Any Workplace Practical Jokers out there?

[JenBayles]

A person with whom I work (no names to protect the guilty) is referred to as Mr. Annoying Man. Slurps his coffee while clipping his fingernails; loudly interrupts every conversation in sight; has daily phone marathon fights with the wife (Lord save me); steals food out of the fridge that doesn't belong to him; no candy jar is safe; no personal box of Altoids; anything on anyone's desk MUST have his name on it; and the biggest offense - he rifles through the papers on my desk every chance he gets. He's totally paranoid about getting laid off (with good reason) and foments whatever rumor mill happens to be turning.

I finally had enough. Put together an envelope with "confidential" stamps all over it and a label reading "Termination Letters" and left just enough showing to catch his eye on his next riffling excursion. Trolled that bait all day long and I can tell he's absolutely about to EXPLODE. He keeps coming in my cube on one pretext or another and obviously eyeballing the envelope. Can't wait to see if he opens it when I leave shortly........ it's full of several sheets of blank paper except the first page: "MADE YA LOOK!"

[DoctorHurricane2003]

LOL!!!!!

Wow....I want to be a college professor when I'm older and I just KNOW stuff like that is going to happen....especially with some really annoying students that absolutely must have their grades for whatever...

[Skywatch_NC]

A person with whom I work (no names to protect the guilty) is referred to as Mr. Annoying Man. Slurps his coffee while clipping his fingernails; loudly interrupts every conversation in sight; has daily phone marathon fights with the wife (Lord save me); steals food out of the fridge that doesn't belong to him; no candy jar is safe; no personal box of Altoids; anything on anyone's desk MUST have his name on it; and the biggest offense - he rifles through the papers on my desk every chance he gets. He's totally paranoid about getting laid off (with good reason) and foments whatever rumor mill happens to be turning.

I finally had enough. Put together an envelope with "confidential" stamps all over it and a label reading "Termination Letters" and left just enough showing to catch his eye on his next riffling excursion. Trolled that bait all day long and I can tell he's absolutely about to EXPLODE. He keeps coming in my cube on one pretext or another and obviously eyeballing the envelope. Can't wait to see if he opens it when I leave shortly........ it's full of several sheets of blank paper except the first page: "MADE YA LOOK!"

The answer: BUST this guy in part by writing to Dear Abby and signed Anonymous (or whatever newspaper appropriate adjective) in Houston!!

[JenBayles]

The answer: BUST this guy in part by writing to Dear Abby!!

The only problem is that this dude is SO oblivious, he'd read the article and start his corporate rhetoric routine about how awful that person must be and never, ever see it in himself!

I realize nobody is perfect, but he really deserves the moniker "Mr. Annoying Man."

[azsnowman]

You are looking at the "KING" of practical jokes Not to brag or nuthin' like that! My BEST:

I was a meat cutter/manager for 20 years.....my last store I worked at before retiring, I was the asst mgr, the manager would leave EARLY all the TIME and leave ME with ALL the work (well, the mgr duties) ANYWAY....I got fed up with that, SO.....I took his car keys, he always laid them on the desk, I filled up a 5 gallon bucket half full of water, put it in the huge walk in freezer, wait till it froze, put his keys on top of the ice, filled it FULL this time then replaced it back in the freezer. Noon came around, he wanted to leave, asked where his keys were, I sent the meat wrapper into the freezer to retrieve the bucket, took him OVER an HOUR and HALF to get the keys out

Second best: I put a "For Sale" sign on the meat mgrs car (a CLASSIC 1967 VW Karmingia (sp)) with a asking price of JUST $300 He had CALL after CALL, customer after customer ASKING WHY his car was SO CHEAP

Dennis

[Windswept]

I've had more ideas than actual action.

I gave a co-worker a gag gift once. It was a large hula hoop with the words, "Personal Space Protector" written on it. It was to hold around your waist whenever our boss came in to talk with us. She was the classic "close talker." We never actually used it, but it became a great private joke.

