Can we all agree that an office job at an omnivorous, faceless corporation is pure evil that’s dangerous to anyone’s health? We can? Good. Then, we can probably also agree that most of the time, it isn’t the foosball table or the one-pizza-for-whole-team Fridays that make it bearable, but rather the shared moments of humorous outbursts with and from your coworkers. Even better, though, if it’s a harmless office prank they’ve pulled on you, or you’ve pulled on them! And, since you’re probably reading this instead of working, you might as well make it a productive time and choose a funny office prank to liven up the atmosphere.
Of course, the best office pranks are the ones that do not require an elaborate plan of execution and those that have been tested at least a couple of times before. Enter this gorgeous Reddit thread where people shared easy office pranks they’ve already pulled or been the ones to test. Yup, we’ve read it all, rounded up the most awesome office prank ideas, and now it’s only for you to choose which one to surprise your coworkers with! From harmless pranks involving printouts to classic ones involving Jell-O and office appliances, you’re sure to find one that tickles your fancy.
Okay, since you’re probably at work right now and time is of the essence, we should probably end this introduction and allow you to finally read the submissions. Once you do, give your vote to the best pranks, and never ever dare to share this article with any of your peers! They might get a whiff of what’s to come!
#1
“Plugged in a spare USB keyboard into my co-worker’s desktop. Would randomly hold down the shift key when he was entering his password, lock his terminal when he turned around to talk to someone, or tap the windows key while he was typing.
I’m not good at not laughing. I managed to hold it in for 4 days until he finally lost it and started smashing his keyboard and unplugging all the USB cables. He got to the one for the extra keyboard, looked around, then yanked on the cable HARD, and the spare keyboard skipped across my desk and slammed into my cube wall.
I laughed so hard I cried for almost 15 minutes.”
Image source: TemporaryBoyfriend
#2
“If they have Chrome, put the ‘nCage’ extension on their browser. It changes every picture that shows up into a picture of Nicolas Cage.”
Image source: reddit.com
#3
heythisisbrandon said:
“Not sure if this will apply, but I was working for a telemarketing company at the time. I was the new guy and they gave me a “lead” to call that was a funeral home.
The name… Myra Maines… my remains… I called a funeral home and asked for my remains. They got me.”
bella_morte replied:
“I’m a funeral director – I’d have loved to get a call like this.”
Image source: heythisisbrandon
#4
“I bought a box of 1000 googly eyes and slowly started putting them on things in my coworker’s cubicles and around the office. It took a few weeks before they realized that they were being watched by their stapler.”
Image source: SLOGiants
#5
“I worked as a secretary, and there was this motivational poster of an eagle in the office with an American flag behind it that said “FREEDOM.” It was really annoying to stare at all day, so I put googly eyes on it. No one noticed for months, and it brought me joy every day.”
Image source: danipitas
#6
“Slowly, incrementally dilute the office coffee with decaf for a few weeks until there is no caffeine left, then suddenly switch to espresso.”
Image source: Kaleon
#7
“Put a cake in the office fridge saying ‘-person-’s birthday cake do not eat’ and watch as people from all over the building say happy birthday to an increasingly confused and irritate coworker.”
Image source: Benjizee
#8
“Someone took the ball out of my mouse once, late at night when I had a deadline. I just took someone else’s ball, used it, then returned it. The next morning when I came in, I very loudly announced that someone castrated my mouse and I needed a new mouse.”
Image source: TexanReddit
#9
“I have a coworker who folds up a blanket and sits on it. When it gets cold, she shakes it out and puts it over her shoulders. So after she left for work, I unfolded it and filled the inside with hole punch dots. It took three weeks until she finally made it snow inside”
Image source: BurnAfterReading42
#10
“Any time we get a new person, we hand them a plastic bag and tell them that we need an air sample to send to corporate. We tell them to go around the store with the bag open to get air from all parts of the store. Watching the new person walk around the store while flailing a plastic bag is classic.”
Image source: franlung
#11
“I once hid $1 in pennies in my coworker’s cubicle with a note letting her know they were there. I put them in every little crack, crevice, file, book, whatever I could find. I hid them, behind stuff on her corkboard, in her calendar, etc. I made a few of them really easy to find, so she basically got hooked and couldn’t stop looking for them. She found 97.”
