Post your favorite practical jokes you have played on coworkers

[Major Nikon]

1) A small piece of scotch tape placed over the sensor of an optical mouse renders it useless.

2) One time I put a piece of scotch tape over the ear piece holes on a co-workers telephone. I went out for a cup of coffee and when I came back he was in the process of disassembling the phone to try and find the problem.

3) We have a stuffed toy that looks exactly like a big rat. One of our favorite tricks is to place it in the shadows somewhere and wait until people notice it. It's very unsettling at first because they don't realize it's not real. My boss' boss was coming through my office for a visit and we had placed the rat in a conspicuous spot on the floor. When he saw it he practically came unglued and ran out of the office. We did the same thing to the janitor and he screamed like a little girl. One time I put it on my wife's desk behind her monitor. I wasn't there when she found it, but she didn't speak to me for the rest of the day. It took me a week to get the rat back.

4) On one of my co-worker's birthday, we filled his locker up with packing peanuts. I have a set of lock pics and I picked his lock. We placed a piece of cardboard over the locker while we were filling it up, then slipped the cardboard out as we were shutting his locker.

5) One of my co-workers is very paranoid about leaving his locker unlocked and will often call us after he has left to check it for him. He used a Master combination lock which is very easily shimmed open if you know how to do it. I would come in early and shim his lock open one day out of every 3-4 weeks or so. I kept this up for a few months and it was driving him crazy. He would come in and cuss himself for 5 minutes saying he could have sworn he locked it before he left. Eventually he suspected someone had gotten his combination, so he bought a new combination lock. He put his old lock inside his locker. The next day I shimmed open the new lock and replaced it with the old lock.

[Populist_Prole]

1. Not as much a joke as applying justice

Had a guy at work who was a smooth talking goldbrick who would flatly refuse to do his job or help the rest of us out in any way during a televised football game. He schmoozed his way into getting people to contribute to buy a breakroom TV that nobody really wanted, and then rigged up a sattellite dish and stringing a cable through the rafters in the building.

Like I said he was a first class goldbrick and slacker even normally, but during a game he'd just shout and shriek since he'd have some apparently ungodly sum of money bet on the game. That and constantly being on the phone with other people also betting on the game....the work phone....tying up the line. Finally a small group of us got so pissed off at his arrogance we purchased a universal remote, figured out the program code for that particular set, and then proceeded to either change the channel, or even turn the set off when he was watching the game. We'd do it discretely since we found it would work even by pointing through a window from outside. We'd also put it up jacket sleeves with the buttons pointing down, and just gently bang our arms on a hard surface. It was fun watching him have to get up and re-change....often we'd change it back just as he was about to. He'd be furious, and he knew some of us despised him but he couldn't quite figure out what was going on. Since all usually had different days off we'd take turns stymy-ing his TV watching so he could never narrow it down based on the days it was happening. Once we messed with the co-ax cable connections by placing either a small wad of paper in the connection or simply bending a staple over and reconnecting it. Looking at the connections they looked just fine. He and his minions had a hair-ripping experience trying to track down what was wrong.

It sounds mean, but we had no other choice since he had management fooled, and a "blanket party" would be illegal. It did give us a great nemesis feeling to see him get his come-uppance....even if in a seemingly petty manner.

[Major Nikon]

6. That reminds me of this...

Several of us were sent out of town for training. We rented a van for all of us to use. Every day one of the guys would insist on sitting in the front and would fiddle with the radio until he found a country and western station. He was an older guy and it would take him a few minutes of fiddling with the radio to find a station he liked. I noticed there was a set of controls for the radio in the back. I'd wait for the van to hit a bump and I'd hit the seek button. He'd cuss the radio and mess with it again until he got it back where he wanted it, then I'd wait a few minutes and hit it again when we'd go over a bump. This went on for several days and everyone was in on it but him. Naturally he was pretty pissed when we finally told him.

Another trick I used on him was when he was driving and backing up the van he was deathly paranoid of hitting something since the van had poor visibility while backing up. I waited until he was close to another car and I stomped on the floor very loudly. Naturally he slammed on the breaks. Lots of cussing ensued when he figured out what I had done.

[IcyPeas]

2. lots of toolbars...

when a coworker went to lunch we turned on every toolbar and it took up 90 percent of her screen. she freaked out when she came back thinking something was wrong - we were all cracking up and had to tell her. I still think that's funny and would love to do it again to some unsuspecting person with a good sense of humor.

[gratuitous]

3. The rubber rat

I had a co-worker who was great for overreaction, and easily startled. I'd put the rubber rat on her keyboard and slide the drawer back under her desktop. The invariable screech and hollered "gratuitous!!!!" was worth it every time. I'd do it about once a quarter or so, just so it didn't get old. One time I tied a rubber band to Brer Rat, so that when she pulled out her keyboard drawer, it "jumped." When I woke up in the hospital a couple of days later, the nurses were still laughing about how she practically peed her pants.

[LynneSin]

4. I once filled every drawer in my boss's desk with packing peanuts

I don't think she ever got them all cleaned out.

