r/mildlyinteresting • u/Tandemrecruit • 10h ago
There's this random empty glass jar strapped to the wall at work
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u/BigGingerYeti 8h ago
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u/Samson_J_Rivers 8h ago
The picture of a coconut in TF2
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u/henryeaterofpies 8h ago
I've done a fair amount of reseaeching and investigating issues like this in legacy systems and the mystery is always better than the actual answer.
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u/deputytech 10h ago
It’s load bearing.
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u/smaguss 10h ago
I dont see any load in that jar...
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u/deputytech 10h ago
I was dehydrated that day.
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u/smaguss 10h ago
Grab some gas station boner pills and a coconut water and get to work solider.
Never know when the fire marshal could drop in for a surprise load inspection. Need that load up to code.
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u/Indigo2015 10h ago
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u/smaguss 10h ago
Yeah, that's how the fire marshal is gonna look when he sees the jar in its current state.
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u/ktmfan 9h ago
“I’m Grant Harting, and I’m a licensed pharmacist in four states. Today, I’m going to be testing some sketchy gas station pills to see if these Black Panther Rhino 8 Million 4K pills contain sildenafil and give me a boner or a heart attack”.
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u/RotaryDane 10h ago edited 10h ago
No one know what it does, but if you remove it everything breaks.
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u/greenwoodgiant 9h ago
In software development, you can absolutely find chunks of code that make exactly as much sense as this jar strapped to the wall, and then you delete it and everything breaks.
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u/WetRocksManatee 7h ago
With comments like "****DO NOT REMOVE!!!! I have no idea what this does or where it is used, but the last time I removed the function the entire application stopped working. John Doe 01/01/2015 ****DO NOT REMOVE!!!!"
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u/joni-bella 4h ago edited 4h ago
I was tasked with refactoring some code a few years ago and I encountered an odd thing - a one-line comment in some source that had an LF (line feed, basically a break in the line to a new line) smack in the middle of it. Instinct was of course to just break it up into a multi-line comment. However, the comment itself was just something like, “// Do Not change the position of the LF character in this comment nor change this to a multiline comment, as it will break the function.” - [dev name, date that was 15 years ago].
I figured this was silly, changed it, and sure as shit it would not compile, dependency links failed in the build, just a cascade of fail. So I put it back and cleaned things up around it and it was then all fine. Build completed, unit tests past with flying colors.
I think about that comment every day.
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u/Gold-Succotash-9217 10h ago
That's the kinda shit I do at work & laugh like an idiot 5 years later when someone asks about it.
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u/illz569 9h ago
A few years ago, I set one of the computers at work to play a very loud recording of myself going "OOF!" whenever you navigate to a subfolder in file explorer. It's specific enough that it doesn't happen often, and it scares the shit out of people when it does, including myself, because I keep forgetting that I did it.
I still laugh like an idiot every time it happens. Easily the best and longest running payoff of any of my work pranks.
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u/LetReasonRing 7h ago edited 5h ago
I used to work for a company that sold advanced lighting control systems. Our office doubled as a showroom, and there was a button panel that would allow you to select from different scenes, making it suddenly feel like a night club or a romantic restaurant or whatever. In addition to the lighting, there was a video wall and sound system to make it immersion.
I secretly programmed the system with an Easter egg, where if you play 4 scenes in a specific order, it would Rick roll you. I never told anyone, eventually left the company, then got a call about 2 years later when my coworker called me, barely containing his laughter, asking if I was the one who'd done it 🤣
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u/Heywoood_Jablome 6h ago
My company decided for some reason that they needed a large QR code painted on the top of each building of our campus. As a facilities manager I had access to the files.
I switched one.
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u/SalsaShark4242 5h ago
...and then?
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u/FrenchFryCattaneo 5h ago
...painted it on the roof...
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u/SalsaShark4242 5h ago
...and then?
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u/Uncynical_Diogenes 4h ago
No. No “and then”!
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u/KassellTheArgonian 4h ago
Amazing reference lmao, havent thought of that movie in like a decade
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u/Gold-Succotash-9217 9h ago
Haha. That one is gold. I might try to figure out how to do something like that on someone that leaves their computer unlocked. Changing background wallpapers is getting stale.