We moved another boss' car every night for a week ( back in high school). He had an MG Midget. The entire kitchen crew would slip out - 4 guys and 2 girls - pick it up and move it a few spaces. He would walk out, stand there for a minute, shrug and then get in his car. By night 5 he was starting to catch on that "something" wasn't right. On the last night, we moved it into the shed - sideways.

[JenBayles]

OMG! Those are priceless! And I thought my husband was bad.

Way back when he lived in an apartment, he decided to 'gaslight' one of his buddies in the complex. Somehow or another, he got a copy of the dude's key, and every day at lunch he'd go in and move one item. Started small - moving the change holder, bathroom items, shirts in the closet. Moved on up to more obvious things as time went on. After two solid weeks, poor Glen finally says, "I think I've got to quit drinking. I'm losing me mind! I think I've put X in a certain place and then it's somewhere else." Another 10 days of that and Dave finally clued him in.

Dave and another co-worker have played jokes on one another for years. Co-worker smoked Parliaments, which I believe are the ones with the "open" filters? Am I right about that? Anyway, Dave would go in and sabotage his cigs: poured liquid paper into the filters. Then there was always the match heads gently packed into the body of the cig....

Guess ya gotta do SOMETHING to stay sane in the office!

[Skywatch_NC]

I've had more ideas than actual action.

I gave a co-worker a gag gift once. It was a large hula hoop with the words, "Personal Space Protector" written on it. It was to hold around your waist whenever our boss came in to talk with us. She was the classic "close talker." We never actually used it, but it became a great private joke.

We moved another boss' car every night for a week ( back in high school). He had an MG Midget. The entire kitchen crew would slip out - 4 guys and 2 girls - pick it up and move it a few spaces. He would walk out, stand there for a minute, shrug and then get in his car. By night 5 he was starting to catch on that "something" wasn't right. On the last night, we moved it into the shed - sideways.

Don't you just downright despise those kind of peeps!

*Thinking: Go get an Altoid for your "pasture breath" halitosis!*...

[azskyman]

Your idea was both appropriate and curious. I hope he takes the bait...but even if he does, you may not know it. He won't admit to it!

We have a staunch Republican right..WAY right fellow working for us. Love him to death, but it really started getting under some skin around election time.

A couple of jokesters in the building managed to take a photo of him, impose it into a photo we had of Bill and Hillary Clinton...and BINGO, there was Phil standing there shaking hands with Hillary and holding a sign that read I LOVE the CLINTONS.

They then managed to post them in numerous places for him to see the next day when he came to work.

He laughed his way through the day, and the rest of us didn't hear a peep from him about politics all day.

Now..here's a question for you.

I have a client who brings us a wonderful publication to print every month. He is on time, pays cash up front, and is otherwise a dream customer to have.

Problem is...he brings with him the odor of animals. Some say sheep. Some say cats. But everyone says "keep him away from us!"

Were it an employee, we'd have a conversation about hygeine in the workplace. But this is a CUSTOMER.

I have the honors of figuring out how to let him know about his problem BEFORE he truly offends an employee!

I'm tempted to call him up, go to his house, and have the conversation just so I can find out for myself. Either way, I will address it with him.

BUT, here's the opportunity I have.

When I come back to the office and report the progress I made, any ideas on a clever way to let them know "mission accomplished?"

...or, of course, "mission in progress...."

[breeze]

Let's see...we've put lawn furniture on a roof, identically
to the way it was in the yard... put flashing road dept.
signs in the bedroom window of a friend, at night, who
was zonked out on Deseryl...(yes, the city police were
watching and laughing!)...toilet-paper-rolled the INSIDE
of a friend's house for Halloween, and, left the outside
untouched...a friend lost a sheep (probably to a wild
animal, by the blood trail left), and, we took turns calling
his house, all day, for a week afterward, while he
was at work, leaving
messages on the answering machine
that said, "BAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!" Jeez - the list goes on,
and, I don't have time!

