Posted Apr 1 2011, 7:06 am in Miscellany
I have a confession to make… I’m a bit of a practical joker. I like pranks, like unleashing my inner devil.
When I was a manager, I used to prank my staff and encourage them to get back at me. It was a great team-building exercise. One of my writers used to keep action figures on his desk. One night, I swiped every last one of them and then went on vacation for a week. When I returned, I discovered no license plates on my car.
Um. Yeah. Probably took that one a bit too far.
On a trip to Chicago, a group of us bought a bike lock and chained the boss’s treasured Aeron chair to his desk. In return, he managed to get the entire team calling me Queen of Quality, which morphed into Two-Q. There was even a caricature. I thought it was funny. So, they kicked things up a notch. The trip to Chicago was to unveil a new business process. One of my writers decided not to follow it. I was almost apoplectic while editing his work and then he pulled out the ‘right’ book.
He got me good.
Last year, one of my coworkers called me Grandma and I was so upset by this, I tweeted about it. A twitter pal suggested I peruse a website of office pranks. I did and flipped the offender’s Windows desktop upside down when he left his desk for a second.
A second is all I needed. For anyone interested, hold down the Ctrl+Alt keys and press the arrow key.
It took four software professionals nearly thirty minutes to set it right.
He now fetches me chocolate like a good little minion.
So, in honor of April Fool’s Day, are you the prankster or victim? What classic pranks still make you laugh? I may want to.. .you know… test drive one…
… or six.
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LOL! Diabolically quick and easy — I love it!
OMG. turning his windows upside down?!?! awesome! i want to try that one, except, umm, how do you flip it rightside up? the same keys? (i want to be prepared).
Ctrl+Alt+ down arrow to flip it upside down and then Ctrl + Alt + Up arrow to flip it right side up.
sadly, i have mostly been the victim….and never on april fools day. go figure.
when i worked at the bank, (on my first anniversary on the job) i spent the day trying to figure out who kept stealing my teller window supplies (money envelopes, coin wrappers, tape…you name it) then, i went to lunch and when i came back, my teller window was COVERED in all the supplies that had disappeared throughout the morning! it took me forever to get my area back in order.
another time (at this time i was the assist branch manager), the staff and a couple of our regular customers got to the bank early and set up all sorts of signage for my birthday…loudly proclaiming that i was 42! FORTY-TWO!!!! It was my 24th b-day. not nice at all.