Once upon a time, long before there were ads for lawyers on every corner, television, radio station, billboard and listed on 72 pages of every phone book in the country, job-site practical jokes were commonplace. A time when tossing a rubber snake into an occupied Porta-John would garnish laughter, not start litigation. An era when a person who was capable of pulling off a well-planned and perfectly executed scam was regarded as a hero, if not by the victim, certainly by all those who witnessed said prank.
Usually, later on after beers were tossed back and the tale was told and re-told, often having slight details changed or added to, even the "victim" would have to recognize the brilliance, albeit annoying, of the Joker.
Face it, pulling off a world-class practical joke sometimes involves days, if not weeks, of careful planning, linking layers of subterfuge and insider information. The first thing that had to be determined was the mark's weakness. Was it fear of spiders or snakes? Had he recently received a new tool that he was especially fond of? Perhaps there is a specific behavior that screams out "prank me."
Whatever the criteria, the mark is finally set up. Usually, there is a ringleader, the Joker, who regularly pulls off smaller solo pranks. After these small-time juvenile antics get old, a greater, more complex plan starts to formulate. The litmus test to judge how many hours a co-worker spends watching wolf packs on the Discovery Channel is how much arm wrenching it takes to involve him in the plan. The quicker the convert, the more avid the watcher. Parallels can be drawn between the Serengeti and a construction site, the strong survive and the weak get eaten.
Usually, the Joker burns all of his bridges. Not being satisfied with simply picking on the weaker members of the crew, he will invariably prank the wrong person, thus becoming the victim of the "payback."