There is always one in the office. You walk back to your desk after lunch and unlock your computer. Your mouse doesn’t seem to be working. You’re rolling it across the mouse pad and still nothing happens. So you ask your colleague to take a look at it and he checks the back of your computer to make sure that it is still connected. By chance, he turns it over and there it is. The ball in your mouse has been taped up. That’s when you hear the snickering from across the wall: the office prankster strikes again. Don’t get mad, get even. After all, office pranks are what make an otherwise dull day fun again.
If your colleague still types with two fingers and rarely looks up from the keyboard, why not switch some of the keys around to really play with his mind. He’ll look up after having written paragraphs and see that the sentences are all indecipherable. Be careful not to just pop off the keys from the keyboard with your fingers. There is usually a special tool that helps take the keys off. Just tell your computer technician that you want to borrow the tool to clean up your keyboard.
It is very easy to mess with a colleague’s monitor. When they are away from their desk, adjust the monitor’s brightness and contrast controls. These controls are usually right on the front of the monitor itself, so you won’t have to be logged onto their computer to mess with these settings. Adjust the settings until the screen looks completely black. When they come back, they will think something is wrong with their monitor.
Crank calls can be amusing, but instead of crank calling your colleague, arrange it so that the colleague you are trying to get back at unknowingly crank calls somebody else. Have the receptionist or secretary of your company write out a “While You Were Out” ticket. The caller’s name could be Mr. Bear or Mr. Lion or Mrs. Rabbit. Have the receptionist write down that this person had a technical question (or something relevant to that person’s job). Let the phone number be to a local zoo. When your colleague calls, he will be calling the zoo and asking for Mr. Bear.
Leave a note on your colleague’s car that says something cryptic like, “I’m so sorry I banged your car. I will certainly pay for any damage. Call me.” Of course, don’t leave a number. Make sure you are around when this happens so you can see him scramble around his car looking for a dent.
Since most office phones do not have Caller ID, get a bunch of your office friends to call the prankster colleague and hang up as soon as he answers. Do this a couple of times until he comes over to accuse somebody of crank calling him. Then while he is standing there blaming somebody, have another colleague call him and hang up. He won’t know what’s going on.
Get some fishing line (which is translucent) and tie different objects on your colleague’s desk together. For example, tie the fishing line from his cup of pencils to his chair so that when he pulls out his chair the pencils fall out. Or maybe you could tie some fishing line from his mouse to the volume knob on his speaker, so when he moves his mouse, the speaker volume gets turned way up.
Nowadays, you can easily purchase a magnetic bumper “sticker” which, of course, comes right off. If your colleague strongly supports one candidate for an upcoming election, put a magnetic bumper “sticker” of the opposing candidate on his car. Once he finally sees it, he’ll realize he had been unwillingly supporting the wrong candidate.
