Office Pranks

[CrankyJay]

Just wondering if anyone has any prank wars going with co-workers etc.

I work in a real laid-back dev shop where the occasional prank is acceptable/appreciated. We even screw with interviewees (in a harmless way) to see if they can take a joke and fit into our culture.

I just ordered a phantom keystroker that will intermittently type out gibberish or perform some random mouse movements.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002YJW7C4/?tag=era0f0-20

Share your prank stories!

 

[FireSafetyBear]

 

[JoxxerTheMighty]

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A co-worker literally did this at my old job to someone...the Jell-o was red, if I recall correctly.

 

[Fubar]

Last job was at a police department where the cops were encouraged to mess around a bit to let off some steam. I worked as an assistant in the detectives bureau, where the prank rules were especially lax.

Flipping someones desk around (usually faces one way, completely flip it the other way), covering a desk in sticky notes, covering a desk in gummy bears after licking them to make them stick, throwing those little popping firework things at someone's feet while they are sitting in a bathroom stall, hiding things from each other, tape a banana (or another type of fruit) under someone's desk (right above a trash can, preferably) so it slowly goes bad and smells bad, hiding behind a corner with an airhorn, and the list goes on.

It was a lot of fun to be around. As long as we didnt prank one of the sergeants that did not want to be part of it, we were good to go.

 

[Taurus Silver]

Some good ones on this blog https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/funny-office-pranks

 

[CrankyJay]

We once filled an entire office room with balloons while someone was out on vacation. Floor to ceiling.

 

[Intraxidance]

I work in a lab, and had a co-worker put a drop of pyridine (horribly obnoxious smelling liquid) on a kimwipe and hid it near someone's work space. They had to deal with the terrible odor for a couple days.

 

[Triggerhappytel]

We once filled an entire office room with balloons while someone was out on vacation. Floor to ceiling.

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That's insane. That must have been like 2000 balloons! Did you take it in turns and spend the week with a group of you each blowing up like 10 per day or something?!

 

[Darth Karja]

My employees have got me a few times. Ketchup under the door knob a couple times. Once they put an air horn on my office chair so it would scare me when I sat on it.

 

[CrankyJay]

That's insane. That must have been like 2000 balloons! Did you take it in turns and spend the week with a group of you each blowing up like 10 per day or something?!

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It's not too bad when you have 20+ people taking turns inflating some. Plus the person was out for like a week so we were able to take our time. Was a fun thing to do and mostly harmless (except having to pop them and clean them up). We helped with that, too, though.

 

[Carfo]

I work in IT so there's a bunch but two of my favorites were:

1) We took a screenshot of someone's desktop (including their desktop icons) and then made that their wallpaper, then removed all the shortcuts on the desktop so it appeared as if the icons were there but it was actually just a screenshot

2) This is a "long con" office prank. We had a WattBox (a networked power conditioner) plugged into a dust blower (they're loud when they are powered on). We hid the wattbox under the intern's desk and for about a month left this dust blower on his desk so he would get used to it sitting there. One day when he least expected it, we turned on his blower remotely using the wattbox and he freaked out lol

We also used the wattbox to turn off people's monitors and watch them try and troubleshoot why their monitors were turning off and on

 

[CrankyJay]

As for "interview" pranks, we used to have a guy here in a band that played guitar. So he would sit outside the conference room during interviews and listen to us ask questions, then he'd sing it back while playing guitar. You'd have some people who would pretend not to notice and others who just burst out laughing.

 

[cwmartin]

I can see how it can be all in good fun, but I wouldn't really handle that shit well in the office.

More of a put my head down and get me the fuck out of here kind of employee.

 

[CrankyJay]

I can see how it can be all in good fun, but I wouldn't really handle that shit well in the office.

More of a put my head down and get me the fuck out of here kind of employee.

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I think that's perfectly okay too.

 

[Raysoul]

We put a tape under the mouse and watch the officemate try to re-plug the mouse. Works every time.

 

[Viewt]

I work with a guy who has a very special mouse, and when he got it, he made a note to say that he didn't want anyone screwing with it, as it was very expensive. So we started coming in before him in the morning and turning the mouse upside down. Completely harmless, but still a little needle to make fun of him for being so precious about it.

