Posted on 03/31/2006 10:17:18 AM PST by Nachum
Time to dust off the whoopee cushions and hand buzzers. April Fools' Day is here and there's no better place for wisecracks and shenanigans than at work.
In its annual April Fools' Day survey, CareerBuilder.com found 33 percent of workers have played a practical joke on a co-worker and 17 percent are planning office tricks for this year's holiday.
Although it might be thrilling to finally one-up the office funnyman, pranks also help beat something that's no laughing matter: workplace stress.
More than half of workers reported working under stress in another CareerBuilder.com survey. Stress and worry on the job can be harmful, causing problems that damage your health and performance. Having fun with co-workers can provide stress relief, build rapport, make work more enjoyable and possibly improve productivity.
If you want to commit an act of April Foolery at work and need some inspiration, here are the top 10 work gags from CareerBuilder.com's survey:
1. Changed the caller ID on a co-worker's phone to read "Mr. Kitten" every time he called someone.
2. Placed random objects from people's desks in the vending machine.
3. Placed a live goldfish in an IV bag in a clinic.
4. Snuck onto someone else's computer and sent out an "I love you" e-mail to the entire office.
5. Wall papered someone's entire cube with headshots of his co-workers.
6. Convinced a colleague that a co-worker was in love with him.
7. Sat on the copier and placed the copies back in the paper bin. Anytime co-workers made copies, they had the image of the prankster's backside in the background.
8. Turned all the clocks in the office one hour back to make the work day seem longer.
9. Locked all the doors, shut off the lights and put a "Closed" sign in the window when the boss went out for lunch.
10. Placed fake rubber chocolates in the break room and watched as co-workers tried to chew them.
Kate Lorenz is the article and advice editor for CareerBuilder.com. She researches and writes about job search strategy, career management, hiring trends and workplace issues.
I prefer barley in soup. lol
I'll let you know how I make out. Thanks... LOL. This might just be perfect.
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It's a hoot when he tries to do an email and can't type anything coherant on it!
By mid-day, he'll have desktop support trying to fix it.
Nice try :)
(Yeah, I fell for it.)
A "practical joker" deserves applause for his wit according to its quality. Bastinado is about right. For exceptional wit one might grant keelhauling. But staking him out on an anthill should be reserved for the very wittiest.
Lazarus Long
A friend bought a brand new Geo. We had to listen every day to his MPG report. Always, 40, 42, 41 MPG.
So, we started adding gas to his tank, a little at a time. the geo started getting 50 then 55 then 60 MPG.
We kept adding gas to the tank, it got up to 75, then 85 then 90 MPG.
We decided to wean him off the gas, so we added less and less. it dropped to 75, then 65 then 60.
Even less gas added, and it dropped to 45 then we quit adding gas.
Of course, we couldnt quit, we started syphoning. When it hit 25, he took it in for a tune up.
Mechanical Mouse: Remove the mouse ball, stick in a loop of tape, and replace the ball.
Optical Mouse: Short strip of opaque tape to block led's.
I did that but when ever the "victim" would type the word "The" it would change it to "f*ck"
Ok...here's one.
One Saturday the company president's wife (also an employee) wound up locked in the ladies room (lock malfunction) for several hours until her husband got back from an errand. Since her husband couldn't keep his mouth shut the story became the talk of the entire company.
A couple of weeks later I hung a prybar on the door knob inside the ladies room with a sign "For emergency use only!" attached.
When the victim went into the ladies room she started shreiking with laughter.
She never figured out who did it.
That's a good one! I think I'll try it.
Better yet, just place a small piece of tape over just one of the little wheels inside the ball compartment. End result, mose works fine, jst won't go "left"...
About 15 years ago my company got a new phone system at the main office. We went from 3 lines to 17 lines and received fancy new desk phones. For ten days after everyone in the company received a daily memo from the communications company detailing some new feature the phone and service offered.
The day before April Fools Day I took the phone company letter head and made up a bogus memo that read:
TO: All XYX Company Business Phone Users
From: Joe Blow, Systems Engineer (name changed to protect the guilty)
Please be advised that on 4/1/91 we will be cleaning the business phone lines at your location.
High pressure air will be injected into the fiber optic cables to purge the system of accumulated dust and debris.
We recommend wrapping your phones handset in a plastic bag to prevent the expelled dust and debris from settling into your phones key punch pad.
The cleaning will begin promptly at 10:00 am and last for approximately 30 seconds.
Please take the necessary precautions to minimize any inconvenience of this required service.
I took three (read, 3) of these memos and put them on the desk of the people who I figured would fall for this, along with a nice waste basket size white plastic bag.
The next morning, April Fools Day, at about 9:30 one of these three people starts to make it her business to find out who in our office does not have a bag for their phone. She starts a panic about some type of phone company test, where theyre going to blow out the lines!. Shes running around telling everyone they had better cover up their handset.
At about 9:50am I started walking through the building and EVERYONE had their phone wrapped in plastic. There were people talking with a bag wrapped around the hand set overhead one saying in a loud voice..Its some kind of test, theyre blowing out the lines to the person she was talking to. Im starting to feel like a kid who through a baseball through his dads car windshield and dad is going to find out real soon who did it.
A couple of minutes before 10:00 I go up to the reception area to make a system wide page announcing April Fools!. At 10:00 the phones are ringing but no one is answering. Im holding the phone in my hand to make the page and the company President walks by and says, PUT THE PHONE DOWN, YOURE GOING TO GET SPRAYED IN THE FACE! By this time Im laughing so hard I can hardly speak.
I make my announcement Attention all of you with a bag on your phone, April Fools. There was Dead Silence. Not a sound. Then I hear murmers and Im gonna kill him, Hes gonna get it, etc.
Final count 27 phones bagged. I went and worked in a branch office at a neighboring city for two weeks before going back into the main office. Its been 10 years and I still get grief for that prank.
Two Lessons learned: #1. Panic spreads like wildfire. If people are not given time to logically consider the facts of a situation, they will become like cattle and follow the stampeding herd. #2. Never make the president of your company look like a fool.
That would be absolutely infuriating.
Agreed. No work this year.
The next day I started a rumor he had taken the morning off to get a vasectomy.
It was two weeks before he finally had enough of the ladies in the office staring at him and making vasectomy jokes and sexual innuendoes that he finally asked what in the world was going on.
OMG!! I just told that one to my bosses in the other room and they're cracking up!!
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