Poppysky - Hebrews 13:2 is the best answer that I can
come up with for your dilemma... And, a nurse,
confronted with offending smells, at times, a little Vick's
salve under the nose will eliminate the smell of anything,
from anyone that you are talking to. You can always
blame it on "the cold" that you have...

[SouthernWx]

In October 1982, my father was also my boss.....I was a security officer, he an area manager for metro Atlanta.

I had mentioned not wishing to work on my 21st birthday....but due to staff shortages, it was inevetable....which I understood, but was still dissapointed. Well, about 8 p.m., here comes dad's patrol car into the parking lot, and I noticed there were several other people in the car with him. Turns out it was my stepmom and two oldest sisters....and they had brought me a birthday cake.

I'm so excited....here's my folks with a HUGE birthday cake....a huge chocolate birthday cake (my favorite). Pat (dad's wife) lights the candles on the cake, and has me make a wish and blow them out. Then she hands me a huge knife....so I can cut the first piece. I dig in, and something just isn't right....I can't cut the cake...it's like rubber...or a friggin SPONGE

Turns out it was a thick piece of sponge covered in chocolate icing....candles, "HAPPY 21st BIRTHDAY PERRY"; everything. I must have turned ten shades of red from embarrassment as everyone got a big laugh out of it (including me)....but my 21st birthday was definitely one I'll never forget


(and yes, they had me a REAL birthday cake too....plus ice cream

[coriolis]

There was a young engineer at our office named Ken. He was kind of brash and cocky. He played guitar in a band and was pretty good. He considered himself the "star" of the band. They played weekly at a local bar and put their money together to make a demo CD. He talked about the band a lot and how they were going places, but they were never able to move to the next level. They sent out scores of CD's but got no takers. He had an 8 1/2 x 11 poster of the cover art posted in his cubicle. The poster showed the 5 bandmembers posed in a dark room, with the name of the band "Nameless Fear."

When he was out, I made a photocopy of the poster, and with whiteout and a pencil, I changed 3 letters in the name to read "Fameless Four" and in small letters below "with Ken."
I posted it over top of his poster.

When he came back and went into his cubicle, all I heard was the paper ripping off the wall. He was furious and never got over it.




Another time we were writing specifications for a construction contract. I wrote a section and asked a co-worker named Joe to review it. I typed in "Joe is a Dork" in one paragraph, in a place I was sure he'd see it. We got busy on something else and the job went out. We had bidders calling in to the department manager letting him know about it. The manager was dumbfounded and called us into the conference room. He read it and Joe was mortified. I had to step up and take responsibility for it. The manager wasn't too ticked off, or at least he didn't show it. fortunately there were no consequences except a speech about professionalism. Now we all get a good laugh about it.

[Persepone]

For the office snoop and petty thief...

Someone was going through our desks at night... Put a large set rat trap inside one of the top desk drawers...

The boss came in the next day with badly bruised fingers... The office snooping seems to stop after that.

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We had a boss who bought a white VW Rabbit back when they were new. The guys in the shop made cardboard "ears" for the front and a huge cotton "tail" for the back. He was not sure whether to be surprised or angry when he went out at lunch to show off his new car...

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In about 1982 when PCs were new and people were pretty nervous about what they would do, we had a prank we played on people who got them. We had a small piece of software that would (when someone typed a certain sequence of characters) suddenly blank out the screen and display a DOS prompt and the message:

Caution: Water has been detected in Drive A. Standby for spin dry cycle. Then the PC would play a noise that sounded like a drive spinning up.

It never failed to send the computer's owner running to the IT department...

[vbhoutex]

Those are too sweet!! The worst thing I was ever involved in was filling up someones cubby with ballons.

[breeze]

Persepone, that one about the PC in spin dry cycle is an
absolute GEM!!