[HeiressofBickworth]

12. I did the opposite

After my boss packed the cabinet behind my desk with packing chips, I waited until he was out of the office then I took three chips. Put one hanging out of his desk drawer and put another hanging out of another drawer. When he got back, I sat outside his office laughing my ass off as he opened each and every cupboard and drawer in his office looking for the rest of the chips. Minimalist humor.

[Wait Wut]

5. Changed the "alert" ding...

...on a coworker's Mac and then turned the volume way down.

"Hey, did anyone hear that? My computer is trying to talk to me!"
Me: "Really? What's it saying?"
Him: "I can't hear it. It's really quiet."
Me: "Well, turn up the volume."

His computer, REALLY LOUD: "Me love you long time!"

He turned about 18 shades of read and never lived it down.

[Major Nikon]

8. We do that sometimes

One of our older coworkers got his alert sound changed to the sound of a toilet flushing. It took him a week or so to figure out how to change it back. Each time you'd hear the sound of a toilet flushing coming from his computer someone would giggle.

[Denninmi]

7. Baked my buddy a "Jimmy Hoffa Day Cake."

You have to keep in mind, I live and work just a few miles from where Jimmy Hoffa disappeared on July 30, 1975. There were "Hoffa digs" all over the place back then, looking for his body.

The other half of the back story - I used to cook and bake a lot and take "treats" into work.

One year on July 30th, as we were bothing punching the time clock, I said to my friend "Hey, do you know what today is, it's Jimmy Hoffa Day. To celebrate, I made you a Jimmy Hoffa Day cake." Kind of laughed it off. I thought he got "the joke" on the spot, since I wasn't holding a cake.

A few hours later at break time, he came in where I was and said, "hey, where's the cake?"

I thought he was joking, too, so I said "well, you know, you've got to find it before you can eat it."

Well, he went all over the place (several acres of garden center) looking for a non-existent cake.

Late on, I explained "the joke" to him -- he was kind of pissed at me.



I was a nice guy, though, I baked a cake and brought it to him the next day.

I don't work with him any more, but still talk to him a few times a year, and I sometimes still ask him if he wants a "Jimmy Hoffa Day" cake.

[applegrove]

9. Never into practical jokes. Closest I ever got was shooting elastic wars. But that wasn't a joke.

[ohiosmith]

10. A favorite was Mothers Day cards I sent to my boss in Vancouver, BC. Guy was a total asshole. One

year I sent him a Mothers Day card inscribed " because you're the biggest mother I know". He freaked and asked around if anyone knew who sent him the card. He never found out that I had sent it.

The following year, and for years after, he received dozens of Mothers Day cards from his staff, vendors, and customers.

I continued to send them to him long after I left the organization and until I got a couple back marked "Adressee Unknown".

[NV Whino]

11. I worked for RedKen Laboratories in my younger years

The VP was Irish and proud of it. One year we of the art department turned his office green for St Patrick's day. I mean everything. Green cellophane on the lights, green food coloring in his gin and toilet water. The doctor, however, drew the line at the medication that turns your pee green.

He loved it.

[Kali]

13. big tough macho cowboy + rubber snake =

screaming like a little girl


(yes all stereotypes, that is what makes it funny)

[MrScorpio]

14. I once used a bottle of perfume and an anonymously typed letter...

To get a co-worker to think that one of his ex-girlfriends wanted to get back with him.

Since there was no name on the letter, he had to call all of them to figure out which one it was. (He had quite a few)

Needless to say, NONE of them wanted to hear from his ass and he never ever found out which one of them that it was "supposed" to be who had typed the letter and left it on his desk.

All I have to say is that he shouldn't have pissed me off…


Revenge is a dish best served cold.

[pokerfan]

15. You know how business cards are delivered

by taking one of the cards in the box and taping it to the outside of the box? Well, we had a manager who was a little too tightly wound and also had an unfortunate last name that when misspelled was a vulgarity. Well, he got a big promotion and ordered some new cards. When his new cards showed up I intercepted them and had one of the artists in the graphics department doctor up one of the cards to make it look like the vulgar version. Then we taped it to the outside of the box and returned it to the admin's station where cards are normally delivered. Then I tracked down my victim and in passing said, "Hey Bob, your new business cards showed up." He immediately headed off in the direction of the admin. I followed at a discrete distance. Sadly this was before cell phone video cams or it would have been an instant Youtube classic. He takes one look at the card on the box and screams at the top of his lungs, "GOD DAMN IT!" (told you he was a little high strung) and then throws the box of cards against the nearest wall as hard as he could. The box breaks open and cards go flying everywhere. It was truly a thing of beauty. Then, once he realized that the rest of the cards were just fine, he spent the next half hour picking them up from all over the place. Good times.

[Major Nikon]

16. Many years ago I worked on a mainframe computer

We had a longstanding tradition of messing with the new guys. One of them was very eager to learn but didn't have an ounce of common sense. I was very deep into a problem we were having when he came around asking me all sorts of questions. Finally I told him I needed him to go get a box of parity bits for me. He goes looking everywhere. He asked several of the old timers and most of them played along with the gag sending him here and there to go look. Finally he ran into one old guy that was about as ornery as I was. He told him it was a gag, and that they were going to get me back. Finally the new kid comes back with what looked like a box of matches labeled "parity bits". When I pushed the box out of the sleeve it spilled out little bits of paper all over me. What they had done is cut the bottom out of the match box and filled it with all the punched pieces out of the paper tape machine.

