April Fool’s day has a bad reputation because some people take their pranks a bit too far. Here are harmless pranks that’ll put a smile on anyone’s face:
- Unattended mice. Putting tape over the bottom of the mouse’s laser tracker will stop it from working. This’ll drive some people nuts, but it’s a classic prank that’s completely harmless. Wait until your victim gets up for something and do the prank. If after a couple of minutes they can’t figure out they’ve been pranked, let them know about the tape.
- Turn on the radio. This prank requires you to work in an area where there are many filing cabinets. Turn on the radio (or other device with music/sound) and situate the volume so that you can hear a low enough sound but still loud enough to hear something. When someone asks “Can you hear that?” just keep saying no.
- Post it notes. This is another classic. Wait until your victim leaves (for lunch or a break) and cover their cubicle with post-it notes. You can leave them blank or write something funny on them. One funny idea is to label everything on someone’s desk with post-it notes. This is a fun prank because it’s easy to clean up.
As always, it’s important to remember to not let pranks go on for too long, especially if it hinders on someone’s ability to get work done. The best rule of thumb here is: if it disrupts work for more than a couple of minutes, don’t perform the prank.
These were great. I did the unattended mice. What a great laugh.
My coworker put tape over our mouses so they didn’t work. Everyone thought the system was down lol
These are good ideas. My office is full of pranksters. I was nervous all day!
The post-it note prank is an all-time favorite of mine! I see it happen every year in and out of the office and it just gets better each time!
The tape underneath the mouse trick could definitely be successful against most of my coworkers. However, I think I would know to check the bottom of the mouse quite quickly if it wasn’t working. Some people in my office took chairs of coworkers and placed them on top of their desk. Not much of a prank, but a nuisance haha.
Good stuff. I usually pull the office pranks. Done some of these already.
I wasn’t in the office this year for April Fools Day.. I’ll have to make up for it next year.
Darn, I read this too late! Bookmarking for next year. My cowrokers always prank me.
Gotta love the poist it trick. That one is a classic. I’ve done it many times and had it done to me.
I believe in making the most of my time at the office. All of these pranks sound great to try next year.
My office plays pranks ALL YEAR! And I am always so gullible. Perhaps I can give some of these a try and surprise them all! 😉
Well I am late in seeing thing. I like the ideas for the pranks. I’ll have plenty of time to prep for next year!
Love these!! I am such a jokester. Another good one is putting Purell on their handset (or headset) on the ear piece. They will put them on wondering why its all wet!! Classic and all in good fun.
I personally think that all these ideas are awesome and would bring up morale, however, I do think that these shenanigans should be done with caution pending on how lenient back office policy is.
A coworker at a past workplace placed a bogus call once, and kept me on the phone for thirty-five minutes scrambling to solve nonexistent issues. I, for one, found this very disruptive!
These are too funny!! The mouse one seems a little mean, but hilarious. My favorite prank is putting an empty cup upside down with a note that says, “you move the cup, you have to kill it” indicating that there’s a bug underneath. It really freaks people out.
The best type of pranks are best had when they’re unexpected… like on a regular, slow workday where some laughter is needed and to someone who can handle an innocent joke. My favorite prank was a desk “tape-down”. A coworker and I taped down another co-worker’s items to his desk… computer mouse, pen, paperpad, stapler, phone, desk drawers… even the electrical outlet where he would always charge his phone at!! Truly hilarious.