Best Office Prank

[DevilAlumna]

Okay, so the Danny Ferry story, plus something I saw at work last week, inspires this query/thread. That, and I'm stuck in the midst of a 2-day training.

So, what's the best office prank you've witnessed? (Or at least, heard of and wish you'd witnessed?)

Where I am, it's very popular to mess with folks' offices, particularly when they've gone out on leave. I've personally witnessed a pink-painted, princess-decorated Barbie office for the uber-manly manager; and someone's private conference room packed with scores of old monitors and computers, etc. (It was so full, you couldn't enter/move through the room!)

Corporate legends include walling over someone's floor-to-ceiling windows, and my personal favorite, building a wall over someone's office door. It was so well done, drywall patching, paint, trim, even posters like everywhere else up and down the hall, that the office resident walked past where his door should have been, 7 times (all captured on video, of course) before he noticed a small crowd of onlookers reveling in his confusion.

[-jk]

Sounds like this one.

-jk

[cato]

At a previous law firm, one of the associates was out of the office for a trial for an extended period. Before he returned, his friends completely cleared out his office and took his name plate off the door. When he came back to the office, he thought for a little while that he had been fired, but no one had told him.

At my current law firm, one of the partners likes to sneak into people's offices when they are away and send embarrassing emails to the entire office. It is hilarious.

[EarlJam]

Ye 'Ol bucket of water on the top of the door trick!

Only this time (a few years ago at my last agency), we used a bucket of gasoline. It was our bosses (Steve) birthday and we wanted to give him surprise he'd never forget. We put the bucket of gasoline on the door and when he walked in, the contents of the full bucket poured all over him. Our office clown, Jimmy, then struck a match and threw it at him and he burst completely into flames! Then we all yelled, "SURPRISE!!!!"

You should have seen the look on his face and how excited he got. He couldn't stay still. It was hilarious! We still laugh about that one.

-EarlJam

P.S. Just kidding.

[Mal]

I have a friend who, with a co-conspirator, hid a tuna fish sandwich above one of the ceiling squares in another colleague's office while they were gone for the afternoon. Which would be just a disgusting, smelly prank and not very original. However, they jazzed it up by getting an e-mail account and sending the colleague hectoring e-mails with messages like "Where am I?" from tunafishsandwich@yahoodotcom. Thought that was pretty funny.

[OZZIE4DUKE]

I have a friend who, with a co-conspirator, hid a tuna fish sandwich above one of the ceiling squares in another colleague's office while they were gone for the afternoon. Which would be just a disgusting, smelly prank and not very original. However, they jazzed it up by getting an e-mail account and sending the colleague hectoring e-mails with messages like "Where am I?" from tunafishsandwich@yahoodotcom. Thought that was pretty funny.

OK, now we're getting into the realm of undergraduate fraternity dorm pranks. All these are true, and I only marginally participated in one of them. All of them involved one person, who shall remain nameless.

1. Dorm room was "loaded" with several hundred crickets. You try sleeping with that racket.

2. In retaliation, said victim was an avid outdoorsman. He "found" a large, dead rodent and stashed it in first perpitrator's room behind a refrigerator (think exposed warm cooling coils) just before Christmas break. No need to describe the stench that was in that room in mid January, 4 weeks later, after that thing cooked as it decayed.

3. Outdoorsman was passed out on his bed after a night of late drinking. When he awoke the next afternoon, he was lying in his u-trow on a bare matress in a room that was devoid of EVERYTHING else. No furniture, no clothing, nothing on the walls, no stuff in the room - just a bare matress on the floor in a totally empty room.

[gus]

Back in the days when I was in public accounting, I was working on a large client on a pretty large team. We were all in one room working together, and would usually listen to the radio. An ad came on about a research study into Irritable Bowel Syndrome. They were looking for people in a certain age group who suffered from IBS. One of the juniors, who had a penchant for scatalogical humor, thought it would be funny if he called in to the line to complain about his bowels.

I thought it would be funnier to have someone call him back.

So I quickly asked a buddy to call his line, pretending to be an enforcement agent from the FCC or some other agency, to let him know that they were investigating an illegal crank phone call from the junior's line.

My friend did too good of a job, even concluding the call with "We're going to find you. Your I'm a real wanker for saying this.I'm a real wanker for saying this.I'm a real wanker for saying this.I'm a real wanker for saying this.I'm a real wanker for saying this. is mine, kid!" The junior became ashen, hung up the phone quietly, and walked outside the building to compose himself. Maybe it was a little cruel, but when I told the rest of the team what happened, we were all laughing.