Following this, he'd make jokes about using a security camera mounted to his monitor to catch the person in the act. So I came in one morning and, being very careful of the camera, placed notes all around his desk/nearby nooks and crannies - notes that all said "Paper X out of 5."

I only ever put four notes out. There was no #4. He looked for it for WEEKS.

 

[DiipuSurotu]

I think I remember having these pranks in college

 

[julia crawford]

Have you ever fired or not hired someone for not liking the pranks?

 

[Snack12367]

Used to work with a guy who pranked his manager making him think his laptop was broken. He just put tape on the ethernet cable. When he realised that the guy might find out they disabled the ethernet port in the bios. Then made a script that kept doing it. Three years this guy went through 15laptops.

 

[StAidan]

I had a coworker once who had one of those elastic-arm monkeys that you launch in a slingshot type motion, and it screams as it flies through the air. That was a phenomenon that got old really fast, so another of our office mates secretly opened up the monkey and removed its voice box one day. But that's only the beginning of the story...

The guy who took the voice box started examining it and found that it ran on a small 4.5v battery. He realized that this was really close to the standard 5v output of a standard USB port. So, he hatched a plan and, while the original monkey owner was gone, he disassembled the guy's keyboard and buried the voice box under the spacebar, with the voice box wire inserted between the metal contacts of the Ctrl key. So, every time you pressed the Ctrl key, the keyboard would scream like a monkey.

When the victim returned to his desk, he had a really difficult time figuring out where the sound was coming from or what was triggering it. He was muting his volume, unplugging his speakers, looking for hidden objects around the desk. But he couldn't make the sound go away. After a few hours, he finally localized the source of the sound and discovered the trigger, at which point we all had a good laugh about it.

We worked in a pretty large call center at this time, and that keyboard made its rounds in the building until there was pretty much no one left who would fall for it. Our corporate office several hundred miles away even heard about the keyboard and had us FedEx it there so they could prank people with it.

 

[larrybud]

sounds hellish. they're human beings trying to survive with some dignity, not props in your personal comic tableaux.

 

[BareKnuckle]

I used to work in a pretty busy mobile phone store, we had a repairs desk. I wrote Nokia Labia in our repair guys appointment book so he was just shouting out Nokia Labia to everyone in the queue.

God retail sucked ass.

 

[JonathanEx]

Had a few small ones, but it's usually when one of the remote bosses was in so we were having a bit of fun rather than it being on going culture to the point of tedium. Only doing stuff on people who'd be happy to be involved.

One of the longest running ones was someone plugging a USB mouse into the back of a colleague's computer, run under the desk so they could nudge it with their foot. Obviously not when they're really focusing, but just to confuse them. And then we managed to hide it when he looked at what was plugged in too, aaaand when he looked through the drivers on his PC to see the connected devices, threw him off with an excuse about updates.

Aaand one done on me which was great fun, a big speaker plugged into my PC, sound up (I usually had it muted so I kinda twigged from that), and everytime I clicked the mouse a sound file of one of my colleagues saying 'CLICK!' in a silly voice played. So only lasted a moment but was fun for the moment.

 

[LtCasual]

If you have domain admin privileges, you can remote manage any PC in the domain and eject their CD drive. If people start to blame you, then you remote in on your days out of the office and do it again to throw them off the trail.

 

[rancey]

I love prank

 

[cwmartin]

I think that's perfectly okay too.

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Yeah totally. I wouldn't freak out at people pulling the pranks or anything. But I can see myself not taking being pranked well.

What sparked the war? Did someone get you first?

 

[Hecht]

We would put clear tape over the chip on a colleague's ID card that was used for MFA. If you cut it just right they can't tell and they can't login. Obviously you let them in on it after a little bit since you need them to work, but still. Funny for a bit.

 

[Birbo]

Buddy of mine at work was convinced a woman in the accounting department hated him. She was mostly super quiet, but had a few bizarre outbursts at him and a couple others leading people to think she was somewhat unstable. Eventually she quit, so once she was gone I put a folder in her folder on our company common drive with my buddy's name on it. Inside I put a bunch of his personal information, a photo of his family I stole from Facebook, a Google map picture of his house as well as driving directions on how to get there. Got the newly hired accountant in on the prank and had him tell my friend he found the folder while going through files on the computer. Heard my friend down the hall freaking out, call his wife super nervous and was about to head down to our director when we finally told him the truth.

