8 April Fools’ Day Ideas to Prank Your Office
Lock your doors, board up the windows and turn off the lights because April Fools’ Day is just around the corner, and your office is about to become a battlefield. If you’re looking to continue the annual antics or finally take a stand and fight back, here’s a list of the best office pranks you can pull on your coworkers.
1. Slippery Hands
Difficulty: Easy
Result: Total confusion
Replace a hand sanitizer bottle’s contents with massage oil. It’s best to silently enjoy it for a minute while your boss furiously rubs their hands together. To make this prank even more evil, hide the paper towels.
2. The Software Update
Difficulty: Easy
Result: Calling IT
Write up a notice about an electronic device in the office that now has voice command software. Spend a little time making sure it looks legitimate. Believing is 90% of this trick’s success. Enjoy the sounds of your coworkers shouting at inanimate objects until they catch on.
3. The Broken Phone
Difficulty: Easy
Result: Hello? HELLO? CAN YOU HEAR ME?
Pop open your coworker’s desk phone and place a small piece of tape over the receiver. If they can be heard at all, they’ll have to scream across the workplace to have a conversation. It’s a great prank, but be sure they don’t have any important calls coming in.
4. The Bait and Switch
Difficulty: Medium
Result: The echoes of gagging throughout your office
There’s too many food pranks for us to decide on a specific one. Give your cubicle mate a sriracha filled doughnut, “orange juice” made of water and mac n’ cheese powder or a Keurig cup filled with garlic sauce. Beware: messing with delicious food is the ultimate betrayal.
5. The Phantom Paperclip
Difficulty: Medium
Result: A little bit of paranoia
Put a single paper clip on the office’s copier and print a few pages, resulting in the silhouette of a paperclip on some of the pages. Randomly insert the sheets back into the paper tray and enjoy the resulting anger and confusion from your coworkers. Bonus points if it leads to a crazed search through the paper tray.
6. The Confused Keyboard
Difficulty: Medium
Result: Toms of sprlling nistakes
This one’s a classic. Use a flat-edged object to swap some keys on your coworkers keyboard. We recommend starting with “e” and “r” then “m” and “n.” Warning: Only do this to keyboards with raised keys, doing this to newer Mac and some IBM models with flat keys will break it.
7. Vacation at Work
Difficulty: Hard
Result: A getaway that gets in the way
Bring the vacation to the workplace. Pick a coworker’s desk or office and redecorate it to look like a destination. You can do the beach, a campground, a spa, the sky is the limit. Just make sure their workspace looks nothing like it once did.
8. The Aquarium Drawer
Difficulty: Hard
Result: An office pet
Line the inside of a large drawer in a desk or filing cabinet with a plastic sheet. Then fill it with water, add in some pebbles, a little castle and a fish and enjoy your coworker’s shock when they reach for a file and find a full aquarium. Just don’t forget to feed the fish.
The biggest crime you can commit on April Fools’ Day is not playing along or taking it too seriously. April Fools’ Day is great, but it requires a hefty amount of caution, respect and responsibility. But most of all, be sure to have fun.
Does your marketing need a little more fun? Appleton Creative is an award-winning, full-service Orlando advertising agency that works with local, national and international clients to deliver impressive ad campaigns, branding, print, web, public relations, social media and video services — all in-house. At Appleton, we want to learn about your business, empower your marketing team and be your creative resource. Your advertising goals are worth a conversation: contact us at 407-246-0092 or info@appletoncreative.com.
