Ten April Fools' Gags for (weekend) Co-Workers

Although it might be thrilling to finally one-up the office jokester, pranks can also help beat workplace stress. More than half of workers reported working under stress in a CareerBuilder.com survey. Having fun with co-workers can provide stress relief, build rapport, make work more enjoyable and possibly improve productivity.

Even though this year’s April Fool’s Day is on a Sunday, a lot of people indeed work weekends, so this is dedicated to those who have to work weekends.

1. Coated someone's earpiece with red lipstick. Called and hung up several times to get the ear nice and red.

2. Put a "for sale" sign on your boss's car and include their office phone number and a really cheap price.

3. Get a hold of someone's cell phone and change the greeting banner to say "NO SERVICE". Many cell phones have greeting banners on them that you can personalize to say whatever you want them to and it stays on there when you're not using your phone. Also, when there is no service where you are, most cell phone companies have a banner that pops up on your screen saying "no service".

4. This will mostly only work with people with very little PC knowledge. Stick in a floppy in there floppy drive. They will be unable to boot up windows until the disk is out. This is fun to watch.

5. My absolutely most favorite prank I have saved for last. It is so simple to do and yields such nice results. Simply pop out the 'm' and 'n' key on someone's keyboard and reverse the two. Any flat tool will work. Just pry it with little pressure and they will easily come right off. Then just sit back and watch the confusion.

6. Tape magnets to the bottom of an empty coffee cup, and attach it to the top of your car. Laugh at all the people who frantically try to get your attention as you drive by.

7. Take about 20 (or more) paper or plastic cups, place them on the victim’s desk and fill them with water. Then take a stapler and staple them all together. You can also put the cups on the floor blocking their door, or just about anywhere.

8. Harmless computer pranks you can download - One such download is called Help Desk. Random pop up messages appear on the screen such as"An application error has occurred. This is probably because you have been f@cking around with your system again. Have you been f@cking around with your machine?"

9. Strange Reports The website allows you to create a web address that you send to your ‘victim’ that contains a fake news report about them.

10. Create a very professional-looking announcement in PowerPoint that reads
“This machine has been upgraded to allow voice commands. Simply insert money, and speak in a clear voice to have your favorite beverage dispensed.”
Attach it to the front of the coffee / soda machine and watch as people try to shout into the coin slot machine.

April Fool Fun - Food, graphics & more prank ideas

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Museum of Hoaxes

Reuters

As April Fools' Day looms, the curator of the Museum of Hoaxes has a word of caution for those who want to believe the unbelievable -- a good hoax is hard to find.

Alex Boese, the curator of the museum which exists online only at museumofhoaxes.com -- despite the lovely photographs of its nonexistent headquarters in San Diego -- has issued his annual list of 100 top hoaxes and cautioned, in the interest of truth, that none of the items have changed this year before April 1.

"There are no new entries this year, you have to be pretty good to get on it," said Boese, the author of three books on hoaxes including "Hippo Eats Dwarf, a Field Guide to Hoaxes and Other B.S."

"A hoax has to be a rare combination that gets something ridiculous that people will believe," he added.

Take his Top 10 list: all are examples of faux news stories that people jumped to believe, headed by "The Swiss Spaghetti Harvest."

According to Boese, the BBC news show "Panorama" announced in 1957 that a very mild winter and the virtual elimination of the dreaded spaghetti weevil caused Swiss farmers to enjoy a bumper spaghetti crop.

The show displayed footage of Swiss peasants pulling strands of spaghetti down from trees

The British, coming through World War II rationing and never known for their refined palate, called up wanting to know how to grow spaghetti trees.

Also on the worst hoaxes list was a 1962 report by the only television station in Sweden that viewers could convert to color TV by pulling a nylon stocking over their TV screen. Hundreds of thousands of people were taken in.

Then there was the case of Sidd Finch, the make-believe pitcher who wanted to play for the Mets, according to a famous April 1985 Sports Illustrated story by George Plimpton.

The magazine said Finch threw a baseball faster than anyone in the game and had mastered the "art of the pitch" in a Tibetan monastery under the guidance of the "great poet-saint Lama Milaraspa."

was the April 1, 1996, hoax in which Taco Bell Corp. announced it had bought the Liberty Bell from the federal government and was renaming it the Taco Liberty Bell.

We don't stop playing because we grow old. We grow old because we stop playing
- George Bernard Shaw