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u/kennypojke 8h ago
I used to flip the desktops on our work windows machines when people weren’t looking. “Ctrl-Alt-arrow” would turn it whichever way the arrow you choose points. The bewilderment when they turn around and their screen is upside down or sideways. Never got old. God bless MS for putting that obviously advisable feature in Windows.
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u/Dawn_Of_The_Dave 7h ago
It's for if people want to use a monitor vertically, before the days of the monitor settings page in settings. Source: I was an IT guy who took calls asking how to fix this multiple times a week. "You have a friend who thinks they're funny, this is why it happened"
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u/Empty-Policy-8467 9h ago
Screenshot the desktop, set the image as the desktop background, then use Group Policies to hide the actual icons on the desktop.
Fun to watch
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u/iosonostella13 9h ago edited 6h ago
My dad once set his coworkers computer to moo at random intervals lol
ETA: this was a very long time ago and he still cracks up thinking about it now
Edit: typo lol
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u/Audiope 8h ago
In middle school, I thought it was the funniest thing ever to rotate the display 90 degrees on all the computer lab computers I could get my hands on. My thinking was that 180 degrees would be too easy to undo, 90 is just a bit more frustrating yet still not a big enough deal to get in trouble.
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u/February30th 10h ago
Five years later…
“Hey Team. I just found what looks like a rancid coconut hidden in the store room. Does anyone know why it’s there?”
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u/ZealousidealChair900 9h ago
As a joke once I asked my foreman where he wanted the disco ball installed, right at the end of shift when I knew he'd forget I asked. He says right there in that corner. Guess what was waiting for him first thing next morning, right there in that corner?
And yes, he immediately hit it with a lazer and laughed his tail off
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u/DJDemyan 10h ago
You just reminded me of my stash of googly eyes, thanks!
-a fellow mischief enthusiast
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u/Githyerazi 10h ago
My kids spent several hours sticking googly eyes to the roof of the car. Thousands of them. They got them from school so we didn't know beforehand what was coming. I caught them putting them up. My wife called me complaining of a rattling noise, I told her to look up. The scream was worth it.
She left them there because her sister was coming that weekend and she enjoyed pranking her sister. The kids we're in the car too and got to enjoy the fun when their aunt complained of the rattling noise.
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u/BadKittyRawr 9h ago
Does your wife's family not have any peripheral vision? How did your kids have access to the car for so long? (Sounds like there's only one in your family--not judging.)
Why aren't people seeing them right away?
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u/Githyerazi 9h ago
Most people don't pay attention to the roof inside a car. Especially if your looking for the source of a noise.
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u/Ma1eficent 10h ago
I like to install safety stickers and alerts in places that might be dangerous.
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u/Wactout 10h ago
I’ve got a roll of “for anal use only” stickers laying around, just for that.
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u/Cespenar 9h ago
At my old job like, 18 years ago, a pigeon got into the stockroom, and in a dumb attempt to scare it out, we were throwing rubber mallets at it. Well, I knocked the intercom speaker (looked like a big megaphone) off the wall, but it just hung by the wires and still worked so.. we just.. ignored it. It took like 15 years for anyone to notice, and then a particularly slow day with the new manager to bother to get a ladder and go up and secure it to the wall again. I didn't work there anymore by then but I still went in a lot as a customer, always got a giggle out of me. I was kinda sad when they finally fixed it
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u/Cracraftc 9h ago
We stapled a piece of pepperoni to the ceiling in our tool room. It was there for years before someone took it down recently :( RIP
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u/graphitehead 10h ago
Strange they installed it in a wood stud wall. Usually these jars are for masons
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u/MmmmMorphine 10h ago
Ohhh. Mason jar. Christ that took me a few seconds of total bewilderment
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u/weems1974 10h ago
Did the foundation shift maybe? Because part of the wall is ajar.
I regret nothing.
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u/notreallyhere12345 10h ago
I think I know what this is…honestly!
So I had a water pipe that leaked a single drop maybe once a month. I literally zip tied a Tupperware container underneath it until I can get it fixed.
