Employment-Themed April Fool's Day Hoaxes

An ad placed in a Chicago paper brought over 300 job seekers to Proviso Township High School in Maywood, Illinois. The ad read, "WANTED—100 Laborers; bring shovels; good pay. Apply High School, Room 9, 1st av. and Madison st., Maywood, bet. 9 and 10 am." Some of the job seekers walked over twenty miles to get there, not having access to a car. School officials had to turn them away, explaining that the ad was a joke, but not of their doing. Seventy-five of the men ended up sleeping in the school yard. Eight members of the senior class were subsequently accused of having placed the ad and were punished "by denying them certain privileges." Their parents protested the punishment, but Principal Witmer said, "I'd do the same thing if they did it again." [Chicago Daily Tribune, Apr 2, 1915.] More…

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The Durand Express, a Michigan weekly, reported that Nissan planned to build an auto plant outside of Durand City. The new plant was going to employ thousands of people and pay higher wages than the nearby General Motors plant. Furthermore, Nissan would pay farmers $10,000 an acre for the land on which the plant was to be built.

Many unemployed auto workers believed the story and inquired about how to apply for jobs at the plant. However, the story was exposed as a fake by a reporter working at a newspaper in Flint, Michigan.

The prank story attracted a lot of angry criticism. Many readers threatened to cancel their subscriptions. In response, the paper's editor explained that he hadn't been trying to hurt anyone, and thought that he had exaggerated his story enough to make it unbelievable.

Charlie Bee, a disc jockey at country music station WAPG-AM in Arcadia, Florida, locked himself in the station's studio while repeatedly broadcasting Johnny Paycheck's "Take This Job and Shove It." He explained to listeners that he was "fed up" with not receiving an adequate salary and would play the song until his employers agreed to give him a raise. Police eventually arrived and escorted him out of the building. The next disc jockey in the studio, Bill Madison, dedicated the song to Bee and played it one last time. However, the entire incident turned out to have been a staged prank with which the police were cooperating. More…

Google announced they were accepting applications for positions at Copernicus Center, their new "lunar hosting and research center." Applicants, Google noted, must be "capable of surviving with limited access to such modern conveniences as soy low-fat lattes, The Sopranos and a steady supply of oxygen." Google went on to say that the facility, set to open in Spring 2007, would house 35 engineers, 27,000 low cost Web servers, two massage therapists and a sushi chef. More…