 

[Cocolina]

Take some grapes and a cantaloupe into the toilet. Drop them into the bowl at opportune times. Throw in the cantaloupe at the very end for a big finish.

 

[Hecht]

Buddy of mine at work was convinced a woman in the accounting department hated him. She was mostly super quiet, but had a few bizarre outbursts at him and a couple others leading people to think she was somewhat unstable. Eventually she quit, so once she was gone I put a folder in her folder on our company common drive with my buddy's name on it. Inside I put a bunch of his personal information, a photo of his family I stole from Facebook, a Google map picture of his house as well as driving directions on how to get there. Got the newly hired accountant in on the prank and had him tell my friend he found the folder while going through files on the computer. Heard my friend down the hall freaking out, call his wife super nervous and was about to head down to our director when we finally told him the truth.

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ok this one is kinda fucked up

 

[Pretty Bomber Head]

We put a tape under the mouse and watch the officemate try to re-plug the mouse. Works every time.

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I fell for this twice at my old job. Now it's my go-to prank at my current job.

 

[Damien1928]

Not a fan of pranks, I also don't react to them either.

I appreciate a joke or good whit but "pranks" are just low humour to me, Often quite subliminal to.

Had a prank phone call the other week at work, wasn't impressed at the accent.

Meh.

 

[Deleted member 2109]

Me and my supervisor have a thing where we lock each other out of places. Been going on for like 3 years.

 

[NealMcCauley]

I'm in charge of a digital display for my department that advertises exhibits and collections in our possession. Every now and then if the mood strikes me I do some light Photoshop on an image and switch it with the original. It usually takes 48-72 hours for my supervisors notice it and make me change it back. I think it's mostly because they notice the display is getting much more attention than usual.

 

[ProbablyRobbie]

We once filled an entire office room with balloons while someone was out on vacation. Floor to ceiling.

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I did this to my boss one year too.

 

[Birbo]

ok this one is kinda fucked up

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Had to pay him back for what he did to me at our office Christmas party. We have a White Elephant gift exchange and he wrapped a huge framed print of the Costanza underwear photo with my face perfectly Photoshopped on it. Whole office laughing at me.

 

[ProbablyRobbie]

The next year I wrapped his entire office in wrapping paper. I would usually do these during the Christmas break.

 

[Blastronaut]

My work pal, who had a pretty decent cubicle, went on vacation for a week. We moved all of his stuff (computer, cabinets, everything) into a storage cube full of boxes and papers and put welcome signs for Amy Kline on his old cube wall. We concocted a story that Amy Kline was a new trainee who was starting soon and his boss wanted her to be near other experienced workers. We got his boss in on the joke and put new office supplies into the "trainee" cube to make the whole thing look legit. Upon my pal's return, we got the grouchy admin assistant to break him the bad news and I'll never forget the image of my absolutely fuming friend throwing the boxes and papers piled up in his "new" cube out into the hallway. We had to fess up before his boss came in because I think my friend was going to let him have it when he came into work.

 

[Holyoneturtle]

Ok so my co worker is going on vacation for this week because she is prepping for her marriage on Saturday. In my previous jobs I would do small time pranks (hiding staplers and putting sticky notes in weird places). But this time I'm going for the big boy pranks. She has a cubicle and I plan to close it with wrapping paper and I will fill it with ballons. Should be pretty entertaining to watch. Then Ill gift wrap her monitor, keyboard, stapler, and all that jazz. Finally, she hates bugs, so I'll put a cup with a note that saying " creepy spider inside, do not lift cup, wait for the exterminator". I saw this online and just in case she has too, I'll put a fake spider inside. So I'll definitely be watching this thread very carefully *insert devil emoji*.

 

[CrankyJay]

Yeah totally. I wouldn't freak out at people pulling the pranks or anything. But I can see myself not taking being pranked well.

What sparked the war? Did someone get you first?

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Not a war, just a general culture we have. Probably do like 3-4 a year. It's probably just something that comes up when we're in between projects or just blowing off steam. So far after me working here 7+ years everything has been good natured. No sore feelings.

