What's a good way to prank your coworker?

3 years ago by abbadon420 to c/asklemmy

I got pranked with this website: https://updatefaker.com/

I recently switched from manual labor to office labour and learned the hard way to lock my screen :)

In hindsight it was hilarious, but I waited for maybe 20 minutes before I got suspicious. How can I take revenge?

Klear 56 points 3 years ago

Take a screenshot of their desktop. Set that as the background image. Right-click the desktop and uncheck View -> Display icons on desktop.

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AshLassay 14 points 3 years ago

Also auto hide the task bar and move it to another edge.

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sarsaparilyptus 33 points 3 years ago

What you do is take a screenshot of the desktop, rotate it 180° in MSPaint, set it as the background, hide and move the taskbar, hide desktop icons, and set the screen rotation to landscape flipped in the display settings. You'll get a desktop that appears normal but can't be interacted with, and a cursor that moves upside down and backwards. Rotate your victim's mouse the wrong way around if they're gullible and they'll think the mouse messed everything up,

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dandroid 7 points 3 years ago

Lmao, this is really good.

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6jarjar6 5 points 3 years ago

Pure evil

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variants 8 points 3 years ago

I did this to our shipping guy that had anger issues, he got so mad I got scared to tell him what I did

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Sabata11792 2 points 3 years ago

Your just pranking the IT guy that will have to fix it. A user can't be expected to navigate a context menu.

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CmdrShepard 0 points 3 years ago

Maybe the IT guy was the intended victim. You always want several layers separating you from your crime!

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Laticauda 46 points 3 years ago

Tell them you're going to prank them, and then don't.

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fearout 6 points 3 years ago

Oh I like this one :)

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SangriaFerret 3 points 3 years ago

Keep them on their toes

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RotaryKeyboard 38 points 3 years ago

Here's one I witnessed in an office about 25 years ago. Some engineers filled a plastic 35mm film canister with a bunch of the waste paper from a three-hole punch. That's basically the little white circles of paper. Then they took a can of compressed air and, with the cap mostly on the canister, slowly filled the canister with super-cooled air from the compressed air canister. Then they fully sealed the cap and went to talk to the mark. They placed the canister nearby -- on the mark's desktop computer, I think. Just out of sight. To avoid arousing suspicion, they stayed and talked to him for 30 seconds or so. Then they walked off to go back to work (and watch the prank unfold from a distance).

That little canister sat there for a while, with the super-cooled air slowly warming to room temperature. As you know, the molecules of cold gasses are very close together, and they start to expand outward as they warm. So when this canister got warm enough, there was enough pressure inside to pop the lid off and distribute the little white paper circles in a perfectly random pattern in a circle about six feet around the mark.

It was glorious.

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slazer2au 12 points 3 years ago

Glitter bomb without the glitter. I like it.

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abbadon420 7 points 3 years ago

I like it just for how smart this is.

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moose_cannon 28 points 3 years ago

Ctrl + Alt + up arrow key sets the monitor output to be upside down.

I also am a fan of making the cursor huge and turning on pointer trails.

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MythicWolf 2 points 3 years ago

These are good pranks with the right level of irritating. They make it hard to work but not impossible to do the work

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perishthethought 2 points 3 years ago

This happened to me. When you didn't know this is possible in windows, it takes a surprisingly long time to fix, but there's no real damage done.

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ryathal 25 points 3 years ago

If you are close you can plug in a second wireless mouse and mess with it occasionally.

If they don't lock their screen, the old take a screen shot of the desktop and make it the background is good.

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AttackBunny 4 points 3 years ago

@ryathal back in the day, when most wireless mice and keyboards had those little dongles, and people used to keep their computer tower either on the corner of their desk or under it, I used to have a prank war going with a coworker. We used to do dumb shit like fill a shit load of little cups up with water and set them everywhere in their office, or glitter/confetti in things that when you opened them it went everywhere. Or wrap everything on the desk in foil or saran wrap type things.

Coworker was older than me, and not the most computer literate guy. I'd go into his office, and disconnect the dongle, while he was away from his desk. Watching him rage about his piece of shit computer was always great amusement.

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abbadon420 2 points 3 years ago

I like this. Easy and clever

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_haha_oh_wow_ 1 point 3 years ago

We did this years ago, we'd also SSH into random computers and make them say stuff when we were bored.

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CoachDom 24 points 3 years ago

DON'T do what I've done a couple of weeks ago - landed me my first HR meeting ever :D

I had to use my coworkers (lady around 50, not too clever with the computers) computer on remote desktop. As I was about to close it, I thought to myself "Perfect setup for a joke". On her computer, I went to https://pranx.com/hacker/ and put in on full screen. Literally like 30s later, our IT guy (he's in the same room as me) get a phone call and all I can hear is shouting in the earpiece. I say to him don't worry, I know what's this about, I'm going to sort it out. I went downstairs and boss's wife is running past shouting that we need to phone the police, I walk into the lady's room and she's hysteric. I say cool down, it's a joke.

