Tell us your best IT Pranks and win!

elisabethbuford1699 · 2012-04-02T09:21:38.000Z

Happy belated April Fool’s Day!

en.wikipedia.org

April Fools' Day

April Fools' Day or All Fools' Day is an annual custom on 1 April consisting of practical jokes and hoaxes. Jokesters often expose their actions by shouting "April Fools!" at the recipient. Mass media can be involved with these pranks, which may be revealed as such the following day. The custom of setting aside a day for playing harmless pranks upon one's neighbour has been relatively common in the world historically. Although the origins of April Fools' is unknown, there are many theories su...

Happy belated April Fool’s Day!

Chances are there are more than a couple people in your workplace who you’d love to mess with or did mess with. From switching users keys on their keyboard, to redirecting Facebook.com to Rick Astley’s infamous “Never Gonna Give You Up,” to even setting an image of Justin Beiber as everyone’s new desktop wallpaper, IT Pros have the capabilities to confuse the heck out of their users.

So SpiceHeads, what are the best pranks you pulled (or wish you pulled)?

Post your stories or ideas in this discussion thread between now and April 16^th and the person with the most spice-ups will win! A grand prize winner will receive a $100 gift card and two runner ups will receive a PacketTrap fleece jacket.

Start posting or Spicing up your fellow IT Professionals stories and may the odds be ever in your favor!

philip · 2012-04-02T09:29:17.000Z

Replace the word ‘and’ with ‘Lance Blows’ in Word auto correct.

Think about how many times you use the word ‘and’ when typing a document. The victim was a huge Lance Bass fan. She did not think it was funny or how to fix it.

mattleson0686 · 2012-04-02T09:34:10.000Z

A classic IT prank that we’ve pulled many (many) times is to “Hoff” someone. If someone walks away from their computer and leaves it unlocked, you do the following:

Google image search for David Hasselhoff
Choose the least work-appropriate picture, set as background
Change the keyboard input mode from US-English to something else (Ctrl+Shift, usually a nice French-Canadian will mess up someone’s password enough to not work)
Rotate the display (I forget now… CTRL+SHIFT+Direction?) so it’s upside down or at 90 degrees.
Lock the machine, (displaying the Hoff in all his glory) and wait for your victim to come back and try to log in, ideally locking out his account with the different keyboard layout.

People learn fast to lock their machines around me… I have successfully done it with someone sitting in front of their computer by having the person on their other side distract them with a technical query. Good times…

mccormick · 2012-04-02T09:38:33.000Z

task scheduler + mildly inappropriate song.

Edit: Ok, beyond mild…

dfrohme · 2012-04-02T09:57:04.000Z

Plug the receiver for a bluetooth mouse into a co-workers computer. From a few cubes away just randomly move the mouse around.

mike-brown · 2012-04-02T10:07:58.000Z

This morning we took advantage of yesterday being April Fool’s day and put a microphone at the copier machine with an official looking announcement about implementing the voice command capability of our copier.

Here is the most recent help ticket:

jcLAMBERT · 2012-04-02T10:12:51.000Z

I have refrained from this behavior in the workplace. All bets are off at home however… he he. Poor unsuspecting family.

roy4846 · 2012-04-02T10:38:27.000Z

My Network Manager is strict on a user locking their PC when they get up from their desk., He lectures the user for about 5 minutes if anyone leaves their PC unlocked to where their Desktop or Apps are open or exposed. I understand the Security Risk and know he means well but one day he left his Laptop unlocked and exposed and I just could not resist…

I ran an app called “BlueScreen” (you can run it via USB or Network -BackDoor)

http://www.techsupportalert.com/content/best-free-microsoft-downloads.htm

** It runs a screensaver that shows a BlueScreen BSOD on their Monitor and even simulates a XP Reboot and cycles back to a BlueScreen BSOD

Needless to say he was “frozen” with fear of the thought that his system just crashed and after about 5 minutes of asking why he didnt lock his PC, I reveal the prank…
(Just press Escape Key to get back to their Desktop)

alexolynyk · 2012-04-02T11:23:32.000Z

Place a piece of scotch tape over the optical mouse sensor.

reth1nk · 2012-04-02T11:48:59.000Z

David9467 wrote:

Plug the receiver for a bluetooth mouse into a co-workers computer. From a few cubes away just randomly move the mouse around.

i do that but via vnc. have settings not to change the wallpaper, so unless they’re paying attention to their system tray icons i can do it anywhere on the network. More fun in a proximity where you can here their frustration rise.

reth1nk · 2012-04-02T11:56:20.000Z

Sadly, it falling yesterday i didn’t want to pull anything today as the moment had passed. In years past i enjoyed the CD Tray Prank , Speaker Beep , and desktop printscreen oldy.
I wanted to try this one (http://www.tuaw.com/2012/03/25/create-an-april-fools-pranklet-with-iphoneception/) on my wife yesterday, but she was reading on her phone all day, so the opportunity never presented itself.

nickeller0296 · 2012-04-02T12:47:10.000Z

I am pretty sure I would lose my job if I pulled a prank on one of the accountants here . . . . especially April 1st, with 15 days to go. I wish I was in an actual IT environment, not an accounting firm . . . someday. . . .

clintdow4931 · 2012-04-02T12:58:17.000Z

Using a small opensource program called jbuzzer I hotkeyed a very quiet ‘meow’ sound to my co-worker’s ‘z’ key, since its a rarely pressed key it only played every every once in a while. It took him several days to realize what was going on with much frustration.