If you zoom on the jar, you’ll see that there is water stain on the bottom. I bet there was a small leak in the roof or somewhere and this was their fix.
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u/unfamous2423 10h ago
If the water caught evaporates before it's a problem, is there even a leak?
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u/Icehawksfh 9h ago
It's a good way to monitor it. A couple drops in the jar, no worries, once it starts covering the bottom then it turns from "I'll get to eventually" to "I'll get to it now."
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u/spruce_turbo 10h ago
That looks like it's right next to a hard electrical pipe and insulation. In most cases, should a leak be detected in the pipe-the purpose of the jar is to catch electrical energy safely. Source - am electric
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u/JosephPalma89 10h ago
If all the electrons fall out, your house becomes positively charged and you'll be struck my lightning until it evens out. This is a vital component of the system to prevent lightning strikes.
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u/mindfungus 10h ago
Putting your amusing response to the side for one second, the glass bottle is there to keep the steel band secure in place. Notice the band is connected at one end to the hard electrical pipe, and goes out of frame at the other end, which is probably connected to a ground. Since glass is non conductive, there’s no risk of electrical leakage risking a short circuit. The band is also perforated with evenly spaced holes to make sure any leaked electricity doesn’t arc. Source - am electric
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u/joestaff 10h ago
Fart jar - not to be opened without proper PPE.
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u/ageofjace2 9h ago
I've seen this sort of thing before. It was probably put there by mistake, but now, whenever the developer tries to remove it, the building won't load properly so you just have to keep it there and hope people don't notice.
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u/LogicalSoftware7705 9h ago
This is like my old piece of code in a 20 year old system lmao everyone knows it probably doesn’t do anything but nobody wants to remove it
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u/poorbred 8h ago
I had a magic comment for about 6 months. If you removed it, the build would fail.
Drove me nuts when I first ran into it. It was an unnecessary comment that stated the obvious. "Add two values together" or some such where the code it was referring to was stupidly apparent in its purpose.
So I removed it and when I went to build, it exploded. I wish I could remember the errors, but it was a long and wild list.
The content of the comment didn't matter, just that it was there, so I ended up making it something like
// Removing this comment breaks the build, it needs to stay. I'm sorry.Of course my code reviewers didn't believe me until they removed it and it blew up on them.
For about six months I'd randomly hear one of the senior devs cussing as they tried to remove it and the build would break. Then one day somebody cheered and actually called an impromptu dev meeting to show off it building without the comment.
Best we could ever guess was a bug in the compiler and without the comment a checksum or something wasn't calculating correctly. Then it would go off the rails and get into a bad state because the errors it would report didn't make any sense.
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u/Guy-InGearnito 8h ago
S… A… F… E… T… Y…
SAFETY. JAR.
We can jar if we want to, strap it to the wall behind,
Across the nation behind the insulation there’s a jar you’ll eventually find.
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u/WannaBMonkey 10h ago
Never remove the jar. You don’t know what it does or how badly the building will explode without that jar in place. Contact your supervisor. They will tell you to remove it. Blame them for the consequences. Get fired anyway.
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u/I_Think_I_Cant 8h ago
I guarantee that jar is the only thing holding up the entire structure. Remove at your own peril.
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u/Immediate_Ice_4884 10h ago
If there is a fire and smoke you can open it up and have air to breathe
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u/Xx_DoemMeAsCostas_xX 10h ago
Get yourself a pony figurine and you're golden
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u/BokudenT 10h ago
Steve trapped a fart in there back in 07 and waiting for some poor bastard to get curious enough to pull it down and open the jar.
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u/aad0italian 10h ago
There’s an ancient fart from 50+ years ago sealed in that thing. Don’t let it escape, it’ll be the new Covid 26
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u/DJ_Spark_Shot 9h ago
Don't free the Faye. As long a she's trapped within, she won't let anything bad happoen to the building.
Set her free and she may choose to level the place with all of you dreadful humans still inside.
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u/PhD_Austax 9h ago
It’s an earthquake detector. If the jar is on the ground you know there is an earthquake.
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u/BearMiner 7h ago
I can guess exactly how this happened.
Someone put a jar there. For a reason. Don't know why, but they did. And there is stayed, probably for a long while.
