April Fool’s Day

Everybody loves to laugh, laughter releases happy endorphins which brighten up your day, however, adults laugh as little as 300 times a day less than children!

To brighten up your day we have outlined a few practical office tricks. Just to make a few of you chuckle.

PC HIGH JINKS

A few tricks you can play involving your co-workers’ PC/laptop

• Switch the keys on the keyboard around.
• Flip the screen around while your colleagues is at lunch. (Not the whole monitor just the screen)
• Put tape across the bottom of a colleague’s mouse — wait for the swearing to start!

Change the autocorrect settings on Word — In Word, go to “Tools” and then “Auto Correct.” (Office 08 — word options, proofing, auto correct options) and will see the entire list of commonly mistyped words next to the correct spelling. Here, you can edit to how you want it spelled. For example, change the spelling of their name and/or changed the company name to one of our competitors. You could also add extra letters or reverse the spelling on other common industry specific words.

Be methodical to note all of the ones that you changed so you can change it back later!

Change the screensaver to something inappropriate (within the boundaries of acceptable office banter!! Maybe a Man Utd screensaver for a big Man City fan for example).

We all are so familiar with the Blue Screen of Death on our PC’s and in one form or another, this is an indication that something has gone so terribly wrong. Enjoy the face of your co-workers when they see this on their computer!!! Microsoft has a great fun BlueScreen that you can download as a screen saver onto your victim’s computer.

Download it here http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897558.

Terrify your co-workers with a fake milk splatter on their keyboard

This one is quite elaborate and takes a bit of forward planning.

You’ll need: — a piece of glass, or any smooth surface — white glue (craft glue) — soap, or any lubricant (cooking spray, WD40, etc) — knife

Your surface can be any smooth surface (a piece of laminated plastic/glass

Take your choice of lubricant (bar of soap for example), and cover the piece of glass. This makes the removal easier later. With the surface ready, take a bottle of white glue and ‘draw’ out your milk splatter. Squirt out a nice thick layer of glue, that way it is easier to peel it off after it dries. Allow the glue to dry for a good 8–10 hours. Once the glue dries, take a knife or anything with a sharp edge, and poke the edges around. After the thin strips are free, it should be easy to peel off the whole thing off your surface. Now with your milk splatter in hand, you can place it on anything you want without harming anything. Try distracting your victim to the kitchen, then place the fake milk splatter on his/her laptop, and wait for some reaction! You can add some colours to your glue for other uses, red for fake blood puddle, green for slime, etc.

PHONE RELATED PRANKS

There are various tricks you could do involving office phones or mobiles. Here are a few:-

Grab a colleague’s mobile phone and switch the names on caller ID’s…. Jesus calling for example.

If you have an office phone system that allows conference calling, you can prank two people at once. Call the first victim’s extension, then very quickly call the second victim and push the conference button. Now both people will think the other person called them and will begin arguing over who called whom!

Use glue to secure the victim’s handset to the phone (be sure to use glue that can be removed…check the label first because some glue will destroy plastic). Then go to a nearby phone, call their number and watch while they lift the entire phone to their ear.

Do you sit near a co-worker you’d like to prank? Every time they stand up and start walking away from their desk, dial their phone number. As soon as they turn to go back and answer it, hang up. Repeat this until they are totally frazzled!

If the victim has a phone with a hook that presses down when the handset is in the cradle, tape it down. When he or she answers a call the phone will keep ringing

Borrow the victim’s cell phone when they aren’t around and change the language setting to a foreign language. Then watch and laugh as they struggle to translate the setting instructions on their phone.

If you work in an office with a suspended ceiling: Hide his phone in the ceiling tiles above your victim’s desk. When they arrive…give them a call!

TRICKS WITH OFFICE SUPPLIES

There are various tricks you can do using your co-worker’s stationery:-

This one takes a bit of forward planning but putting office supplies in Jelly, as inspired by the American version of The Office could be a sticky, messy but funny trick.

Glue pens and other office supplies to the desk.

Do you have a co-worker that has to use his/her stapler frequently? Grab their stapler whenever they leave their desk and remove all but one or two of the staples. They will go crazy wondering why they are having to refill it so often!

Go into the victim’s office and locate every pencil and pen in their desk. Paint the tips with clear nail polish. When they try to write, none of them will work. (After the prank is revealed, the nail polish can be removed by dipping the pens and pencils in polish remover.) Might be best avoiding their best fountain pen — just in case!

Place post-it notes on every item on someone’s desk labelling what each thing is. EVERY ITEM.

In a similar vein, get some adhesive googly eyes and put them on every single item on their desk (or in the office fridge)

Take an item from the victim’s office (something they use a lot such as a special coffee cup, stapler, pencil cup, etc.). Take a picture of the item and leave it on the victim’s desk (in the same spot where the item was located), along with a “ransom” note.

Steal all the victim’s pens and replace them with pens that have the caps glued on.

Replace everything on your (male) victim’s desk with similar items, but make them as “girly” as possible (pink pens, lacy picture frames, bows, flowers, etc.). Remember to change his screen saver too!

Swap your co-workers’ desk drawers around (or just change around all their office supplies). This will only really work if they’re organised in the first place and know where everything is!

Using fishing line or black thread, tie everything on your victim’s desk -stapler, tape dispenser, pencil cup, etc. — to his chair. When he pulls the chair out, everything on his desk will go crashing to the floor! Or, attach everything on your victim’s desk to the back of one or more of his desk drawers (string the line through the holes in the top of the desk). When he open the drawer, all his stuff will go crashing across his desk.

Wrap all the stationery items and everything else on the desk (including the desk itself and chair, if you’ve got time) in aluminium foil or wrapping paper. Or cover every available surface with post it notes!

PHOTOCOPER/PHOTOSHOP PRANKS

Work your magic on your victim’s desk photos using Photoshop or other photo editing site. Borrow your victim’s desk photos, scan them, then: switch out their family members with monkeys, change their appearance so they look fat, Photoshop them in embarrassing places, etc.

Make some copies of a paperclip. Then put them into the paper tray of the copier. People will go nuts trying to find the paperclip stuck in the printer!

Print out some pictures of a scantily-dressed girl, or other racy image. Mix them into the paper tray of the office copier or printer. When the victim makes copies, they’ll have a big surprise!

One for the boss maybe (assuming he/she is an understanding type!) Photoshop their face into a bunch of funny scenarios and put them up all over the office.

Does your victim keep a photo of his wife on his desk? Steal it and replace it with a photo of a scantily-clad model. This is especially funny when someone else notices it before your victim, like his boss… or his wife!

A FINAL COUPLE…..

This one takes a bit of co-ordination and is quite subtle, but very amusing. Get everyone in the office, apart from your victim, to bring several changes of clothes in. Get everyone to put a new set of clothes on every hour. And walk around like it’s a complete normal thing to do!

Bake some brownies or other cakes — put them in the staff room with a sign saying “Happy April Fool’s Day” and everyone will be too scared to eat them. Scoff them lavishly in front of them later!

Practical Jokes throughout the office can encourage team work, help learn the importance of planning and make you and your colleagues laugh. Have fun!

(Note: You do all these at your own risk, it’s not our fault if you get the sack or destroy someone’s laptop!)

This article originally appeared in:

http://www.theofficesuppliessupermarket.com/articles/april-fools-day