It may start out as fun and games, but there's always the occasional prank that goes a bit too far, resulting in a firing or maybe even a lawsuit. It's important to remember that there's a balance to having some fun with your fellow employees and crossing moral and ethical boundaries. People need to be very careful about office pranks. While there are undeniable benefits of humor and laughter in the workplace, people should really think about what they're doing before they do it.
Here are some basic guidelines everyone should keep in mind when pulling a prank:
- Make sure it doesn't embarrass someone or cause disruption in the workplace.
- Make sure it doesn't cause any harm to people or their property.
- Know you office and IT policies and rules and operate with-in them.
- Think through all possible consequences of the joke. Don't create fire hazards, block exits, or otherwise endanger peoples safety.
- Do not interfere with peoples food; food allergies or medication reactions can be extremely dangerous.
- Don't use April Fools' Day or any other reason as an opportunity to "get back" at someone you don't like.
- What's OK to say and/or do at home with family or friends may not be appropriate for the workplace.
- If your boss is the subject of your prank, be extremely careful. You need to know them extremely well, understand their sense of humor and never do anything that would diminish your boss's authority.
Dont you hate it when you go to run some photo copies, you throw your document in there and start running 50, only to find out that the schmuck who was using the machine before you left their original in the machine? Now, not only do you have 50 copies for the rules for "Fight Club", but you are late for you meeting and have to start your copy job all over again. Spread the joy and watch your co-workers go insane as you send them on a search for a phantom paperclip.
- Take a standard paperclip and make 20-50 copies of it on the office copy machine.
- Remove the paperclip and take the copies you made and put them back into the copiers paper tray, ready for the next sucker who needs to make copies.
Writing instruments are always a sore spot in every office. Nobody can find one when they need one, except for that nasty pen that looks like someone has been chewing on for about a year. Treat your co-workers to the joy of invisible ink by rendering all of their pens and pencils useless.
- Either before your victim has arrived in the morning or while they are out to lunch, sneak into the victim’s office/cube and locate every pencil and pen in their desk.
- Paint the tips with clear nail polish making sure to return the
This one is especially good for sales people or anyone else who is constantly on the phone, in meetings, chasing around new clients, and playing telephone-tag with people.
- When they run out to lunch, leave a "While You Were Out" messages on their desk from either
- Mr. Lyon
- Mr. Behr
- Mr. Don Key
- In the phone number field, provide the number for the local zoo and note that the person needs to be called back ASAP. If they are working on an important project at the time, say it is regarding that project.
- Watch as they call the number back and asking for the person, only to put two and two together after the name comes out of their mouth.
Alternatively, you can have them call a local Veterinary Hospital or Animal Shelter looking for Mr. Mi Yow.
It's always the case that at the moment you need to write something down, you can never find a pen and after frantically searching, the one you dig out from the back of your desk drawer hasn't worked since the day you started. Stop pen thieves and be sure you and/or your victim has a pen handy when you need by simply glueing the pen caps on the pen. While pens are generally cheap, its probably best if you pull this one off with one of the many dead pens you find laying around the office.
- Borrow all of your victims pens from their desk and, using Krazy Glue, glue the pen caps on the pen, preventing the pen from being uncapped and useable.
Hewlett Packards laserjet printers, a standard in most office spaces, have a customizable LCD display just waiting for your creative spark. Using the attached Perl script, you can forgo the ever-present and tiresome "Ready" and replace it with your own clever and witty phrase.
While this is sure to work on any networked HP printer, it will also work for any other printer that uses the HPPJL.
If your officemate looks at the keyboard to type, then this is the perfect prank. It's a classic that has started to die off now that more and more people know how to type, but for those who are just digging themselves out from underneath a rock, feel free to prod them along by rearranging the keys on their keyboard. All keyboard keys are designed to be removed (laptop keys are much more fragile and can easily break) with a small screw driver.
- Find a small screwdriver, that is strong enough for light prying, but small enough to fit between the keys on a keyboard.
- Gently lift the keys being careful not to bend the plastic. They should pry loose with little force.
If you enjoy friendly pranks, and have a co-worker that spends more time playing solitaire then they do filling out their TPS reports, then this is an easy prank that works with any version of Microsoft's Windows Operating Systems. When they step away from their computer for a few minutes:
- Select an an icon from the desktop (games, office applications, or browsers are excellent targets as they are commonly used) and make a copy of it.
- Hide the original shortcut and rename the copy so it matches the original files name.
- Right-click on it and choose “Properties“.
- In the properties window that appears, locate the "Target” field, replace what is written with:
- “shutdown -s -t 0”
- Switch to the "Customize" tab and select "Change Icon" from the "Folder Icons" section at the bottom of the tab.
- Locate and set the appropriate icon for your new shortcut.
- After the information is entered, press “Apply” then “OK“.
Once you have done this, the next time they attempt to click on the shortcut you set, the computer will shutdown.
The Mouse Jiggler is a product that is designed to:
Prevent a computer from going to sleep while you work or play. (The) constant mouse activity prevents sleep mode and screen savers (and their password prompts).
Simply wait for your victim to step away from their computer for a few minutes and attach the Mouse Jiggler to one of the rear USB ports (to keep it from being immediately noticed). When the victim returns to their computer, the mouse cursor will be jumping all over the screen.
Want to include a personal message on everyone copies? Not a problem, just write it on the copy machines' glass. Most people don't look at the glass before they make a copy, and if you write small message, even if they look, they are likely to miss it.
- Using a fine tipped dry-erase marker, write a message on the copy machines glass copy surface. Writing backwards will make your message legible after it has been copied.
If you are really lucky they will copy a whole stack of papers by using the document feeder trays and will walk off while the copier goes to work resulting in their entire stack of copies with your message all over it.
If you make your message small, perhaps a small heart with "I Luv You" in it, they are less likely to notice until after they have distributed their copies to people in the office.
Before executing this prank, it is highly advisable that you double check to ensure the marker is easily removable from the copiers copy surface.
Do you have a coworker who is always loosing things? Help them keep track of their mouse cursor by super-sizing it for them.
- Go to System Preferences > Universal Access
- Select the "Mouse and Trackpad" pane
- At the bottom of the window, adjust the "Cursor Size" slider to the far right, "Large"
With a cursor this big, you can be sure they will always be able to find it on the screen.
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