Comments on: Fun & Games at work

Question: Fun & Games at work

Space Kitty — Tue, 13 May 2008 20:48:55 -0800

Of course you know, this means war!

So, I've found myself in a friendly cube war with my next door neighbor at work. His latest trick was barring the entrance of my cube with a Bugs Bunny 'do not enter' sign and packing tape. (Crappy camera phone pic here.)

I swear, I only turned my back for a minute! Now, I clearly need to up the ante - but in a nice way. This guy is a great coworker, and I'm not a fan of practical jokes.

Can you help me plan my 'retaliation' and win the next battle of this war? We're at a toy company, so we're probably a bit more relaxed than most workplaces. Ideally, I'd like to do something with a gradual build over the next few weeks and end with some sort of grand finale. Ideas? Anyone?

Extra points for cheap and/or Bugs Bunny/Warner Brothers theme.

By: mullingitover

mullingitover — Tue, 13 May 2008 21:12:31 -0800

If he leaves his desktop unlocked for a second: (in windows) make a desktop shortcut with the 'force shutdown' command. Put it in the startup folder.

By: Class Goat

Class Goat — Tue, 13 May 2008 21:17:48 -0800

That is a very bad idea, because it would interfere with work and would be very hard to fix.

By: mullingitover

mullingitover — Tue, 13 May 2008 21:23:49 -0800

Class Goat writes "That is a very bad idea, because it would interfere with work and would be very hard to fix."

I assumed 'don't take the joke too far' was implicit, but yeah, don't take the joke too far. It's good for a few minutes of harmless prank payback though.

By: bobdylanforever

bobdylanforever — Tue, 13 May 2008 21:35:02 -0800

Take all the plants in the office or any fake plants you own and place 1 or two randomly in each day (this way it also looks like he stole them and has some plant fetish) As a grand finale I'd take every fake plant in the office (this assumes you have a multitude of them- if any at all) and make his cube into a jungle.

By: fluffy battle kitten

fluffy battle kitten — Tue, 13 May 2008 21:53:16 -0800

I think it would be helpful (and delightful) to make use of Acme products in this situation. I feel certain that you could repurpose nerf-like components for this. You should be able to get several good ideas from almost any Wile E Coyote/Road Runner cartoon. And the good thing about those is that it's usually going to have the build up to the big event in the cartoon for inspirational ideas.

By: spatula

spatula — Tue, 13 May 2008 22:09:41 -0800

Does your toy company have an iconic mascot? Tie a noose in some rope and hang the mascot from the ceiling. Tip his chair over so it looks like a suicide.

By: phredgreen

phredgreen — Tue, 13 May 2008 23:15:19 -0800

Wait for him to leave his workstation unlocked

Alt - left shift - print screen

Windows High Contrast mode to the rescue. It doesn't affect anything he's working on, but makes everything look exceedingly weird.

By: phredgreen

phredgreen — Tue, 13 May 2008 23:17:29 -0800

(btw, just do it again to disable it)

By: Acacia

Acacia — Tue, 13 May 2008 23:43:03 -0800

On Monday bring him a nice little plant for his cubicle and tell him it is a very fast grower. Each day replace the plant with an identical one in a larger size (make sure the containers are the same) On Friday place the largest variety of the plant you can find, filling up the whole space and when he arrives say something like "Holy crap, what are you feeding that thing, Seymore?" Azaleas or a similar plant will work well.

By: amyms

amyms — Tue, 13 May 2008 23:47:30 -0800

The Cubicle Prank Toolbox: 25 Great Ideas to Jack with Your Co-Workers.

By: wendell

wendell — Tue, 13 May 2008 23:47:45 -0800

Seriously, do you want to shoot him now or wait 'til you get home?

You could cut up some black trash bags into little circles, put a little light adhesive on the back and cover his workspace with (semi-)Portable Holes.

An audio assault of Michigan J. Frog music accompanied by a pop-up plush frog might be attention-getting... but maybe too much.

