign.

So this waiting game ended up going on for months. On intervals, I kept asking my manager what was going to happen, because at that same time, I'd just bought a nice property and house and moved in. Losing my job right then would have been a very bad deal.

In the end, nothing happened at all. Over a year later, I found out through some people I knew that my manager had spent months trying to get permission from HR to fire me. They refused...over and over again. And in the end, I didn't even get an unofficial reprimand.

But it was pretty damn stressful!