...I hate them.
Okay, that's a lie. I love office pranks and practical jokes, as long as they do no real damage and (more importantly) as long as the victims truly don't mind.
The place I used to work at was known for its active office pranking. The Christmas time "Secret Santa" event was responsible for some of the most creative pranks I've ever seen.
One lady completely gift-wrapped a cubicle. Walls, chair, desktop, cabinets (which were also filled with styrofoam peanuts), drawers, pencils, phone (including the handset and cord). There wasn't a single part of the cube (except the floor) that wasn't covered in gift-wrap.
I had a few large-scale pranks for which I was responsible, but I prefer the smaller ones. For instance:
1. Confetti bombs. Raiding all the hole-punches in the area and confetti-ing cubes was fairly common, but it's not too hard to stuff an uninflated balloon with them. Inflate the balloon and tie it off. When it pops, you get an air-burst of confetti that goes EVERYWHERE!
2. Another hole-punch dot prank was inflicted on me (and was VERY clever). They made punch dots from sticky-back label stock, and stuck the dots all over my desk. THEN, they dropped regular paper confetti dots all over the place (along with a healthy dose of mylar confetti). Scooping the loose confetti off the desk was brutal because it stuck to the edges of the sticky dots, which had to be pulled up, one by one.
3. Scotch tape (clear) and phones. Most people don't look at their phone handset before they start talking. If you put tape over the mouthpiece or earpiece, you'll get a case where either the the victim can't hear who's calling them, or the caller can't hear the victim. Drives the victim insane until they figure it out and until that point, you can hear them, either yelling into the phone or cussing all the callers who have appeared to hang up.
4. Hidden food. This is especially nasty. On "food" days at one place I worked, they'd take a small plate or bowl of some food and hide it in one of the cabinets or drawers in your cube. Preferably one that you don't use often. Eventually, the food will start smelling bad and you find something truly disgusting that you have to throw away later. I found a piece of cake (with a strawberry on top) in a drawer about three weeks after it was hidden there the green fuzz growing on it was truly disgusting.
Those are a few. The place where I work now isn't the type of place where pranks are tolerated, so I'm in remission for the time being. Just as well. I reckon I'll live longer this way. ;) |
