Every one works hard at the office, and employees are together for long hours. Such a level of activity is undoubtedly stressful, so it is not uncommon from time to time to play a prank to ease the tension with a good laugh.
Office pranks should be creative and fun, but not so much that you get fired or embarrass co-workers. With that in mind, here are a few good office pranks that you can do without causing too much harm.
Laughter without consequences
Before doing a prank, we advise you to observe some basic rules. It is okay to laugh a little, but above all it is necessary that the joke does not have serious consequences for the victim, for yourself or for the work team.
Do not cause (severe) damage:
Do not destroy property of the office or of the person on whom you play the prank. Any damage must be reversible in a short time, because the joke must not affect the work efficiency either.
Keep in mind that destroying property is not joking, it is vandalism, and you do not want to be taken out of the office in handcuffs or lose your job because of a prank. This includes activating fire alarms, deactivating servers, or launching smoke bombs in the office. Use logic: anything that can be construed as a terrorist act is not a good joke.
Do not harm anyone:
The same advice again: use your head. Don't hurt anyone, or make a joke that creates a hostile work environment. Don't make fun of anything that has to do with race, ethnicity, religion, gender, or sexual orientation. That is never right.
Outside of these two universal laws, let's get to the fun part of the matter. Let's review some good office pranks.
The ghost screen
A very good joke to play on the colleague who leaves his desk without locking his computer.
Step 1: Take a screenshot of the desktop and move the folders and files on it to any folder on the hard drive.
Step 2: Put the screenshot you made as wallpaper.
Step 3: Relax and wait for your partner to burst his head open, trying to understand why he can't use any shortcut from his desktop.
Step 4: Laugh at the joke, but don't take it so far that your partner calls the IT guys. Remember that they know more than you do about computers, and they can play terrible pranks if you waste their time.
Gift office
This prank takes a long time to prepare, but is ideal for a colleague who has been absent from the office for some time ... or just for joking. The good news is that you can involve several buddies from the office of it, to set the scenario faster.
You will need a lot of gift wrapping paper and scotch tape, so you can imagine what it consists of: wrapping each and every object in your coworker's cubicle or office in wrapping paper. We mean everything!
Even if it is time consuming, imagine your colleague’s surprise and anger at having to unwrap everything, just to start working.
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The faulty mouse
Cheap and simple, this trick is hilarious as long as your partner doesn't realize it.
Step 1: Take a small piece of ducktape and stick it to the mouse sensor.
Step 2: Hold back your laughter while your partner tries unsuccessfully to move the cursor around the screen, until they realizes the trick.
The effect doesn't last long, because we tend to check pretty quickly if the light beam comes out from under the mouse. But it has the advantage that your partner will be scratching their head, wondering who played this prank on them.
Family photo switch
This joke is perfect if your coworker has a family photo on their desk. All you have to do is wait they are gone and replace it with a celebrity photo.
The funny thing is that family photos, as it is something we see every day, we hardly notice the change. So you can place bets with other employees to see when the victim will notice the switch.
Head for lunch
Ok, this prank is quite elaborate… but definitely devilish and worth videotaping. You will need a good camera, a color printer, a laminator, yellow or red food coloring, a wide-mouth gallon jar, and a wig.
Take 3 photos of your face, one from the front and two from the sides. Print them horizontally, trim the edges, laminate and clip them, so that they form a cone. Put the cone in the jar, place the wig on top for more realism and fill it with water, adding the coloring.
Now comes the fun. Put the jar with the fake head in the company fridge, minutes before lunchtime. Stay close, recording the reaction of your colleagues with your phone.
Display upside-down
If your partner leaves their computer unlocked again, you can bother them once more until they learn the lesson. This trick depends on the video card and the operating system of the computer, but it is a lot of fun.
One feature of the computer screen that is rarely used is that it can rotate. To do this, in most Windows systems, it is enough to press the combination Alt Gr + Ctrl + direction arrows. Hardly anyone immediately remembers this little-used combination, so you'll see your partner break into a cold sweat as they try to get you back to their original position.
If this doesn't work, then almost is better. Go to monitor settings, turn on screen rotation and rotate it 90 degrees. Even if your partner knows how to correct the configuration change, you will see them spend a lot of time grappling with the mouse to click the right place.
The killer penny
This is a long-term joke, but it can really piss someone off. Have a handful of pennies handy, and start placing one within reach of your partner, whenever theyare not looking.
Anywhere is good: on their desk, between the keyboard keys, under the cup of coffee ... if you are really cruel, don't do it every day: today you can leave two, the day after tomorrow one, Tuesday three ... just randomly.
Watch your partner’s sanity crack little by little over weeks or months ... until they find out it's you and you burn in hell!