Safe to say, they were not laughing (probably the fact that I still was, wasn't helping my case :D)

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nolanarenado 1 point 2 years ago

Pranx is good but did you ever try this BSOD prank with you friends which is look more realistic and funny, You can check the most real look screen from here https://whitescreentest.net/...

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Blegh 24 points 3 years ago
  • Screenshot their desktop
  • hide all icons
  • set screenshot as desktop background
  • watch them die inside as nothing works, not even a restart.

Optional step:

  • put your wireless mouse receiver in their computer and subtly click occasionally, or move when they move. Has to be subtle enough for them to question their sanity for a few hours.

I managed to do the above once. Worth it.

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Danilo 10 points 3 years ago

I did that with the bonus of flipping the screenshot upside down on photoshop first. Then flipped his screen.

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bufordt 4 points 3 years ago

That's a great addition. We used to screenshot it with an application open so they would keep trying to close the application. I had a coworker restart their computer several times before he realized what was going on.

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BananaPeal 6 points 3 years ago

Don't forget to move the taskbar to the other side of the screen and set to auto-hide.

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RenardDesMers 18 points 3 years ago

A very French joke: We used to use their email client and send to the whole team "Hey, I feel generous so tomorrow morning I will bring croissants for everyone. Look forward to it!"

The person would get plenty of "thank you" emails in reply and discover the trick. It was a small office so usually the person would bring the pastries. Yum!

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scrubbles 7 points 3 years ago

We did this too, always a lesson in locking your computer. "Hey team I'll be buying lunch today since I forgot to lock my computer!"

Just make sure it's a small group and not 20 hungry people

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Chufi 4 points 3 years ago

Croissanting is an art form.

In my previous job we had the Constitution of Croissanting printed in every open space, because ignorance of the law is no excuse.

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Tathas 17 points 3 years ago

An old boss of mine would find people who left their computer logged in and would send an email to the department from it saying "I love you all so much!"

I worked in a different office and didn't realize that's what was happening. I just thought the Russian guy was happy to be in America.

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abbadon420 7 points 3 years ago

I like this. It's wholesome

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Tathas 3 points 3 years ago

One day when I was visiting home office I ran into him in the elevator. My lead introduced me to him. I blurted out, "Oh the guy who sends the I love everyone!" emails.

He promptly started swearing and cursing our manager and saying what things he would do to him if he caught him in a dark alley and ranted for the duration of the elevator ride. Then shook my hand and said "Nice to meet you!" and went on with his day.

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charlytune 13 points 3 years ago

Small post it note over the sensor under the mouse.

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Rom 5 points 3 years ago
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_haha_oh_wow_ 1 point 3 years ago

Damn it, this is exactly what I came here to suggest. Ah well, too late now.

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AveragePigeon 4 points 3 years ago

Scotch tape also works for this.

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PrunesMakeYouPoop 10 points 3 years ago

Clear tape works really well, because the mouse will still work, but terribly.

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charlytune 1 point 3 years ago

Oooh. Love it.

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ChaoticEntropy 13 points 3 years ago

If you have fixed desks, put a piece of sticky note over the laser on their mouse. That or use the monitor settings to rotate their screen 180 degrees when they aren't around.

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Nagairius 2 points 3 years ago

CTL + ALT + arrow keys will do it for ya

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ChaoticEntropy 4 points 3 years ago

Not sure that this is a universally available hotkey for rotating screens. Certainly doesn't work on my laptop.

Alt + F4 works though.

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peter 1 point 3 years ago

I think it only works with external displays specifically running on an Intel integrated GPU, iirc

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NightOwl 13 points 3 years ago

Stapler in jello always gets laughs.

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empireOfLove 7 points 3 years ago

DAMMIT JIM!

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jaackf 6 points 3 years ago

Classic Tim

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RoadieRich 2 points 3 years ago

Excuse me, I believe you have my stapler?

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vlad76 12 points 3 years ago path: 0 1124884, hotness: undefined, score: 12, children: 0
PrunesMakeYouPoop 10 points 3 years ago
  1. Wait until you have to fart while coworker is away from desk.
  2. Position sphincter directly above the tube in the office chair.
  3. Lower chair as far as it will go.
  4. Fart as you raise the chair as high as it will go, sucking the gassy shit particles into the tube.
  5. Walk away.
  6. Watch the carnage when coworker sits and lowers the chair.
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Vex_Detrause 1 point 3 years ago

Isn't the exhaust hole is in the bottom?

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PrunesMakeYouPoop 1 point 3 years ago

Depends on the chair, I suppose. It definitely worked on the chairs I had in the US Navy back in 2006.
It doesn't matter though, you're still farting in their chair either way.

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_haha_oh_wow_ 9 points 3 years ago

Put some tape over the optical sensor on their mouse. Bonus points if you print out a little dickbutt picture or something.

