Ever played a prank on a work colleague?

[Bodian]

In the bank during my early 20s we had a series of diarised cards for various things, usually to do with payments and stuff like that (no real computer based work at that time). We created a tatty old card for the new lad which was the 'Office Light Count'. He had to count all the light bulbs (over a hundred) to make sure they tallied. He did this monthly for a year before the assistant manager put him out of his misery.

I was also responsible for showing the new trainees round the branch, and the same assistant manager used to hand the new folk over to me with the words 'show them the ropes'. After a tour of the toilets, kitchen, staff room, various offices and do on, I would open a cupboard door with a great flourish and 'There They Are', to reveal a board with a load of old ropes pinned to it. It bemused them totally as they thought they were coming to start a serious career - but they still remembered it years later.

 

[Return of the Rev]

we did parcel tape someone to chair and sent him down in lift at BT Telecom House in Brighton back in the 80s - ah happy days

Did the same at amex house but sent them up instead! Also in the 80's

 

[Lady Whistledown]

I was once dealing with a crash on the A27 near Hove which involved an overturned caravan and took ages to clear up.

Once we'd got the caravan removed, we hastily gathered up all the kit and lobbed it on the back seat, in an attempt to get away and get the road fully open as quickly as possible.

We drove off, and pulled into the petrol station at Pyecombe to sort all the cones & signs etc into the boot and tidy it up a bit, at which point we noticed that a colleague had surreptitiously stuck a set of L plates on the police car before he'd snuck off

 

[PILTDOWN MAN]

empted the hole punch pieces into bosses brolly and rolled it up again - then they went to lunch and it began to rain - confetti head in the middle of Queens Road

Chad they are called

 

[Trevor]

Yes, indeed yes, I have played a practical joke on a colleague

 

[Weststander]

Could go on forever. Usually the newbies or apprentices that get the worst of it. Have left post its on desks for my colleagues to return calls to the following names and places and I swear they fell for it in each case;

Mr C Lion at Brighton Sea Life Centre
Carrie Oakie at a music shop
Liz Ard at a pet shop
Roy Hodgson at the FA (we had an American new kid who didn't have the first clue about football)
Al Bino
Betty Swallocks

Also concocted a plan with another lad where we would go into the warehouse and tape him up in a giant cardboard box. I would then go up to the office and tell another chap that a delivery had just come in for him - in a giant cardboard box. Then the lad in the box would jump out and scare the shite out of the third fella. So we go downstairs and I have taped this lad into the box, told him to be quiet so not to give the game away. Then left him there. For the rest of the day.

Used the Sea Life Centre prank on the office goon. Left a formal telephone message on his desk to call Mr.C.Lyons on 01273 ........ . He fell for it. The Sea Life Centre are used to these calls and joke back.

Similarly to call Mr.G.Rarf at the Drusillas telephone number.

 

[Justice]

I filled up a balloon with my breath and told a very pretty girl it was helium and she inhaled my breath. 1-0.

Bit weird

 

[spongy]

Working on a building site many moons ago the toilets had ran out of toilet paper. An apprentice needed a dump so one of the other guys gave him some loft insulation and told him to use that instead. And off he went. I still think about that poor sod to this day.

 

[Justice]

On site on Saturday years ago in an office block we put the fire hose out of a window and filled up some guys convertible who had to stop at the traffic lights with water,

 

[Charlies Shinpad]

8 years in the Royal Navy!! Every day is prank day....Early 80's I was on HMS Gurkha. We had a splash target that we could tow behind the ship and aircraft could use it as target practice. It was towed a good distance away from the ship, about a mile or so I would guess.

One particularly gullible young lad was persuaded to put in a request form (you put in a request form in for everything in the Navy, even to grow a beard and another if you want to shave it off) to become 'Splash Target Bosun'...A request of this sort means you have to go before the Skipper for approval, the Skipper was in on it too....the request was duly granted. Young lad was dressed in a wet suit and given a snorkel and mask and actually got as far as sitting astride the Splash Target before he realised it was a wind up...perhaps that fact that half the ships company were on the flight deck taking pics gave it away.....

