April Fool's Day pranks were high on our list of topics of conversation yesterday. Here are our thoughts on the top ten office pranks to play on colleagues and your boss, this April Fool's Day:
- Put signs on all the exit doors saying "Please use other door".
- Poke holes in the paper / plastic cups by the water cooler.
- Tape the phone’s ringer button down so that it continues to ring even after the phone has been answered.
- Put a post-It with the words “April Fools!” written on it under a co-worker’s PC mouse, so the digital laser / ball doesn’t register movement etc and seems like it’s not working.
- Put a bowl of sweeties – M&Ms or other small treats are best – in the kitchen then leave a trail from there to the office dieter’s desk.
- Move a senior member of staff’s desk items and belongings into the store cupboard – demoting them (get permission from the office manager for this one! It is particularly good if the staff member has their own office and it is replaced with the stuff of an admin assistant or other member of staff.
- If you work in an office where the computers are back to back – with staff’s desks facing one another – swap the keyboards onto the opposite desk, without unplugging them, and watch as the two members of staff are confused by words they’re typing not appearing on their PC. They will of course appear on the PC opposite them but it could be a while before they realise this.
- Change a member of staff’s keyboard settings to the ‘Dvorak’ layout as the only keys that the Dvorak and standard ‘Qwerty’ layouts have in common are ‘a’ and ‘m’.
- Change a member of staff’s Windows setting to left-handed use, swapping the buttons used to bring up the print, copy, cut and paste etc options.
- Make cups of tea / coffee for everyone, with salt instead of sugar – yuck!