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kersploosh 8 points 3 years ago

We would use a picture of Arnold Schwarzenegger with the words "You've Been Terminated."

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_haha_oh_wow_ 3 points 3 years ago

Bonus points if the light from the sensor lights up his robot eye.

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Knusper 8 points 3 years ago path: 0 1128640, hotness: undefined, score: 8, children: 2
kthxbye_reddit 3 points 3 years ago path: 0 1128640 1138010, hotness: undefined, score: 3, children: 1
Knusper 3 points 3 years ago

I enjoy how when you connect to it from an Android phone, it's like:
What in the fuck do you want here?! We're not spending computing resources on you, dumbass. Go, send it to your heathen friends!

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everett 8 points 3 years ago

Here's one I started planning but never got around to actually pulling off. My team had recently moved from Windows to Mac, had a habit of leaving for lunch at the same time and for some reason never, ever locked their screens.

The prank would go like this: I'd grab a copy of a classic Mac emulator, a System 7 disk image and copies of all the Adobe apps circa 1980-whatever, so that they would come back from lunch one day to find all their beefy new Macbook Pros "downgraded" to looking like this, complete with working Photoshop, Illustrator, etc.

I deeply regret not doing this.

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CommunityLinkFixer 5 points 3 years ago

Hi there! Looks like you linked to a Lemmy community using an URL instead of its name, which doesn't work well for people on different instances. Try fixing it like this: !minivmac@www.gryphel.com

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everett 6 points 3 years ago

@rikudou@lemmings.world Looks like the URL structure of the site fooled your bot. Maybe an edge case to ignore, but do you think it's worth confirming that the link points to a Lemmy instance?

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rikudou 4 points 3 years ago

Fixed now, thanks for the report!

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tunetardis 6 points 3 years ago

I work at an office which uses Macs. If you have terminal access to a coworker's machine, you can enter say "I'm watching you" and their computer will speak the text. Had a lot of fun with that until they figured out it was me.

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lntl 5 points 3 years ago

Buy a live lobster, cut the rubber bands off, and hide in their lunch bag.

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thelsim 1 point 3 years ago

That’s a big lunch bag if you can hide in it. Hope it keeps you safe from that angry lobster.

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Harlan_Cloverseed 4 points 3 years ago

Pen island dot com

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PrunesMakeYouPoop 2 points 3 years ago

experts exchange dot com

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Mattador0808 3 points 3 years ago

Big bus tycoons dot com

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Drekzak 2 points 3 years ago

Fuck that got me good, didn't know that one

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Yewb 4 points 3 years ago

Connect a 2nd wireless mouse keep it at your desk let the fun begin

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Lakes 3 points 3 years ago

Have any other monitors available?

If you do, literally change the monitor and hide the other one. Smaller the better.

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MothBookkeeper 3 points 3 years ago

In our office, any time someone leaves their screen unlocked, we turn everything upside down in the display settings. Good way to remind people to Win + L when they get up. 😆

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thesingingcrow 3 points 3 years ago

Don't - one person's pranking is another person's bullying.

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abbadon420 5 points 3 years ago

If you can't take a prank, you shouldn't pull a prank.

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thesingingcrow 2 points 3 years ago

Edit: apologies, I misunderstood that you were pranked first. I'm not a prank fan but you obviously have cause to retaliate. I'll leave my original comment below.


This doesn't make sense. "It's just a prank bro… Can't you take a joke?"

If the person being pranked doesn't find it 'funny' what is it?

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ezmack 2 points 3 years ago

We'd change their desktop background to something stupid

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bazsy 2 points 3 years ago

Open fakeupdate.net put it in full screen (F11) and watch them debating how much of their work was unsawed.

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BlahajEnjoyer 2 points 3 years ago

Put one of them fake ransom ware screens

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minorsecond 2 points 3 years ago

You just gave me an awesome prank to pull on my wife. Thanks!

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AceFuzzLord 1 point 3 years ago

I am not sure this works anymore or if it ever did since I heard about it years ago, but when you send an email to someone on something like gmail who doesn't use some form of adblocker, be sure to put some hidden text in whatever color the background of their client is. Apparently they'll eventually start seeing ads for that specific thing you hid in the email since those emails are most certainly scanned so you can get targeted ads (especially gmail and most likely outlook as well).

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peter 1 point 3 years ago

You probably need to receive more than one email about a subject before you start getting targeted ads

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AceFuzzLord 1 point 3 years ago

Forgot to mention the part about it being something you need to constantly do. Thanks for the heads up.

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SlovenianSocket -1 points 3 years ago

Hit my boss with tellyourpartner.org earlier this week, a website that anonymously texts your partner with a list of STIs you select and a suggestion to get tested. Be careful tho it kinda back fired and he messaged a few of his exes lmao

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chickenf622 2 points 3 years ago

That's a horrible thing to do to someone

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SlovenianSocket 0 points 3 years ago

That’s construction for ya. The pranks can be ruthless

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