[pokerfan]

17. the ol' fool's erand

We could have a whole thread about hazing the newbie.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snipe_hunt#Fool.27s_errand

I remember messing with chads. They were fun to load into a hairdryer (and probably a fire hazard) because they would stick in wet hair and become a pain to get out.

[pacalo]

18. My office was situated in an area near the managers' offices & was a magnet

for non-office employees who needed to make sudden phone calls. When I saw a particular person coming who had worn out his welcome, I once took the speaker out of the receiver very quickly so that he couldn't be heard. (You wouldn't have blamed me.)

In a later job I had with the same company, shift workers had access to my office. I had been noticing that my snack drawer was being invaded, so I got one of those joke peanut cans with the pop-out snake, took the snake out & crammed just the snake into an unlabeled cannister & placed it in my snack drawer. I got word from a couple of shift workers that it was a hit.

[HopeHoops]

19. On a good friend... I asked him what his favorite band was....

Him: "I don't really have a favorite band, but my least favorite band is Twisted Sister."

Me: spent a few days trying to find one of their posters. I finally did at a K-Tell Records store in College Park, MD. I'd never been in one before but based on the tacky commercials I figured they would be tacky enough to have such a poster. They did.

I taped it to the back of his office door (which he always kept open). It was the one with the lead shrieker holding a big meat bone. I used a sticky note to give him a cartoon talking bubble that said, "FISHHEAD!" (running joke at the time).

A few days later, he had to take a very important call, came into his office, shut the door and dialed. Just as the client answered the phone, he looked up and saw the poster. There was no question as to my guilt on the matter. When he got done with the call he came into my office, slammed the door and ROYALLY bitched me out about it! He was caught in that gray area between anger and amusement. By the end of the day it had progressed to total humor and has been a source of laughter ever since.

[underpants]

20. Have a coworker who eats bananas?

2. Hidden Musical Card
Purchase a musical greeting card that plays when it is opened. Carefully remove the chip that plays the music. It's really small so you can easily hide it in your victim's jacket or pocket without him noticing. However, before you slip it in, make sure it's in its off position. As you slip it into its hiding place, turn it on.

If you want to sneak it into someone's pocket, it's entirely doable provided that your victim expects muzak. You could do it at the restaurant, or to an unsuspecting victim in the elevator (keep it playing as your victim walks in). Your victim will probably think he's going mad when the muzak follows him around. This is probably the sneakiest of the practical jokes and pranks listed here.




3. Banana SplitsPre-cut your victim's banana for him without peeling the skin in this prank idea. Acquire your victim's banana, and use a needle to pierce through the skin at the seam, but don't let it pierce through to the other side! Move your needle back and forth to cut it. Repeat as many cuts as you want along the seam, then replace the banana. This is probably the most surprising of all the practical jokes and pranks listed here when your victim peels back his banana.


http://www.prank-ideas-central.com/practical-jokes-and-pranks.html

[Chan790]

21. This was more of an evil prank played on a bank I worked for.

I have a friend from college who is a major NYC-based TV producer and works on a crime-procedural drama (ie. a cop show) and he owed me a favor. The bank is evil; that's why I did this.

After I left the bank, I waited 2 weeks and called-up my former main-branch and asked to speak to my manager in conference with legal. I told them that producer friend had contacted me and asked me to write a spec-script for an episode of his drama as part of an audition of-sorts...and I may have written something that amounted to working-instructions on how to rob the branch and get away with it...and it was so good they now want to shoot it.

The manager flips-out, legal tells him that because HR messed-up and I was never legally-gagged, there's nothing they can do in-fact to keep me from writing or selling such a thing unless I know that it's a workable-plan (which I can't know) or I know that someone actually intends to attempt to use the plot to rob the bank. (Which I don't.) Legal calls my friend, my friend (who has no pre-knowledge of this prank) plays along. He takes it one step further and tells them that the in-question work-for-hire script is a proprietary work of intellectual-property and they cannot have a copy; they've got to wait for the show to air just like 1M other weekly viewers. (I don't know if this was clear, there is no script. I never wrote it.)

I never did tell them the truth.

[Hotler]

22. here is a couple.

Bake a batch of sugar cookies and reverse the amounts of sugar and salt. Intead of 1 1/2 cups sugar and a teaspoon of salt use 1 1/2 cups salt and tsp. of sugar. Set them out in the breakroom.
Bake a styrofoam cake. get some 1 1/2" or 2" thick styrofoam and cut round the size of cake pans. stack them up and cover with canned icing. Take to a birthday party and watch the birthday person try and cut it.

[shanti]

23. fart maker

my sis used to have this gizmo that you squeeze and out comes a fart sound. what she would do was bend down to get something out of a filing cabinet and squeeze the fart thingy. her coworkers actually believed it was her!