Old ones are the best ones ️️️

 

[pasty]

As I work in a office a lot of the pranks are to do with colleagues computers: swapping what left and right mouse buttons do, take a screenshot of the desktop, then remove all the files and use screenshot as wallpaper so they try to click them to no effect. Flip display 180 degrees etc etc.

Working in an office where peoples desks faced each other with a small partition between them, a regular prank on newbies was to plug their keyboard into the opposite desk computer and vice versa, so when each of them was typing it was on the other ones computer.

 

[AmexRuislip]

Working in an office where peoples desks faced each other with a small partition between them, a regular prank on newbies was to plug their keyboard into the opposite desk computer and vice versa, so when each of them was typing it was on the other ones computer.

Must be a regular occurrence in the Argus sports department, given some of the that gets printed

 

[lawros left foot]

Old ones are the best ones ️️️

Did you ever do the Malta Dog Shoot?

 

[Braggfan]

Years ago I was working in a pub and one of the barmaids there had a mug with a picture on the front of a man wearing some pants. When you poured hot water into the mug the pants disappeared to reveal the naked man with a massive boner. So whenever my boss had a meeting at the pub with anyone (someone from the bank, brewery, accountant etc) he would ask me to make them tea, I’d always make his in the naked man mug but hand it to him so he had the blank side facing him. He’d settle down to his important meetings, trying to be all professional, but the whole time drinking his tea from a mug with man with an erection on the front. Inevitably about half an hour later, I’d hear him shouting and have to go hide somewhere. It makes me laugh just writing this.

 

[Southy]

In my first job, back in the day, we used to have a folder of forms - holiday requests, sick forms etc., and in the folder there was something called a "termination of employment" form - one that employees used when they were officially notifying the company there they were leaving.

We had this one girl working with us and we filled out one of these termination forms in her name and left it on her desk .... she thought she'd been fired. Little did we know that she was, er. rather unstable (to say the least), and seeing this form rather pushed her over the edge. Apparently she then did some very odd things and eventually she needed psychological professional help. It was only a prank, honest !

I think thats called psychological bullying. You're lucky she didn't sue the co.

 

[drew]

Yes, indeed yes, I have played a practical joke on a colleague

This has to be the funniest contribution to the thread!

 

[Jim Van Winkle]

At work one of the systems we use is antiquated and from IBM (none of that point and click mouse malarkey, just good old fashion key commands). Anyhow, it has a black back ground and you can change the font -- so every so often when someone leaves their computer unlocked the font colour gets changed to black. Always best played on a newbie and even better when the newest member of IT gets invited over to fix the problem. Hilarity will ensue -- normally with the Benny Hill music in my head.

 

[Brother Sid]

Once emptied a bag of sugar in water tank at work, due to fussy tea drinkers.
It played havoc for about a week with tea makers being blamed for putting sugar in 'no sugar' tea drinkers. Hundreds of cups were made and thrown away before the cause was established.

 

[Frutos]

My Dad once told a story of a prank that he and my Uncle played in the Army.

Apparently at the time, the fire extinguishers they used had a top that you could unscrew and gain access to the chemicals inside, which were contained in two glass vials.

In normal use pulling the pin would allow the two chemicals to combine and thus produce the foam with which to fight the fire. In this usage however, the process was to pour the contents of one vial into a toilet bowl and the other into the cistern, then wait for someone to flush...

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

Not an intentional prank but still had the communal shoulders shaking...

Pompous oaf of a boss was due to exchange contracts on a house. He had to go to a meeting but would be back within 30 minutes. If his mobile were to ring, we were to take whatever ultra-important message came down the line.

Sadly the bloke on the desk opposite, a particularly dimwitted Welsh person by the name of Gareth Thomas (I KNOW, what's the chances of THAT?) was prone to leaving his own mobile in an empty plastic cup on his desk for reasons best known to himself.

So the call comes through just after dimwit Gareth has been to the hot drinks machine. Dimwit Gareth answers it. Pompous boss comes back a couple of minutes later to find his mobile fully immersed in a cup of steaming Bovril.