Bored supermarket staff are competing with each other to stage the wackiest stunt in their stores - and posting the videos on YouTube.
Skiving workers from Somerfield branches across Britain have filmed more than 50 home-made videos of pranks. The Jackass-style stunts include staff trolley-surfing‚ skiing on pallet-lifters, riding rodeo-style on cleaning machines‚ hiding in freezers and staging mock armed robberies.
One video shows an employee setting off a homemade bomb in the store car park using fireworks. In another, a worker jogs out of a depot and then sprints back so that he can dive under the electronic shutters as they come down, Indiana Jones-style. The staff were filming each other with mobile phones when they were meant to be working - and thousands have watched the videos.
The craze took off after a worker using the name Kneesh wrote on the video-sharing website: "I declare the underground YouTube Somerfield competition open to all Somerfield staff!
"Let us fill this site with us pissing around as we give all senior management the finger."
In one video a worker performs the Somerfield Dance - a bizarre David Brent-style jig. He brags: "We Somerfield lot really do get paid to do nowt."
In the Mutley Plain store in Plymouth a male employee danced and sang in the aisle as he re-created the music video for Erasure's hit 'Sometimes'. He wrote on YouTube: "Rubbish, I know. What else are we supposed to do?"
Meanwhile at the store in Lindfield, West Sussex, a worker bored with defrosting a freezer is filmed creeping up on a colleague and dumping ice over his head, shouting: "You've been snowed."
In another video, a male employee stages a mock heist and points a fake gun at a woman cashier. He shouts: "I do not want cashback. Give me your money."
In another, Grahamisthe-coolest skis down a ramp on a pallet-lifter straight into on-coming traffic.
The supermarket is investigating the craze. A Somerfield spokesman said: "We will take any necessary action."
Last November there was a furore after footage showing Tesco staff headbutting lockers went on Youtube.
Skiving workers from Somerfield branches across Britain have filmed more than 50 home-made videos of pranks. The Jackass-style stunts include staff trolley-surfing‚ skiing on pallet-lifters, riding rodeo-style on cleaning machines‚ hiding in freezers and staging mock armed robberies.
One video shows an employee setting off a homemade bomb in the store car park using fireworks. In another, a worker jogs out of a depot and then sprints back so that he can dive under the electronic shutters as they come down, Indiana Jones-style. The staff were filming each other with mobile phones when they were meant to be working - and thousands have watched the videos.
The craze took off after a worker using the name Kneesh wrote on the video-sharing website: "I declare the underground YouTube Somerfield competition open to all Somerfield staff!
"Let us fill this site with us pissing around as we give all senior management the finger."
In one video a worker performs the Somerfield Dance - a bizarre David Brent-style jig. He brags: "We Somerfield lot really do get paid to do nowt."
In the Mutley Plain store in Plymouth a male employee danced and sang in the aisle as he re-created the music video for Erasure's hit 'Sometimes'. He wrote on YouTube: "Rubbish, I know. What else are we supposed to do?"
Meanwhile at the store in Lindfield, West Sussex, a worker bored with defrosting a freezer is filmed creeping up on a colleague and dumping ice over his head, shouting: "You've been snowed."
In another video, a male employee stages a mock heist and points a fake gun at a woman cashier. He shouts: "I do not want cashback. Give me your money."
In another, Grahamisthe-coolest skis down a ramp on a pallet-lifter straight into on-coming traffic.
The supermarket is investigating the craze. A Somerfield spokesman said: "We will take any necessary action."
Last November there was a furore after footage showing Tesco staff headbutting lockers went on Youtube.
No comments yet