 

[Bond Co Stooge]

I had a co-worker tell me one time that my truck was hit in a hit-and-run in our parking lot. Fortunately, she got their tag number. I went out to look at my truck and couldn't find any damage. She suggested bouncing up and fown on the tailgate to make sure nothing was loose. I had been going for about a minute before I looked up and saw all my co-workers outside laughing. Turns out the tag number she gave me was my own.

 

[skeptem]

I used to work in an office where stuff like this happened all the time. Wrap peoples desks and belongings, unplugging mouses and keyboards, changing screensavers etc...

My favorite was the one guy left his keys in the cafe, so the staff brought it to me and another girl to give to him. Instead we created a fake gmail account and started sending him pictures of his keys in different places. We did this from 8 am till leaving time. All day. He kept grilling people and started gettign annoyed. So we started taking pictures of the keys in different buildings and saying come get them at X:XX o'cock and then they wouldn't be there.

We did give them back before he had to leave.

 

[Westonian]

My boss has a cabinet over good desk that he Kris his toothbrush in. Everyday like clockwork he will grab his toothbrush at about 10 am to go brush his teeth after he finishes his morning coffee.

While he was on vacation my co-worker and I built a cardboard ramp inside the cabinet and using some clever engineering, filled the cabinet with about 2000 glass marbles.

The cascading marbles and the plinking sound they made as they bounced off his desk still makes me laugh thinking about it today. He's still finding marbles in his office today.

 

[SliceSabre]

If you don't bother to lock your computer don't be surprised to have something stupid as you desktop background when you get back to your desk around my office.

Also on people's birthdays its common to fancy up their desk with a bunch of silly things as well. One supervisor came to his desk and his team had covered everything in tin foil.

 

[srhltmr]

1) We took a screenshot of someone's desktop (including their desktop icons) and then made that their wallpaper, then removed all the shortcuts on the desktop so it appeared as if the icons were there but it was actually just a screenshot

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This one works well, as long as they don't look at the clock.

 

[Carfo]

This one works well, as long as they don't look at the clock.

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Nah we cropped the taskbar after taking the screenshot of his desktop, so his real taskbar was showing

 

[Deleted member 4574]

Nah we cropped the taskbar after taking the screenshot of his desktop, so his real taskbar was showing

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Love it.

We've done the e-mail thing where if you leave your computer unlocked it's game on. Especially if you're having a conversation via e-mail outside of the office.

Also had a co-worker that would take our cash in and cash out tickets that looked like receipt paper and blow them all away with a can of compressed air or shuffle them like a deck of cards. Good times.

 

[The Climaxan]

The best one I've ever been a part of was when some co-workers and I took about a hundred of the fragrance samples out of magazines and hid them all throughout our HR directors office when he was on vacation (he was a regular prankster). He was gone for about a week and when he got back his office smelled like a demonic Dillards. He also was finding samples hidden in his folders for about the next year. Good times.

In my current office there's a guy who keeps leaving a pen and a stack of sticky notes in the office of another coworker. Sometimes 3 or 4 at time in random places. The victim has no idea who or why this is happening to him and watching him freak out about it is an absolute joy because it's so stupid and random.

Long story short. Office pranks are great as long as the other person is a good sport/willing participant.

 

[UnholyChocolate]

Mostly putting stickers over the laser on optical mice, unplugging desk fans, syncing keyboards to other mac's. Changing the dev settings on their android devices to make the screen flash on screen refresh. Putting stuff in each others desk draws. Changing backgrounds to arnie when they leave the computer unlocked.

 

[Deleted member 4574]

Here's another that I may have shared back on the other site ages ago, but instead of employees messing with each other, this was a customer taking revenge on a bank.

Customer was pissed at the bank and maintained a safe deposit box with them. In those branches the vault contained literally hundreds of boxes. We weren't allowed to ask what was inside. Customer walks in, they have their key, we have ours. They take their box to a private room, do whatever they need, then put the box back in the vault and we lock it up. Pissed off customer put a dead fish in their safe deposit box. Not only did the branch not know who's box it was, even if they did, we didn't have the ability to open the box. Can't go in by policy, can't force our way in without a locksmith. The fish was there for weeks.