(Vanity) Funny Business: Readers Share Office Pranks (DON'T MISS!)

Minneapolis Star Tribune ^ | March 2, 2005 | Delma J. Francis

[srm913]

One of my co-workers is a saver. About 15 years ago, our insurance company used a new password each week to identify company representatives. About a year ago, my co-worker found a file with all the passwords. He showed it to all of us and we all agreed there was no reason to keep it, so he threw out the file.

We have a sales convention every year and a top management person would leave company-wide e-mails to update us on information for the convention. A couple of days after my co-worker threw out the file, I called a top manager who sends e-mails updating us on the annual sales convention and asked him to send a fake company-wide e-mail to my co-worker announcing that there would be a contest at the convention and the person who could recall the most company passwords from the old days would win.

My co-worker read the e-mail and came out of his office white as a sheet. We only let him suffer for a couple of hours before we told him the truth.

Ann Mikiska, Farmington

The president of the company where I used to work had a very efficient secretary. When she put a stack of letters on his desk to be signed he didn't read them, just signed each letter and sent them back to her. The office jokester slipped in a sheet with the president's resignation on it, and of course he signed it. The jokester had a good time with it and no harm came from it.

[Centurion2000]

On April Fools day I sent an email to one of my unsuspecting cubemates with an attached .exe file. The text of the email instructed my cubemate to turn up the volume on his computer and listen for the 'soft noise' in the program.

I did that to one of my co workers here except it was a web link that opened up and put up some NASTY gay porn and screamed over the speakers "HEY EVERYBODY I'M LOOKING AT GAY PORN !!"

He never did click on another link I sent him.

[stainlessbanner]

Computer prank - oldie but a goodie:

• Take a screen shot of a users desktop and make an image file (bmp, jpg, etc)
• Hide all icons on desktop
• Make new image the desktop background
• Watch the fun begin....

[Fierce Allegiance]

I will try that in the near future on my wife. Have a spare room? I doubt the wife will let me speep in the big bed after that one. She's been fighting spyware, etc for a while now. :)

[70times7]

My dad worked with that kind of guy who has to have the best car. No matter which car he drove it was the best. He bought a new chevy and started bragging about the gas mileage. The other workers decided to fix him up. They started addding a bit of gas to his tank each day. The more they added, the more he bragged. Then they started alternatively adding or siphoning gas. One week the guy would get 15 MPG and the next 45 MPG.

I liked "The World According to Garp" too.

[B4Ranch]

Is this you holding the bag?

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1354412/posts?page=256#256

[Squantos]

Nawwww albeit a funny pic it's fake.....probably a couple of LEO bomb squad weenies vs a real EOD troop. Working on ordnance that large the BBS3 suits wouldn't protect ya so they aren't worn when working large UXO incidents.

[Mr. K]

what ever happend to her?

[70times7]

At a large (4500+ employees) facility where I used to work the cafeteria had a bicycle give away. I pulled the same stunt on a coworker with the pink "while you were out" phone message slips. He “just happened” to be away from his desk when calls came in to tell him he was the winner and that the person would call back the next day. No name or number were on the messages. For two or three days he received similar notes. On the last day of the prank I left a message saying that since he had not returned the calls the bike would go to an alternate winner unless he contacted Ms. Anita Conjugal within the hour. The phone number I gave him was for a local woman’s prison. Most of the department was in on this as it unfolded and it was a rather good laugh. Wacky, are you out there?

[RayBob]

Its a long story... basically, she kept coming to work, did nothing as no one would give her assignments... they eventually negotiated a severance to get rid of her. (They screwed up and tried to be nice in cutting her loose the first time and she threatened a lawsuit...had they just fired her for the tons of screwups-all documented by the way- they would have been much better off).

[70times7]

My first submarine had a new Ensign who reported onboard and was way too eager to suck up to the Captain. One day as the sub was making a surface transit to meet a ship for a personel transfer, the other officers informed him that he was designated to be the swimmer to go to the mail bouy. That, they explained to him, was an honor normally reserved for more senior officers, and that he must have really made an impression on the Captain. They quickly prepared him for the task by having him strip to his underwear and smear himself with Vaseline (to make the water flow over his body easier). After donning flippers, a snorkel and a mask, he reported to the captain on the bridge...

Sorry, I don't believe your tale. I met some real whiz-bangs in the Nav, including one officer who was a total dork, but even he was not stupid enough to buy into that set-up. That along with the more stringent screening that you sub people get would suggest it is unlikely that any officer would pull sub duty who is stupid enough to strip to his skivies, allow himself to be coated w/ grease and would walk to the bridge in mask fins and snorkle. All for mail that could be brought aboard with one of the transfers? I don't think so; your tale is your own shot at a sub-urban legend.

[jamz]

I love doing practical jokes.

I had a co-worker from Boston (I'm from North Carolina) and he was just real short and abrupt and came across as a prick in the office. We all had cubicles...small business setup...phone operator did mail sorting etc. I took one of those PC Magazines and put this guy's name on the mailing list for as many porn DVD/CD ads as I could find in the back of that magazine and put the company address as his address.

Couple of weeks later, they started coming in. Advertisements and provocative stuff that the front office HAD to sort to his name. They'd come back to deliver with an odd look...he in his cubicle...I'd hear "why the h**l am I getting this stuff". One day I was at the office..forgotten all about it...had a "WTH" episode with him and I lost it. Confessed.