Image source: aytchdave
#12
“Did a screenshot of my co-worker’s desktop and then made it his background image and moved all of his real icons off the screen.”
Image source: Mrferg101
#13
“Change the mouse movement speed to the lowest, takes like 30 seconds to fix and it’s hilarious.”
Image source: TehSnides
#14
“Put a small RC car in a nearby office trashcan, under the bag so you can’t see it. Just twitch the remote once in a while to make noise.”
Image source: MattHurting
#15
“Two of my co-workers sat across from each other. One day they were both out and our boss says ‘Hey let’s switch their cubes while they’re gone’ so we did exactly that. We literally moved everything so their desks were exactly the same but on opposite sides.”
Image source: reddit.com
#16
KeimaKatsuragi said:
“Change the Screensaver to Blue Screen.”
Megatron_McLargeHuge replied:
“I used that screensaver myself until my coworker helpfully rebooted my desktop for me.”
Image source: KeimaKatsuragi
#17
“I work at a grocery store and I love The Office. Inspired by Jim Halpert, I got all of my coworkers to call someone by the wrong name all day. His name is Darren and everyone called him Darrell. He was so mad about it.”
Image source: huuuuuley
#18
“One of my Tech Supervisors won the leadership award for the quarter which includes a lovely headshot for the slideshow. He hated this photo, which made me contact the company photographer and get a copy.
I proceeded to make ~200 copies of various sizes to plaster around his office. No surface was safe. I took apart his fan and taped little ones on each blade. One on the phone receiver, under the chair, inside the lamp, and basically wallpapered his desk with photos of himself.
My favorite was the three-foot poster size cut out I made to take his place at meetings.
It was three years ago and he’s still finding photos.”
Image source: lizlemonaid
#19
“Finally a thread I can contribute to. One of my colleagues is a very funny guy and often pranks some coworkers by changing wallpapers, etc.
Once he wrote a little note to one of his colleagues:
‘Dear Ms. XY, Mr. Bear (actually a last name in Germany) called you when you were away, can you please call him back? Here is his number: 1234567890’
He gave her the number of the local zoo. She was so confused that she asked for Mr. Bear several times before she realized that it was a prank.”
Image source: kingximax
#20
“I had a coworker who hung a model plane by a small paperclip chain from the ceiling over his desk. I lowered it by adding a single paperclip to the chain every Friday night. It took months but eventually, the airplane was so low he hit his head on it and just stared at it confused.”
Image source: frenglish2
#21
“Drop the height of their office chair and monitor slightly, but the same so their view has the same angle, but the desk seems like it was raised up.”
Image source: Affordable_Z_Jobs
#22
“At a previous job, we took turns with an on-call phone. I got it one week and found the previous coworker (D) hadn’t signed out of Hangouts (which we used company-wide for IM). We worked in a cubical farm sort of environment, and D sat next to C, though sort of back to back. They were pretty good to work bros, but not especially close.
I waited until both D and C were on phone calls, and messaged C (but it looked like it was coming from D) ‘Hey, my neck is hurting. Would you mind coming over here and rubbing on my shoulders?’
I was about 5 rows over when I hit send, but we all clearly heard C say ‘Excuse me?!?'”
Image source: Xe1ex
#23
“Set a rule in Outlook to open Chrome every time he got an email.”
Image source: jewshoe
#24
“One of my favorite harmless pranks is to print out pictures of whatever you want (I like to choose pop culture icons like George Costanza or something) and cut out the heads and tape them to your co-worker’s pictures of their family and friends around their desk. Most people get a laugh out of it.
Bonus if you pick someone that the co-worker is always being told they look like. Double points if they hate it when people say that.”
Image source: xnerdyxrealistx
#25
“I’ve discovered that there is no such thing as a ‘harmless’ office prank. All it takes is one middle manager to take offense or say something about wasting company time, and boom, official reprimand.”
Image source: reddit.com
#26
“I wrote ‘You’re Welcome’ on a tiny piece of paper and taped it over the sensor on the bottom of my co-worker’s computer mouse. It was hard not to bust out laughing as he plugged/unplugged, rebooted, and checked the Windows settings before finally looking at the bottom of it.”
Image source: BaconReceptacle
#27
“Get a duplicate of a coworker’s favorite drink or coffee mug, and when they get up to use the bathroom, switch their drink for the frozen one.
