Fool's errand

Common card · No. 352740

A fool's errand is a type of practical joke where a newcomer to a group, typically in a workplace context, is given an impossible or nonsensical task by older or more experienced members of the group. More generally, a fool's errand is a task almost certain to fail. Many such errands require the victim to travel some distance and request an impossible object by name; the prank will be widely known within the peer group as an in-joke, and the person they ask for the object will play along, often by sending the victim on to make the same request elsewhere. The errand is an example of a hazing ritual through which a newcomer gains acceptance into a group. The prank's recurrence and similarity in different cultures reflect an exploitation of a universal psychological adaptation for communication under information asymmetry, used by experts to assert a dominance hierarchy.

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