I couldn't google up a toy anvil that could be set up to dangle precariously over his chair, but one could be carved out of a large block of black or dark gray foam rubber.

On a Bugs Bunny theme, a serious impression could be made with a large enough quantity of carrots.

Or get further inspiration from the Illustrated Catalog Of ACME Products, or simply put ACME labels on everything in his cubicle.

By: Zed_Lopez

Zed_Lopez — Wed, 14 May 2008 00:02:39 -0800

air superiority.

By: -harlequin-

-harlequin- — Wed, 14 May 2008 01:14:32 -0800

Booby trap his cube with a party popper - extend the cord with some string tied to his office chair leg, so when he sits down, the popper goes off. If the popper is behind his monitor, it's safe, and the confetti will appear from nowhere.

You probably have to engage in some R&D to get the trigger mechanism working reliably. I've haven't done this.

(Label the party popper "ACME TNT")

By: briank

briank — Wed, 14 May 2008 05:35:40 -0800

A sign that says "Wabbit Season" taped to his cube.

By: bondcliff

bondcliff — Wed, 14 May 2008 06:00:13 -0800

Make a "10 Ton" weight out of cardboard and hang it above his cube.

By: SuperSquirrel

SuperSquirrel — Wed, 14 May 2008 07:30:07 -0800

Could you do something with Bugs Bunny audio? Ringtones, computer sounds, get someone to make announcements over the company intercom, leave messages on his voice-mail?

By: grumblebee

grumblebee — Wed, 14 May 2008 07:30:18 -0800

I've always wanted to do this: let's say his name is Dave. Get some kind of cheap recording/playback device (e.g. cassette-tape recorder) and tape yourself (or, better yet, a friend whose voice he won't recognize) calling his name: "Dave!"

Get the longest tape you can and record this call with over and over, with ten or fifteen minutes silence in-between each call:

Dave! ... (10 min silence) ... DAVE! ... (12 min silence) ... Hey, Dave! ... (10 min silence) ... Dave! ... etc.

Get to work before him, hide the tape player someplace near him but really hard to find (e.g. if you have those little ceiling squares, hide it behind one) and start it playing. The "Dave"s should be too short for him to locate where the voice is coming from.

By: flabdablet

flabdablet — Wed, 14 May 2008 07:57:36 -0800

Hold down his right Shift key for eight seconds until the FilterKeys dialog pops up, then click Cancel, then hit Caps Lock. He'll go nuts wondering why the number keys only produce punctuation now.

Turn Caps Lock off and hit the left Shift key to restore normality.

By: klangklangston

klangklangston — Wed, 14 May 2008 10:46:31 -0800

I realize that this is unrelated to your employ, but ever since I found out about Mariachi Plaza, I've been wanting to use this on someone.

You can hire mariachi bands by the hour there, for usually about $30 an hour (though there's plenty for more or less). Hire several bands and stagger them so that the first arrives at, say, 10am, then the next group arrives at 10:15, then 10:30, then 10:45 (you'll likely have to have them all play until around 11:30, just so you can arrange to pay them properly).

I dunno. I just have this fantasy of the office slowly filling with a flood of competing mariachis, all in costume, while your coworker gets more and more flustered.

By: SPrintF

SPrintF — Wed, 14 May 2008 18:37:35 -0800

Reconfigure his mouse to swap his left and right mouse buttons. Even after he figures out the "gag", he'll find it difficult to overcome his learned responses.

By: GardenGal

GardenGal — Wed, 14 May 2008 19:25:20 -0800

I'm not a fan of practical jokes.

You do realize he's going to retaliate, right? And that you'll basically have asked for it?

By: Space Kitty

Space Kitty — Wed, 14 May 2008 19:54:20 -0800

Heh. Yeah, GardenGal. I'm counting on retaliation! I'm pretty sure he and I are both on the same page about practical jokes. We're both all about cartoon humor, and so far the hostilities have only reached the level of sending "look up" emails while launching packing materials over the cube wall.