I did that to a coworker who didn’t have much of a sense of humor. I thought he might get mad at me, but he didn’t even realize it was a prank. He just turned up the thermostat.”
Image source: captainmagictrousers
#28
“I taped a birthday card that plays music when opened to the inside of my colleague’s laptop. It plays, ‘Baby, Baby, baby ooooh’ (Bieber).
I still keep it in the office to annoy everyone with.”
Image source: somethingrather
#29
“Put a paper clip on the glass of the copier. Make about six copies. Then load the paper back into the machine.”
Image source: pjabrony
#30
“Wait for one of them to go on vacation then put a framed photo of them, a candle, a sympathy card and some flowers on their desk.”
Image source: Just_us_trees_here
#31
“My mom is a software engineer for Southwest Airlines. One of her favorite stories is that her entire team got together and pretended to have this huge error that they couldn’t figure out called “ID10T” (read: I D ten T). Their manager spent a while going around asking about the error. When someone finally wrote it out for him, he had a good chuckle about it. Pretty harmless and it got a good laugh from the entire office.”
Image source: reddit.com
#32
“One time we shrunk someone’s entire desk.
We hid their monitor and computer and everything, and created miniature paper versions of everything.”
Image source: velour_manure
#33
“Hollow out a pen (felt tip markers work best) and fill it with glitter. Put a tiny dab of glue on the cap before you go home one night.”
Image source: dtslg
#34
User №1 said:
“Poison the coffee.”
User №2 replied:
“Classic.”
Image source: reddit.com
#35
“If someone walks away from their computer pull up their email and message your group announcing you will bring donuts on Friday.”
Image source: Personage1
#36
“I worked with a few people that would be ‘hunt and peck’ typers. Just switch the m and n keys. that can cause headaches for people.
Something I still do, I’ll write a time like 3:30 and circle it on a small piece of paper and slip it into a coworker’s pocket. that will leave them wondering what they are forgetting.
Both are pretty harmless and you can’t really get into much trouble.”
Image source: reddit.com
#37
“Every day my coworker eats a Nutella sandwich. One day I switched it for marmite. His face was priceless.”
Image source: lookingformywheezy
#38
“Work as a firefighter, one time someone ran a drip set (IV bag) through the drop ceiling into a neighboring bunk room, directly over the head of another firefighter, when everybody fell asleep he barely opened the line up so it would drip one drop of water every 45 seconds or so, directly on to the sleeping firefighter head.”
Image source: Gnarbuttah
#39
“You wouldn’t believe the countless hours of fun you can have with a spare USB Bluetooth mouse and a co-worker’s computer.”
Image source: reddit.com
#40
“Put blue ink in all the black pens.”
Image source: reddit.com
#41
“Paint the tips of their pencils/pens with clear nail polish. When they try to write, nothing will happen. Once the prank is over, dip all of them in polish remover.”
Image source: LogStar100
#42
“Cover the bottom of a mouse with a piece of a post-it AND unplug the mouse. Once they figure out one of the two tricks, they think they’ve solved the problem and moments later you will see their faces express disappointment and rage.”
Image source: reddit.com
#43
poohspiglet said:
“Do that trick that makes you forever ‘That guy who got fired for pranking’. That’s the trick I want to hear about. You will be gone but never forgotten.”
cdc194 replied:
“Worked over the summer back in like 2002 at a car dealership, I heard that an older salesman had just been fired for selling a lady a new Subaru, she kept insisting that the car have 6 cylinders (to be fair Subaru flat 4s were almost as powerful as V6s back then) and after her resisting he finally told her just to buy the car and they will put in the extra 2 cylinders later.”
Image source: poohspiglet
#44
“Mid 90’s, cleared a friend/co-worker’s cube out while he was on vacation in Europe, and sealed it off with Crime scene tape. When he came back, called him into our manager’s office and told him a fairly elaborate, extremely believable story about how the office had been raided, and everything from his cube taken into evidence.
Freaked him out so bad that we had to come clean with him almost immediately.”
Image source: acmesalvage
#45
“I worked in an office and would remove all but 3 or 4 staples out of my coworker’s stapler every day since he left before me. We often staple a stack of documents so you would hear him at his desk:
staple… staple… staple… click, click “DAMN IT!!”
He thought the janitorial staff that cleaned the office at night was stealing his staples. I never told him it was me.”
