Do you ever pull pranks in your office?

[maddythebeagle]

I have a co-worker who turns his phone on speaker full blast when he listens to his voicemail....one slip up and the voice response gives back his partial code number and based on touchtone, obvious that he is entered 4 of same digits...

Got on the system and changed his message so if somebody calls when he is on the phone, you get a lady rabbling about her cat followed by a direction to leave a message after the meow [off the net]....it will take him forever to figure it out since his regular message (when he is out will work fine)

 

[Fred333]

We sometimes unplug mouses on people computers or change their backgrounds. Everything is in good taste though.

 

[TromboneAl]

I guess this is an old joke, but on April 1st my dentist friend got a message to call a Mr. Lyon at 555-1234. The number is for the zoo, of course.

The receptionist at the zoo apparently fields calls for Mr. Lion all day long.

 

[Grizz]

This one is kinda gross and really immature but it did make for some good laughs and was popular back in the 80's when the place that I worked at had corded phones. If someone was on the phone with a customer, often a co-worker would pass gas right beside him then nonchalantly walk away.

 

[Fool_working]

We have a whiteboard at work where people out of the office leave their location and dates they will be gone (for example, Fool in Portland 9/1-9/31). We have one co-worker who ended up staying past the date on the board and we didn't know when she would be back. My boss crossed out her 'back' date and replaced it with "When the Raiders win the Superbowl" (she is a huge Raiders fan). Her reaction when she got back was priceless.

 

[simple girl]

DH loves to pull pranks. He took one of those fart machines to work ( you push a button and it makes a very believable noise). He put it under a co-worker's chair in the work room and started hitting the remote button. He says at first people pretend not to notice, and he loves seeing how long it takes before someone will say something.

I was telling a colleague of mine about this, and he just had to borrow the machine. I brought it into work for him, b/c he said he wanted to take it home and play some practical jokes on his sons. Well, he couldn't wait. He put it under a mat table in the gym and pulled the curtain around the table so it appeared someone was in the cubicle. Then started pushing the remote button. Thankfully, there was only one patient in the gym and her therapist...their reaction was priceless (one of them even started waiving their hand in front of their nose), and they had a good sense of humor about it afterwards.

Then later, when I was leaving a voice mail at a doctor's office, my coworker came in activated the machine right directly into the speaker while I was speaking! I was so befuddled I hung up mid-sentence!!! I mean, come on, I had just left my full name and credentials on the voicemail. I was really mad at first, but now I can laugh about it. I can only imagine the reaction of whoever listened to that voice mail...and how many people they replayed it for!

 

[free4now]

One of the most satisfying pranks was played on the corporate security czar. His job was to annoy us developers by making us fix any security vulnerability he could imagine in the product we were developing. One day he was meeting with us and logged in to his account to show us something. He forgot to log out when he left the meeting. We defaced some files in his account with the message "You've been hacked!"


Another prank I played on the guy in the adjoining cubicle was to attach a USB keyboard in my cubicle to his computer. This allowed me to type random characters at any time on his computer. He could still use his serial keyboard like normal.

 

[LeatherneckPA]

There are a couple of people here at the prison who are always leaving their terminals on while going next door for coffee or something. Some of them even have a hard time understanding why the Associate Warden is calling to ask them about their new lawn mowing service and the discount they just offered her.

More on the line of payback than prank: When I used to work the midnight shift in the Control Center we had a locksmith who would come in to help throw keys. This was a great help and so none of us ever refused him, despite the fact that he was rather flatulent. But then he started making early morning use of the unvented restroom. Our standing rule was "Standing Only". (punintended) If you had to sit you got a relief and went somewhere else. But not him. Even after I asked him not to do this anymore he continued to foul our air, always right before he would leave for the morning. So finally, one day I got totally fed up and tightly stretched clear Saran Wrap over the bowl and left the seat down for him. He quickly got the message.

 

[FinanceGeek]

I worked with a guy who used to grease people's phone receivers with vaseline and then call them. Pretty gross. This guy went on to become a VP of Engineering at another firm.

 

[LeatherneckPA]

Just HAD to share this one,,,ROFLMAO

There is a bathroom in the LTs office here, but most of us only use it for standing calls of nature. For stinky business we go to the separate three staller in the Admin Building. But our Captain goes in there two or more times per day and laughs his butt off at the wrinkled noses when he comes back out. So last week, while he was out on sick leave we got one of those plywood study desks from up in Education and put it in front of the toilet with an extra telephone and his name plate. We put his IN/OUT boxews on it. And the secretary had the rec department engrave a bright red plastic sign for the door that covered the one that read "staff bathroom". The new one read "Captain's Office". LOL, the Warden even came in early the next day to see his face. The Captain came popping in like always, didn't even notice the bright red sign. But he sure noticed the desk!!

 

[mickeyd]

Many years ago I was in marketing and a had real dislike for the CFO, and he me. It was a smallish company so he had to personally approve all expense reports. Three associates and I attended a 3-4 day convention at a resort.

I got aholed of some of the paper that the hotel printed it's receipts on and submitted phony bills, along with the legit bills for rooms and food, as we always did. The phony bills covered such items as $100/hour "hostesses" (3) for our 5 hour open bar/open house, 10 bottles each of Jack Daniels, Dewers Scotch, Patron tequila etc., para sailing excursions for prospective clients, gift baskets and flowers for several female clients. You get the idea...

I gave the heads up to the President/CEO of my little trick on the CFO. As I suspected, the CFO was eager to closely review the expense reports (I think it totaled almost $12k) and he could not race to the CEO's office fast enough to rat us out after reviewing what we submitted.

We all had a pretty good laugh at that caper. The CFO left about 6 months after that and took all the fun out of it. But, we still had a good chuckle recalling the adventure years after he was gone.

 

[free4now]

Funny, I also pulled a "bathroom into office" prank a while back. During one of the belt-tightening periods at my corporation I posted notices on all the bathrooms saying that they would be converted into "dual use zones" where someone would have a desk next to the urinals. I even moved a desk and computer into one of the bathrooms. I made up all kinds of rules for how to interact with the "bathroom office employee". Do not bother them if the TP runs out, and avoid unnecessary small talk

 

[gindie]

I'm always finding surprises in my cube after an absence. One afternoon, let's just say that the seam in my pants just "couldn't take it any longer". So, when I came back from getting a new pair, in my chair I find a "Pants Repair Kit";...the biggest binder clip you've ever seen and a roll of reinforced packing tape! Now, if I'd only had it before wasting my time getting a new pair...

 

[samclem]

While we are on the subject of bathroom office pranks, here's one from an engineer's twisted mind.

When MP3 players are used for evil . . .

(Don't click on the audio at w*rk)

RoboDump 1.0

 

[maddythebeagle]

While we are on the subject of bathroom office pranks, here's one from an engineer's twisted mind.

When MP3 players are used for evil . . .

(Don't click on the audio at w*rk)

RoboDump 1.0

Got to get me one of those...although, in our office seeing somebody in nice shoes would be a give away...

 

[mickeyd]

RoboDump 1.0

Hey, is that not Larry Craig in Minneapolis?

 

[LeatherneckPA]

Downloaded the Robodump. Planning to put it on a tape and then set the player in front of the door next time the Captain goes in there. Good thing he retires in December!