Kooky stunts

Dare I say Zaney?

What sorts of little things do you do periodically to stay sane? Little pranks, or goofy hijinks? (Limberger on co-workers phone, popcorn in the heater duct, valvoline in housemates shampoo...you know)

I admit it. It's dumb & immature, but it does break up my work day and that's all that really matters.

From where I sit at work I can see into the main area of the office and pretty much everyone's workstation. As soon as I see someone heading off to lunch or break, I call their extension (I warned you this was dumb). The further away they are when they turn around to go back to pick up the phone the better. Of course, by the time they answer, I hang up.

I only do this every once and awhile, so just a few have caught on that it's me. And those that know join in my pleasure of watching co-workers lunging for their phone.

Geezuz... I'm 39 going on 9 aren't I?

[ Edited by: MachTiki on 2005-06-30 14:12 ]

Next time put a little vaseline on the ear piece, then call them. Change it up a bit...

On a Mac, take a photo of someone's desktop (shift apple 3) and then make that their desktop picture. They'll click away on all their folders but nothing will happen.

On 2005-06-30 13:22, stuff-o-rama wrote:
Next time put a little vaseline on the ear piece, then call them. Change it up a bit...

Excellent advice!!! The old way was getting boring.

A couple more ways to change up an old phone prank:
Get a tie-wrap of the same color and tie the handset cord to itself, leaving the cord an inch or two long. Be sure to cut off excess end of tie-wrap so they don't notice it. They will have to lean over to talk or pick up the whole phone.
Another classic is to simply tape down the handset button.
Another one is to open up their handset (usually with just a couple screws) and tape over the holes for the mouth or earpiece. Electrical (heavy plastic) tape is best.

Maybe we should change this topic to "How to F*ck with people's phones". :wink:

Another thing to do at work is call someone outside of the office, then transfer the call to an unsuspecting co-worker. Hours of hillarity will ensue.
Okay... maybe not hours, but at least you'll enjoy a minute or two of people saying "You called me","No, you called me".

i had a boss who thought "farts are funny" ~ not so much did i. so i turned the tables on him, and reconfigured his desktop with .wav files from fart.com. then turned up the speakers at his cubicle. we lay in wait on monday morning, as he fired up his computer, it made a horrible noise. the best part was watching all the polite Japanese SONY engineers heads pop up over the cubicles to see who was guilty.

for the rest of the day, when he opened or closed files.. there was a bodily noise.

ah, workplace antics.. such fun.

We have a phrase for people like that, we call them Shit Disturbers.
The world would be a pretty drab place without them.

There are a few chairs at work that have a height adjustment lever that you can flip, and the chair doesn't move until someone sits in it. When someone sits, after about 5 seconds, the chair slams into the lowest level at top speed, leaving the person able to rest their chin on their desk.

(I should note that this prank is only pulled on people who are physically fit to handle it.)

One person who was the victim was an absurdly obnoxious ass-hat we had the misfortune to work with. He was such a genius, he couldn't figure out how to reset the chair, and worked an entire afternoon squatting inches from the ground like a frog, like nothing was different.

Take a piece of wire and jump from the horn relay to a turn signal relay in a car .We did this to a buddys old jeep knowing it would be a bit before he had to turn left. It took him a few days to figure it out.

Have about four mai tais and then sneak up to someone's porch, ring the door, and then run!
If any of you call the cops on me, I'll deny it.

The car prank reminded me of an item you used to be able to purchase called "Auto Fooler". It was basically one of those small screamer fireworks ("Whistling Pete" or whatever they were called in your neck of the woods) that had a smoke bomb built into and two wires for attaching to a car's starter. You'd pop the hood of some sucker's car (in this case, my best friend's step-dad), hook it up, and wait for the fun to begin. It's mind-blowing that they used to sell something like this since it's basically an explosive going off under your car's hood. Man, those were good times.

I only did this once...
I had a bmx bike (Rampar I believe) and I figured if I looked far enough down the street and memorized were everything was I could make it to the with my eyes closed. Needless to say I found the rear end of a parked Crown Victoria and chipped my front teeth. good times, good times

Here's a another phone prank. I came up with this a few years ago but it caused the victim so much trouble and embarrassment I never did it again.

If you look at the push buttons on most business phones you'll find that the buttons are easily removed, along with the label. It's real easy to switch these around. I swapped some of the buttons on a neighboring employee's phone. Specifically I swapped the Hold and the Forward button.

This caused the poor guy much misery. As hard as he tried he could not forward a call and people on the other end just thought he was a buffoon. After three days he finally had some technical support come in. They couldn't figure it out either until they brought in a replacement phone.

On 2005-07-01 11:45, Primo Kimo wrote:
I only did this once...
I had a bmx bike (Rampar I believe) and I figured if I looked far enough down the street and memorized were everything was I could make it to the with my eyes closed. Needless to say I found the rear end of a parked Crown Victoria and chipped my front teeth. good times, good times

I did the same thing using the "force". I must have been using it well, my car didn't chip my teeth.

Then there was the time iwas sure I could jump that empty basement on my Huffy. Reached then end of the sidewalk at an amazingly good clip, and then front of the bike just nosed straight down. Ten feet down. I woke up on top of the bike, with a guy going; "hey kid, you ok?"

