Everyone who has ever worked in an office has probably gotten one of those office prank forwards. They usually contain a bunch of duds but a handful of gems if you are lucky. Have you ever actually tried any of these pranks?

I used to work in an office that had what I referred to as a bull pen. A very small room with several desks way too close together in an open space. As you can imagine, it is not an ideal work environment. It is loud and crowded and heaven help you if you get a whistler or a tapper or other such person who has a weird noise habit. Anyway, some of the people who worked in said bull pen liked to play jokes on each other. Turning on and off each other’s lamps and moving around their stuff, etc. One prank was played on a completely unsuspecting girl. One of the nicest girls in the office who liked to keep her workplace spic and span. A coworker changed around the keys on her computer keyboard. Turns out it wasn’t that funny because A) she had great typing skills and did not need to look at the keys and B) well it just wasn’t that funny.

I also had a coworker who liked to prank people from the outside line. Since we had internal caller id, you could tell if someone from the office was calling you. It did catch us off guard every single time and he thoroughly enjoyed it. Then there is always the fake message you can leave for coworkers when they are out to lunch or at a meeting. This usually has a fall for it rate of about 90%. Could be funny depending on whose name and number you give them, but again can turn dangerous if you give them the bosses cell number or something.

I am not a big proponent of the hide some guys chair in the ladies room thing. Funny to me is not embarassing people but pulling off some clever and unexpected without damaging anything or anyone.

Have any fun pranks to share? Any pranks gone wrong?

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