The Office Prank My Co-Worker Will Never Forget
A comedy article
by Jesse Bearden  90  2
01/19/2010 08:53 AM 3590 views
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I work as a Software Engineer, which means lots of deadlines and late nights. The upside of the job is that the downtime brings with it a fair amount of freedom. While the lawyers, accountants and marketers of my building are always at work at 8:00 a.m. dressed in a suit, I normally stroll in around 9 wearing a T-shirt and baggy jeans. While most jobs have a serious amount of professionalism in the work place, our free time is spent sending out fake emails from computers that were left unlocked, and Saran Wrapping the toilet seat. Last year when the "Yoga Ball as a seat" craze caught me and I bought one to try out, I came in the next day to find it exactly where I'd left it, only now completely filled with water.
In general, these office pranks are done quickly and on the spur of the moment, but when my coworker Liang left for a one month assignment in Romania, the gloves came off. Another coworker, Sean, decided it was time to pull off the prank of a lifetime and leave Liang with a welcome home that he'd never forget.
Liang vaguely resembles a young Shel Silverstein. Operation: Where The Sidewalk Ends was soon underway.
We quickly assembled a team of nerds and began plotting.
Phase 1: A New Office for Liang
Liang is a huge Apple supporter. You've met him. He's the guy who had the iPhone the day it came out and continually told you how much better it was than your phone. Given a choice between a night with Megan Fox and a night with Steve Jobs, I'm not confident he'd choose Megan. We decided to help him show his Apple spirit by replacing everything in his office with circa 1990 Apple equipment.
Phase 2: The Money Shot
Sean wanted Laing to take it in the face like Jenna Jameson at the end of a scene. He envisioned a Nerf gun set to go off the minute the door was open, aimed right for the head. With some slight modification, the Nerf Vulcan EBF-25 fit the bill perfectly.
The trigger was made from an old door hinge. When the pin was pulled, the circuit would complete and the gun would begin firing. Also connected was an old tape deck, set to serenade Liang with this song.
Software Engineers aren't known for thinking under pressure or solid reaction times, but we still wanted to make sure that Liang didn't get smart and quickly shut the door to shield himself from the onslaught of the Nerf attack. His office door was tied off with a bungee cord to ensure it flew from his hands and stayed open.
Phase 3: The Bunny, on Ice
For whatever reason, nerds love to horde weird toys, and Liang is no exception. His office is normally filled with stuffed Mario mushrooms, anime figurines, and posters from movies like Lord of the Rings. He also has a large, yellow, stuffed rabbit. We once considered an intervention, an investigation, or a call to Chris Hansen, but eventually decided it's better to just not ask questions.
We stole the bunny and hid it in his office in a specific ceiling tile. A cardboard X was taped to his window so that at 3 PM, the X would shine through the window and cast a shadow on the floor under the ceiling tile. We then wrote a series of riddles leading him all over the office and eventually back to the location of the bunny. The riddles were written out in individual letters cut out of the newspaper, ransom note style. The individual notes were then hidden around the office scavenger hunt style.
Liang hates having the windows in his office open. You'd think having an office in one of the few Phoenecian sky scrapers would be incentive enough to look outside, but Liang stays true to his nerd roots and avoids the sunlight like the Nosferatu. Knowing that he'd immediately close the blinds, we left the first ransom note for him in the blinds, along with a little surprise to point out that we had taken the bunny. A large, terrorist style photo was taken, and then cut in to individual strips and placed on the blinds. When the blinds were open, the strips of paper were invisible, but once close the picture would be displayed.
Phase 4: Packing Peanuts
Lots and lots of packing peanuts.
After a few weeks of planning and plotting, it took six of us two full nights of after-work effort to set the entire office up. A webcam was placed inside and broadcast to all of our coworkers. As Liang came back from his trip we all sat in our offices trying to keep a straight face. From my desk I could hear the slam of his door as it sprang from his hand, and a loud cry of, "What the Frost?" Moments later I stuck my head out of my office, but Liang was still standing there like a newborn baby, his brain not fully registering what his eyes were seeing.
After inspecting and cleaning for a few hours, he finally had a path made to his desk, confident that the prank was finally over. It was at this point that he shut his blinds.
From my office I heard an exasperated nerd sigh, "The Frost-ing bunny, too?"
A few notes:
The webcam feed was saved, but unfortunately the sound was not. You can view it here, although there's not much to see.
The packing peanuts were a bit of an optical illusion. The illusion can be seen here. Still, it was about 100 dollars worth of packing peanuts. Were you fooled? He certainly was.
You can see the full set of pictures on my flickr account here.
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Like This? Rate It!
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Hilarious
17 votes
4.9
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0 votes
0.0
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Jeeni.app 11,105  10 stares at the thread in disbelief
01/19/2010 09:28 AM
Holy crap! Awesome! I wish I had something funny to add... wow.
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0 votes
0.0
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peoriagrace 5,962 9
01/19/2010 02:07 PM
That was great! Now you guys need to kiddnap Mr. Bunny and take him around to different places. Take pictures then leave them for him.
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Chuckleworthy
1 votes
2.0
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Ravos iz in ur dreemz 34,445 10
01/19/2010 07:36 PM
If John doesn't put this on the front page, there is something very wrong with this world.
Well done, I like the elaborate plotting and creativity that went into this.
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0 votes
0.0
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dasypygal-unwaxed 5,735 7
01/19/2010 07:48 PM
I didn't realize the bunny was SO big! and you placed his widdle ol' head in a very compromising position. How devastating for Liang.
I wonder if he'll stop kissing it in private...or more?
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0 votes
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John Hargrave 116,629 19
01/19/2010 09:58 PM
I am so glad we were able to convince Jesse to write up this prank, which I consider one of the finest office pranks to ever be attempted in corporate America. Glad to see everyone's enjoying it as much as I did.
It will have a place of honor on the ZUG homepage today.
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Jesse Bearden 90 2
01/20/2010 07:57 AM
Liang is heading back to Romania next month. Any suggestions?
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Hilarious
1 votes
4.0
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Thud 53,127 10
01/20/2010 08:17 AM
Just a couple of ideas:
Brick up the entry to Liang's cubicle. Instead of real mortar, use expanding foam as a pseudo-mortar, just to keep things pleasant.
Rewire Liang's cubicle so all power sources are now switch controlled from a remote location. Use variable controls so you can slower dim the ligths if you feel like changing the mood, as it were.
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Chuckleworthy
2 votes
2.0
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Thud 53,127 10 bangs his head on the desk
01/20/2010 08:19 AM
dim the ligths
Yeah, I think I already found some of the dim right here.
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0 votes
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Cyberwhere? 308 4
01/20/2010 09:19 AM
Either I'm crazy psychic, or this has been done before...
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Jesse Bearden 90 2
01/20/2010 09:46 AM
Either I'm psychic, or this has been done before...
When John posted a story about the best ever office pranks, I posted a link to this story on my personal blog.
John asked me to rewrite it and post it here, so I did. Although it took me a long while.
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