Until recently, we genuinely did not care one way or another about the tribulations of Raj Rajaratnam.  Raj-Raj, founder of hedge fund firm Galleon Group, has been in some hot water for some insider trading.  Don’t get us wrong, that is definitely not cool, but he only turned a profit of $12m or thereabouts so, you know, not a big deal.  But then things took a turn for the awesome.

At Galleon, Mr. Rajaratnam took his fondness for pranks and dares to a new level. When executives from stun-gun maker Taser International Inc. came to make an investment pitch around 2005, Mr. Rajaratnam offered $5,000 to anyone who’d agree to be shocked. Employees gathered around as two people propped up trader Keryn Limmer at the elbows and another person fired the weapon. Ms. Limmer’s legs buckled beneath her from the shock. Ms. Limmer declined to comment.

We don’t want to criticize too harshly, here: it’s not like Raj made tasing mandatory, and being tased is really the least of the things I would do for five grand.  No, seriously, if you’ve got five grand, call me.  But if your fund is worth upwards of $5b, and you have maybe indirectly given way more than $5K to the Tamil Tigers, I’m going to call you a cheapskate if that’s all you offer me.

Raj might also not be the smartest guy in the room sometimes:

After Mr. Rajaratnam boasted one day that there was no spicy sauce that he couldn’t stomach, a colleague brought a bottle of habanero sauce called Armageddon to the trading desk. A crowd gathered to watch as Mr. Rajaratnam doused two chicken wings with it and chowed down. Within moments, Mr. Rajaratnam was crying and coughing uncontrollably. He ran to the bathroom and left work early. Mr. Rajaratnam laughed about it later.

When you lay down a challenge like that, anyone who rises to meet it is likely trying to kill you, with your implicit permission.  Take the Armageddon sauce – it’s roughly as hot as consumer-grade pepper spray.  Raj should consider himself lucky that it wasn’t laced with broken glass and LSD.

But no, it’s this final revelation that makes us both wish we could have worked at Galleon.

That same year, employees arrived at Galleon’s morning meeting to a surprise: In the conference room was a dwarf whom Mr. Rajaratnam introduced as an analyst hired to cover “small-cap” stocks. He was, in fact, an actor hired for an April Fool’s Day gag.

Anyone who exploits the differently-heighted for humor is okay by me.