....

Another time a salesman and I moved my boss' desk in front of his main door as the salesman had a key to the other access door. Murphy's law...he has a meeting 8am next morning...can't get in door...he didn't have his other key set. Had to get someone to climb over the drop ceiling to get to the desk to pull it away enough to get in to move it. It weighed probably 300+ lbs.

...

If you start doing college pranks...we'll be here all night. Koolaid in frat pool systems. Solenoids charging insulated bathroom door handles while roommate has just exited shower...water balloon launcher (had two roommates go to jail over that one)...crapping in opposing apartment pumpkins at Halloween...setting up water boobytraps on people's doors at apartment complexes. Oh man...those were the days.

Nowadays...I barely get to do the rubber band on the hand squirter thingy on the sink without wife ready to kill me.

[Ax]

In our operations building near the perimeter of Clark Air Base in the Philippines, we would have periodical drills for defense of the building. When the alarm sounded, my section would run to the Mission Supe's Office, grab our weapons and take up our defensive positions. One morning, the MS came to me and said that we were going to be testing the alarm at 1100 and to ignore it. My old buddy Al was diligently working at teletype machine. I passed a note to the rest of the section advising them not to react to the alarm and also, not to tell Al. At 1100, the alarm sounded and Al leaped out of his chair and sped through the section. By the time he got to the entrance, he noticed that he was the only one reacting, and the rest of the guys were laughing at him.

Two days later, I dozed off at work around noon. We would normally be relieved by 1240, board the buses and go to the mess hall. After I had dozed off, Al wheeled me and my chair off in to a corner. The section was relieved and I slept on. Finally, after the bus left, one of the other guys shook me awake and told me the bus had left. I had to walk the four miles back to the barracks, in a tropical downpour. You know what they say about paybacks.

[deaconjim]

Sorry, I don't believe your tale.

O.k., you don't have to.

[70times7]

O.k., you don't have to [believe my tale]

Thanks, Dj - the pressure was getting to me!

On a related note we did have a guy onboard our ship that was sent to find the stern-gate key by a PO in my division. He vanished for the day - came back just before knock off and said he couldn't find it, but was willing to resume the search the next day...

Ex Nav regards,
70x7

[deaconjim]

Which would be quite similar to finding relative bearing grease, obtaining a bucket of steam to clean bilges with (being careful to carry the bucket upside down to keep the steam from escaping), and using a plastic bag to take a portable air sample.

It was always a lot of fun to don EABs everytime they passed the order to "Prepare to surface without air". The new guys were fun to watch.

[Calvin Locke]

I worked at a startup in the 1980s, before PCs became ubiquitous.

One guy aliased the "changed directory" command in a collegue's account so that it would make a random
decision to do something to the terminal attributes, and then another random decision as to exactly what
attribute (blinking, bold, half intensity, underline, etc.) to modify.

I just happened to be in his shared office when he started cursing at the terminal...and I went to our manager
and said "Bill, remember that thing Bob did to Tom a year and half ago..."

He took pity on Tom and went to inform him of the prank. The manager didn't mind such pranks.

The real kicker was that since the prank was initiated, we changed buildings, the IT guys changed his
terminal, changed the port, he changed projects to another minicomputer,...

[Axenolith]

When we went camping in college there was a ritual "exploding a can of baked beans" session well into the alcohol consumption (people did clear to a safe distance). One trip, I walked over after the beans went off and tossed in a full can of Deep Woods Off insect repellant with the comment that beans were for wussies...

It took about twice as long than beans did, and I had to warn off some of the crew who started to inch back (we got about 150 feet away) but an extra large 20 oz can (Bonus 4 free ounces!) of Deep Woods Off goes off like a low yield nuclear weapon in a campfire. It was astounding, we had to build a new fire, and put out the tents, sleeping bags, etc. We found little melt holes in stuff for weeks after that...

[Axenolith]

We did that to one of our engineers right after he bought a Geo Metro.

[Axenolith]

Couple months back the Harrisonburg (VA) Daily News Record (which Grandma subscribes me to religiously every year) had shots of two "Bomb Squad" guys responding to a metal briefcase left adjacent to a convienience store at the pay phone.

The bozo's are totally in civilian clothing examining it, and then they decide to remotely detonate the "package" with what from the effects appeared to be a remote operated 10 guage with a slug. The reporter clicked the shutter perfectly to record, in midair, blasted briefcase, expensive laptop, headsets, periferal cards etc.

If it actually had been a decently made bomb, detonating it next to a building with a rack of gasoline pumps 20 feet away probably wasn't the doings of the sharpest knife in the drawer...

[GretchenM]

I worked in an office with a bunch of very stressed out budget people. Apparently to relieve the tension, one fine day several of them took everything out of the cubicle of one of their co-workers (a nice chap who never hurt anybody). They removed his computer and phone and locked them in the computer server room, along with everything else on his desk, even stashing his chair out of sight. Then they took yellow tape that looked like police crime scene tape and circled his cube with it.

Imagine the horror when the poor guy came into work the next day. No one would tell him anything. I think they all gave him really sympathetic looks, as in, Sorry you got the axe, bud.

When someone finally 'fessed up, it came close to blood on the floor.