Image source: menowashair
#46
“Two things we did when people were out for a couple of weeks:
Grew chia seeds in his keyboard so it was a small field when he got back.
Another time (different guy) we just started leaving any trash on his desk (things that wouldn’t smell) then say before he came back we got some gift wrap and wrapped up the whole cube. The bonus was we hid a six-pack of Smirnoff ices in the rubble.”
Image source: sirclesam
#47
“Put a pump bottle of anti-bacterial hand soap out on my desk, people mistook it as hand sanitizer… halfway through a conversation their hands were sudsing instead of drying.”
Image source: Isitthefutureyet2000
#48
“I used to work at Sun Microsystems back in the day. We were renowned for our April Fool’s pranks.
One year, I was part of the team that turned a director’s office into a farm, complete with livestock. Another year, we wrapped a building in plastic. Another year, we ran a giant arrow through a building.”
Image source: capilot
#49
“Filled the room with balloons, like really filled. Found out after the coworker had a fear of clowns and a dream of one coming up out of balloons.”
Image source: swimmergal35
#50
“I wrote a script that minimizes everything on your screen every 40 seconds. My coworker spent a week trying to find the source, and ended up reimaging his computer so I showed up early and reinstalled it the next morning.”
Image source: CherrySlurpee
#51
“My colleague went on holiday for 2 weeks. Giving us enough time to attach all of his paperclips together in a giant ball. Every time he wanted a paper clip he had to untangle each individual one. He would occasionally forget it had happened and would randomly hear a sigh as he had to fight to free his paper clips.”
Image source: idislikeapple
#52
“Musical birthday card batteries last up to 3 days. Slip an open one behind a co-worker’s filing cabinet. They’ll hear tinny music for days without being able to pinpoint where it’s coming from.”
Image source: gnujack
#53
“Here is one that is great and involves no effort.
Leave a piece of paper on a co-worker’s desk. Have it say;
‘Hey my chair is uncomfortable so I switched it with yours. Hope you don’t mind.
– Signed another co-worker you want to frame'”
Image source: twerkmileytwerk
#54
“A favorite of mine is collect the ‘holes’ out of the bottom of hole punches and pour them into someone’s umbrella. They won’t open it inside, but when they open it outside you treat them to a little snowfall.”
Image source: Richs1984
#55
“Putting someone’s stapler in jello.”
Image source: potato1
#56
“My buddy had this hand lotion on his desk that he used every day soon as he got into work. I found the same brand/bottle and bought it, emptied it out, then filled it full of mayonnaise. Made sure it was the same weight as his current lotion before making the switch, just in case.
He came in and used it! I screwed up and started laughing way too hard and had to fess up, who knows how long he would have kept putting mayo on his hands before realizing something was up!”
Image source: Kelluthus
#57
“Boss thinks he’s clever by randomly running up behind me and shouting, ‘YOU’RE FIRED!’, not because I’m actually fired, but just to mess with me. Maybe it was funny the first time, but definitely not 564 times later.”
Image source: Dr_Methanphetamine
#58
“If they have a drink with a straw, cut off the top of a ketchup packet and place it on the bottom of the straw in the bottom of the drink… and watch as they take a sip.”
Image source: multiple_scoregasm
#59
“I had this prank pulled on me. This was in my first job, about 12 years ago. We weren’t allowed to share music files via work email, but my work buddy begged me to anyway. I’d only just sent him some song he asked for, when I got a pop up from an anon sender basically saying: “this is IT, we observed you sent, blah blah, blah and we’re locking your account”. I flipped out, thinking it was for real, and then I hear him laughing a few cubicles away. He sent me the pop-up. I totally fell for it.”
Image source: ayethen
#60
“We had rows of identical lockers, so Co-Worker 1 had a few magnets on hers to make it easy to find. Co-Worker 2 took them all and put them in the exact same order three lockers over.
Co-Worker 1 spent two days putting her combination into the wrong lock with no luck. She only caught on after she got facilities to open her “broken” locker.”
Image source: boxofsquirrels
#61
“If they have a digital picture frame, put pictures of you in it. Or come in early and disconnect their keyboards.”
Image source: Dildondo
#62
“If you have chairs that have mesh bottoms, tape wet sponges to the bottom of the chair under where the person sits. They probably will not be able to see it. This has definitely worked in the past for me. The guys legs were very wet.”
Image source: jonathan22877
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