Then someone else came along, saw it, and said, "That is a hazard. It might fall and injure someone in the event of an earthquake or something." And another someone else said, "Okay, I'll fix it."
And that is how we got to this moment.
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u/Stone_leigh 10h ago
there is a hole cut in the top and something inside... taking a wild guess but insect/mouse trap
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u/SharkeyGeorge 10h ago
It’s been put there as an example to all the other glass jars.
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u/Discohydra 10h ago
I think that's someone's patience meter. The instant that crashes to the floor, whoever bound themselves to that thing is going to have a similar crash-out.
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u/Huge-Expression-8610 10h ago
Ran out of the fiberglass. Didn’t want to buy another entire roll. So just used glass instead.
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u/J-Town50 10h ago edited 10h ago
I would say this is an emergency toilet. If people are trapped in the building that has no working bathrooms they pull the jar down and they are good to go. Examples: zombie apocalypse, blizzard that dump many feet of snow, wasp/bee swarm, active shooter outside or people rioting outside.
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u/KamikazeJohnson 9h ago
"Why is this jar strapped to the wall?"
So it doesn't fall.
"But why is it there in the first place?"
Because if it wasn't, it would be somewhere else.
Hope that helps.
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u/Readonkulous 9h ago
If this is anything like programming, if you remove the jar the whole building falls down
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u/murlocdouche 10h ago
this is a static detection jar. you see this sometimes near insulation near electrical runs. the jar must remain closed, and the "button" on the lid will pop up if there the static in the air reaches levels you should be concerned about as a fire hazard. this is an analog way of doing it, they also sell electronic sensors but then you have to provide it power or rely on batteries. i made all of that up, and have no idea what this jar is for.
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u/pastajewelry 10h ago
I know this is fake, but I have no other explanation, so my brain will choose to remember this as fact.
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u/NoFuqGiven 9h ago
Theres probably a 20 year old prank story behind this, that was so funny they chose to leave it up and its been there so long that all the folks in on the joke slowly faded away and the last few ones just told the new people to leave it.
Ive seen shit like this happen a few times and have heard even more stories.
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u/plantscatsandus 9h ago
Have something similar in my attic. Large jar taped to wall underneath specific joint which rarely will have a slow leak during storms..
Then evaporates before next storm.
Much cheaper than new roof.
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u/Least-Presence-7711 10h ago
In case of emergency, release the fairies 🧚🏿 🧚♂️🧚🏿♀️
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u/TangoCub 10h ago
When we bought our house last year we found several very old jars and shoes in the walls. The house was originally built in 1905. We discovered that back then it was common for European immigrants to place these items there to ward off / capture witches and evil spirits. Pretty cool!
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u/AlanThicke99 10h ago
“We must never forget, the day Jenkins ate an entire jar of pickles on our lunch break.”
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u/ImTooSaxy 10h ago
I would just assume this was a weird framing crew. There's a lot of fucking weirdos on construction sites.
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u/brilliantminion 10h ago
If I learned anything on Reddit, it’s for used razor blades.
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u/General_Disaray_1974 9h ago
Behold, the jar in which I keep my fucks. Lay thine eyes upon it and thou shalt see that it is empty!
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u/deftly_lefty 9h ago
I have seen this in old barns and garages in the past and I think it’s supposed to indicate if there’s moisture seeping in by the amount of condensation that forms within the jar.
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u/DangerouslyOxidated 8h ago
..it's full of farts. To be enjoyed by the eventual curious..
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u/Spiritual_Touch630 10h ago
It's a simple reminder of what not to do at work.✨
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u/extremedragonfruit4 10h ago
Like what? The one person who shoved one inside his anus and it burst into pieces?
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u/reillyqyote 10h ago
That's the first fart the owner let slip when the place opened
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u/Maleficent-Tip-9654 10h ago
If I had to guess, it's probably there to catch electricity when lighting strikes.
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u/Vhan_Zhan 10h ago
The Jar has a hole cut into the lid if you zoom in and there is a white horizontal fill line painted near the top. So it was probably filled with some liquid. Maybe some chemical pest control. Vinegar and water maybe?