Practical joke wise, we have several people afraid of mice at our work. They should have never let on. Felt cat toys placed in a shoe make them scream bloody murder.

This is a mild office prank, but still fun.

After hours, hang up a map somewhere where people tend to congregate, or where people tend to pass through. Place stick pins in certain work related locations (branch offices, customer locations, etc) Then continue to add other pins at other random locations -- perhaps stretched along a certain route, or clustered around a specific desirable (or undesirable ) area. Don't go overboard with the extra pins. Use 2-3 different colors, but don't designate what those colors represent.

Your office-mates, if they are like mine, will eventually stop and look at the map, think that it is legitimate, and try to figure out what the meaning of the pins are.

This will probably waste more of your time than your co-workers time, but at least you will have amused yourselves a bit.

Vern

Here's a prank that Krustiki pulled on a co-worker who was a jerk and a leach. He taped a banana peel to the bottom of the guys desk. Within a day or so, there were swarms of tiny fruit flies surrounding him while he tried to work. It took days for him to find the source, and he never figured out who did it.

This guy used to walk around and swipe cigarettes from people's desks. Krustiki bought some gag "exploding" cigarettes and put them in a real pack. Sure enough, the guy swiped the pack, lit up, and boom! He stopped stealing smokes after that.

I like vern's idea! So random. So cool.

One day at work I spotted a rat peaking from behind the printer. Unfazed, I grabbed up the lifelike fake with the intention of turning the trick on the person I thought put it there.

While he was on the phone with an obvious personal call I snuck up behind his cubicle and peaked the rat from pehind his overhead book shelf. After a few times of peaking it around, and pulling it back, I heard him say, "the f___, wait a minute." I peaked the rat, and pulled back one last time. When I heard him get up off his chair to investigate, I threw tha rat at him. Damn if he didn't scream and jhup back behind his chair.

The thought of it still makes me giggle.

I have a bit of a reputation for making people believe things that aren't true, so I sometimes have to make my messages look like they are coming from a more reliable source. One of my favorites was sending out an e-mail to our entire 200 person office, ostensibly from someone trustworthy in Operations, announcing a change in smoking policy.

The memo noted that, due to rising concerns over second hand smoke, when people smoked in the area outside the front doors, they would henceforth need to wear a smoking banner, to alert their fellow employees who might need to pass. Smoking banners, similar to bike flags, would be available to borrow from the front desk, or you could purchase your own for $7. They included a handy clip which could attach the smoking banner to your belt.

This elicited some very amusing reactions.

On 2005-07-01 11:15, Unga Bunga wrote:
Have about four mai tais and then sneak up to someone's porch, ring the door, and then run!
If any of you call the cops on me, I'll deny it.

WHAT! No burning bag of dog shit for them to stamp out?

Where can I purchase one of these smoking banners?

On 2005-07-23 12:04, ookoo lady wrote:
Here's a prank that Krustiki pulled on a co-worker who was a jerk and a leach. He taped a banana peel to the bottom of the guys desk. Within a day or so, there were swarms of tiny fruit flies surrounding him while he tried to work. It took days for him to find the source, and he never figured out who did it.

That is genius! Tell me how did you get the fruit flys to go along with it. :D

I still like to shake up a can of beer before handing it to somebody.

There is a more involved version of Krustiki's prank. You take the actual seat off from the office chair, and slip a few frozen shrimp down into the hollow tube of the chair's base. even if you get down on your hands & knees trying to find the source of the stench, you would never imagine it was coming from inside the chair base.

Badmojo - that's really really evil. Why am I not surprised you came up with that. I don't have any enemies foul enough to try that out on. Yet.

Vern - I'm with tikifish. That's brilliant and random.

Chongo - Fruit flies exist naturally within any large office setting. They come in on the indoor plants. Just leave a piece of fruit on your desk over the weekend and you will find out just how many there actually are.

As a variation on Krustiki's theme, we had a low-down moocher who would steal people's lunches from the third-floor refrigerator. After about 2 or 3 times I was absolutely incensed. So the next day I made a really nice turkey sandwich on wheat with all the fixings, then went out to my woodpile and killed a 2-inch cockroach, which I placed lovingly between the lettuce and the swiss. Sure enough, my sandwich was stolen that day, but curiously, nothing was ever stolen from that refrigerator again.

Sabu

[ Edited by: Sabu The Coconut Boy 2005-07-27 12:28 ]

Done several times with the same reaction.

You need a rubber snake and light fishing line. Tie one end of the string around the snake and the other around the bottom of a rolling desk chair. Push the chair as close to the desk as possible and place the snake in a obvious but not-so-visible location. When the person pulls the chair out the snake will follow. The reactions are priceless!

On 2005-07-27 12:40, AlohaStation wrote:
Done several times with the same reaction.

You need a rubber snake and light fishing line. Tie one end of the string around the snake and the other around the bottom of a rolling desk chair. Push the chair as close to the desk as possible and place the snake in a obvious but not-so-visible location. When the person pulls the chair out the snake will follow. The reactions are priceless!

That is so funny. I think this one, along with the fruit flies and some well placed sand on the desk and floor would be the perfect "Voodoo Island comes to your cubicle" prank on a worthy victim. Heck you may even get yourself a blowgun too make it even more lively.

Boohaha,
Chongolio of.....Evillllllll