Hello Marsha from the girls of Office Nightmare.
We come to you today as a group effort in hopes of finding a prank or so that could aggravate a co-worker as much as he aggravates us daily. We do not wish for it to harm him physically in any way, nor do we wish to be destructive to his belongings…just something to annoy him.
Dave is a very uptight perfectionist. He is very clean and tidy, nothing is ever out of place. He carries an aura about him that is depressing for all of us. We actually are happy if he calls off work, but that is very very rare I assure you.
Dave is in charge of reviewing all of our reports sent to him before approaching the board. He will not even glance at these proposals if they are not correctly stapled on the left corner and the staple must touch the 2 sides in a perfect manner. This makes it easy for him to read of course as he is folding back the pages. He also makes all corrections noted by highlighting the area with highlighters. He uses a different colored highlighter for each kind of mistake he finds. If we need to change punctuation, he highlights it in blue. If the error is with sentence structure, it is highlighted in orange, if there is an area that is not backed up with proper references, then it is highlighted in yellow…etc. etc. Post It notes are considered taboo as they can get lost and could refer to more than one area of our reports. Pen’s are only allowed to be Black as blue is too bright for him to read. Pencils are to always be kept sharpened prior to the start of your day as noise carries over our cubicles and the sound of electric sharpeners annoy him.
Do you see where we are coming from here? This is our everyday life at work. We want a silent revenge. Any ideas?
Tried Trio
Dear Tried Trio,
I could not help but chuckle when I read this post. I could not imagine having to walk on eggshells all day at work without going insane. I can understand protocols, and structure, but this sounds to be going over board for certain. Lucky for you, I do have a few funny pranks that can be pulled on him.
1. Empty all of his staples and replace them with colorful ones instead, a nice shade of pink should be sufficient.
2. Replace all of the colored highlighters with matching Colored Pencils instead.
3. Break the tips off all of his pencils when he leaves to lunch, forcing him to have to use the sharpener himself.
4. The next time he is absent, leave him post it notes all over his cubicle for any and every little thing you can think of.
5. Try rearranging all of desk items one morning before he comes in. Place trays on the left side to the right side, anything on the right side over to the left side.
6. Work together to come up with a day when everyone will staple their papers out of order. Just always have the first and last pages correct, but misplace 1 or so in the center.
7. Place an ad in the local paper or through a call in radio station advertising his car for sale at a ridiculously low cost. Give them his cell phone / direct work number and tell them to call him between your work hours. This could of course have been an “Honest” mistake by someone and nothing to do with you. It would be fun listening to him say that they have the wrong number all day long.
These are several pranks that I think will make him become annoyed to say the least. Please let me know how everything goes!
Always,
Marsha
