Several of us were talking when a fellow from the mailroom shows up with a box from an online shoe store for our coworker (who starts later in the morning). We signed for it, made some jokes about him having more shoes than Imelda Marcos (he’s from the Philippines) and then two of us had a bright idea.
We carefully opened the boxes, removed his new (expensive) Nikes and replaced them with a spare set of red high heels that one of our teammates had in her cabinet. She even had a whole bunch of that nice gift tissue wrapping paper so it looked perfect.
Sealed everything back up and left it on the victim’s chair.
Around 9:30am he showed up and of course his first task was to open up his new shoes. Someone “just happened” to be standing there with a camera recording the whole scene. Worked like a charm, he’s all excited, then pulls aside the tissue and has a wonderful expression on his face. Grabs the shipping box to check that it was actually addressed to him. Looks back in the box again and pulls out a high heel. By this point we’re all laughing our heads off and he still didn’t catch on - he was just getting ready to call the company up and yell at them (I wouldn’t have let that happen) when he twigs.
I suggest that everyone who was in on the prank draw straws to decide who will be the first to [del]sacrifice themselves[/del] enter the office tomorrow.
Not sure if I’ve posted this before, but a co-worker had a plastic bottle shaped thingy with a clear pocket on the face that was filled with water and 2 magnetized fish. Apparently magnets in the bottle would move and pull the “fish”, making it look like they were swimming.
Well, there was a “fishnapping”, and his fish were replaced with Swedish Fish (the candy) hanging from threads… I was caught in the act of cutting letters for a ransom note from project documentation (bagels for everyone or the fish get dropped from the roof).
Also had some computer fun… I discovered the auto correct feature in Word and set up someone’s mispelled list to include correctly spelled words, ones which would likely be used in project documentation. For example, if you typed “files”, it would change it to “flies”. The effect was fairly subtle for the most part, except that I made it reverse his last name (so it came out Eman). The funniest part was that it took him 6 months to figure it out, and by then I’d completely forgotten about it and was almost as puzzled as him for a minute or two…
We gathered for an (optional) breakfast before Christmas and the powers that be announced there would be prizes to encourage our attendance.
Some of the stuff was kinda nice. $25 gift cert for dinner at Chili’s, ok…some upscale office stuff, cool. I think everybody “won” something, if only the decorations on the tables.
One guy won a block of scratch-off lotto tickets. GASP! HE WON $5,000! “I CAN PAY SOME BILLS WITH THIS!!! I REALLY NEEDED SOME MONEY, THANK YOU JESUS!” Dancing, merriment, giddiness ensue.
MC says over the PA, “Hey, where do you redeem those?” Winner flips the card over, and reads from the back: “Redeemable in your dreams.”
It was a fake, something you buy at a gag shop. The buildup, with good Christmas cheer, bellies full of good food, and genuine prizes—well it was kinda like in volleyball where the set precedes the 800 mph spike-in-your-face. It wasn’t like a turd in a punch bowl; it was more like punch in a turd bowl.
Most of us divided our emotions between feeling sorry for the guy and relieved that we hadn’t been party to the decision to play this prank.
I saw a guy do a similar prank - also at a Christmas party. It didn’t turn out as bad though. This party’s rules were, if you didn’t like your gift, you could trade with someone for an unopened gift.
The first person to open it didn’t even know what scratch off tickets were. (That kinda blew me away - even if you’ve never played - have you never been in a convenience store?)
So she traded it. The couple who did the trade scratched off ten thousand dollars. Much rejoicing and jumping up and down. But then: wait a minute - *who *was this gift from? Oh, the trickster. They looked a little more closely and figured out the gag.
But they were doing OK financially (he is a surgeon) and so they didn’t really get upset.
I still thought it was mean. And I thought that he could have at least included some real tickets in the box.
If anybody outside the group organizing knew the prank was coming, they didn’t show it. I think most of us were totally sucked in—I know I was. Yeah, you can get fake magazine covers or newspapers with custom headlines, but this was soooo non-sequitur.
It’s sharp of the card makers to keep the winning amounts reasonable, $5K or $10K…millions would make everybody skeptical. And putting one “winner” in with a block of losing tickets, that feels true to life.
I’m sure the person(s) who had the idea felt terrible. I don’t know what might have been done to make it up to the prankee. Nobody mentions it at work. Of course, this Christmas and its breakfast haven’t arrived yet…