Also I like to extend the ctrl+alt+up arrow screen flip prank, by taking a screenshot of the user’s desktop, flipping THAT 180 degrees, delete shortcuts on the desktop, hide the taskbar, then set it as the background THEN flip the screen, so it looks like a normal desktop but the mouse is backwards. Also unplug the keyboard, watch them go absolutely insane.

Oh and I had to edit to add another one, if anyone uses Google Chrome, install the Mustachio app so all pictures with faces in them have mustaches on them. It takes a while to open pages with this app because it has to do facial recognition on every picture, so make sure they have a decent PC lest it get frozen up for 10 minutes.

mattleson0686 · 2012-04-02T13:04:26.000Z

Clint8190 wrote:

Using a small opensource program called jbuzzer I hotkeyed a very quiet ‘meow’ sound to my co-worker’s ‘z’ key, since its a rarely pressed key it only played every every once in a while. It took him several days to realize what was going on with much frustration.

Also I like to extend the ctrl+alt+up arrow screen flip prank, by taking a screenshot of the user’s desktop, flipping THAT 180 degrees, delete shortcuts on the desktop, hide the taskbar, then set it as the background THEN flip the screen, so it looks like a normal desktop but the mouse is backwards. Also unplug the keyboard, watch them go absolutely insane.

Oh and I had to edit to add another one, if anyone uses Google Chrome, install the Mustachio app so all pictures with faces in them have mustaches on them. It takes a while to open pages with this app because it has to do facial recognition on every picture, so make sure they have a decent PC lest it get frozen up for 10 minutes.

The meow and the mustachio ones are brilliant.

inkmaster · 2012-04-02T13:10:07.000Z

Maybe not a prank as much as revenge…

As a Network Administrator many years ago, I had a PC Technician who kept messing with me. I’ve forgotten what he did exactly, but anyway this same PC Technician had a crush on the VP of Human Resource’s daughter.

After warning the PC Tech several times to quit messing with me, one day while he was at lunch I used “GhostMail” to send him an email. The email looked as it if came from the VP of Human Resources and stated he wanted to meet with the PC Tech over the inappropriate emails the PC Tech had sent to his daughter.

Within 5 minutes of sending the email, the PC Tech calls me in a complete panic over the supposed meeting with the VP of Human Resources.

I let him suffer for about 3 hours, up until about 5 minutes before the supposed meeting.

Needless to say, he didn’t mess with me again…and maybe he has learned to look at the message headers of questionable emails

dfrohme · 2012-04-02T13:24:55.000Z

nick1337 wrote:

David9467 wrote:

Plug the receiver for a bluetooth mouse into a co-workers computer. From a few cubes away just randomly move the mouse around.

i do that but via vnc. have settings not to change the wallpaper, so unless they’re paying attention to their system tray icons i can do it anywhere on the network. More fun in a proximity where you can here their frustration rise.

Actually the person I saw this pulled on was convinced someone from the help desk was using VNC to mess with her. The help desk did have VNC for remote troubleshooting but none of us at the help desk had anything to do with it. It was one of her colleagues sitting in the next row.

dfrohme · 2012-04-02T13:32:14.000Z

Clint8190 wrote:

Also I like to extend the ctrl+alt+up arrow screen flip prank, by taking a screenshot of the user’s desktop, flipping THAT 180 degrees, delete shortcuts on the desktop, hide the taskbar, then set it as the background THEN flip the screen, so it looks like a normal desktop but the mouse is backwards. Also unplug the keyboard, watch them go absolutely insane.

I’ve seen that done with out the screen flip part, many times.

reth1nk · 2012-04-02T14:26:05.000Z

Clint8190 wrote:

Using a small opensource program called jbuzzer I hotkeyed a very quiet ‘meow’ sound to my co-worker’s ‘z’ key,

Forget april fools, that sounds like a brilliant idea in general.

reth1nk · 2012-04-02T14:28:11.000Z

NickEller wrote:

I am pretty sure I would lose my job if I pulled a prank on one of the accountants here . . . . especially April 1st, with 15 days to go. I wish I was in an actual IT environment, not an accounting firm . . . someday. . . .

My dad is the Office manager at an accounting firm and especially this time of year, it’s serious time. He even answers his phone with his big boy voice. I asked him if he get’s to calm down afterward and he said that extensions and late filers still keep them busy for the next few months. He’s not relaxing again until summer.

reth1nk · 2012-04-02T14:29:10.000Z

David9467 wrote:

Clint8190:

Also I like to extend the ctrl+alt+up arrow screen flip prank, by taking a screenshot of the user’s desktop, flipping THAT 180 degrees, delete shortcuts on the desktop, hide the taskbar, then set it as the background THEN flip the screen, so it looks like a normal desktop but the mouse is backwards. Also unplug the keyboard, watch them go absolutely insane.

I’ve seen that done with out the screen flip part, many times.

Yes, the screen flip is a nice twist on a classic.