re: Office pranks, what are the best you ever created?

The dad of a good friend was a cop in the mid 90’s. There was an opening for a police seargent in his office and the guy who was in line to get it was a complete arse. My friend and I chipped in and sent a $100 donation in the guy’s name to the Montana Freemen group. When that came up on his background check the guy was sunk and didn’t get the promotion.

Haven't really done any office pranks but one thing I started out doing at work as a joke is paying coworkers a small fee (like 20 bucks) to make outrageously glowing comments about me around or to higher-ups.

Example: I had a pretty heated argument with a manager from another branch that was filling in for mine that got escalated to regional. After explaining the situation to my regional manager, she took my side, and ended up writing up the guest manager. I paid a buddy to tell him "when you take a shot at the king you better not miss." That manager has kissed my arse ever since.

(that one only cost me $5 because my coworker thought it was hilarious)

I also have a standing offer of $20 to anyone that says "Northshore? He's the best of us", or refers to me as a "legend" whenever a manager mentions me. The only stipulation is that they must sound wistful when doing so. As if they are contemplating the inevitable decline in business and profitability after I move along to greener pastures where I'm fully appreciated.

What started as a joke turned out to be super effective careerwise and more people should try this.

At a car dealership, supervisor’s office was next door to the mechanic’s men’s bathroom. It had the suspended ceiling so it was easy to switch the bathroom fan to exhaust into the supervisor’s office a/c duct.

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I once spent about 9 months in a bumper sticker war with an office of about 30 people.

We had a printer and blank sheets of bumper stickers we could personalize. Gay pride bumper stickers, personal phone numbers, even swastikas were common.

Everyone always had to do a 360° inspection of their vehicle before departing the parking lot, but very offensive stickers still found their way onto vehicles.

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Multiple things

1: got one of those faint beep things and hid it in peoples office where they could hear it but never find it. I truly never knew that something like that legit causes mental issues

2: glue down stuff to people’s desks

3: send bag of dicks music box to coworkers. Which will sing est a bag of dicks once it’s opened till you tear it apart and pull the batteries

4: mail an anonymous letter to coworkers with a BS vague message like, “you secret is safe with me. We had fun but i am not one to mess up a happy home. Thanks for the memories”

Put up pictures of the CEO in surprising places. Like the coffeemaker, the men’s bathroom, people’s boots, etc.

Dumped all the hand lotions out and filled them with mayonnaise. My one coworker kept using it until she saw me cracking up and realized what I’d done.

Made a call to my brother knowing he was in a board meeting. Said I was a client and it was important. Receptionist asked my name: Michael Hunt, just tell him it’s Mike.
Guys in the meeting thought it was hilarious. Receptionist…not so much.

A buddy was a weather geek. Always on top of what was to happen that day..week... Got excited at a thunderstorm etc. A hurricane is rolling up the east cost of FL and he's upset that the company (hq'd in Philly) hasnt made the call to close shop.
There is a corporate communication that the company "is monitoring the situation etc etc and if the city announced they will be closing the bridges .. Then well send people home". So this sort of set my buddy off... So I take the homeoage of a local news website save that page rewrite the HTML to make a story that the city is closing the bridges...save that and send my buddy a link saved to my new story about bridges being closed. He got fired up and a couple of got a laugh at his antics. However. He took it a step or two further and sent that to an exec in Philly and ..let's say ..he was a bit critical in his wording. Hr was involved afterward but ... They never actually closed the bridges. But also...the power of fake news
( For insight..my buddy was a guy that reported his car stolen one time but it was "found" a week later by another friend...the car had been sitting in a McDonald's parking lot for the week where my buddy parked to go down the street to a bar late one night)

Worked at an electronics/industrial supply house in late 90s selling primarily to manufacturers. The electronics division had an inside sales guy who absolutely hated fielding calls from the general public asking for a single piece or part we didn’t have. He’d be professional, but after he explained to the guy (usually several times) he’d need to go to Radio Shack, he’d hang up and cuss up a storm.

The day before thanksgiving I called in asked for him. Using a hick voice I asked him for a number 3 button for my phone because tomorrow was thanksgiving, and since I couldn’t be with her on thanksgiving I needed to call her and there was a 3 in her number. He told me to call Radio Shack, and I just kept laying it on him, about how she’s going to be upset, etc. When I sensed he was at his breaking point, I asked him what I could do and he said sternly, SIR, YOU’RE JUST GOING TO HAVE TO CALL RADIO SHACK. I was about to lose it so I said, “I cain’t call Radio Shack, there’s a 3 in their number too.” and he hung up on me.

I walked back upstairs where he sat and he was purple with rage. Once he saw me look at him and smile he knew it was me and said “good one”.

LINK / with the singing box.

Way back when the mouse had a roller ball to track movement, get in early and remove the ball from the mouse and watch people try to figure out why their mouse wouldn't work.

If someone left the PC signed in, go into their spell check and set autocorrect to change a word like "the" to something else.

Remote controlled Fart Machine at staff meetings and randomly in other's offices.

Hacked an email account from training and sent an email to a few co-workers telling them there was a mix up in the hotel bookings for next week's training and as a result, they would be rooming together. Since they didn't like each other, it was really special.

Had a co-worker who wore a pager. Sometimes when he would be in another area, open up the yellow pages (old school!) and send him a random number because he would always stop what he was doing and come back to his desk to call the number on the pager.

Told the intern on his next office supply order he needed to inventory the tickmarks and then order some more. He got really nervous that he'd get in trouble when he couldn't find any tickmarks in the supply closet or in the supply catalogue.

Replaced the hand sanitizer with some from Amazon that intentionally "smelled like azz".