Happy April Fools’ Day! Today, offices and coworkers everywhere will be pranking each other by blowing air horns into cubicles, filling the supply cabinet with balloons and hiding the actual supplies, and taking off all the keys on keyboards and rearranging them. Here at MyCorp, we love a good joke and turned to our panel of small business pros to see what their all-time favorite prank pulled was – here are our top 10 favorites!
1. “We did ours a bit early to the staff and will do it to the general public on April Fools’ Day. I work at The Zebra – we created a press release that said left handed drivers are safer. The tech team really got the sales team when they added (internally only) a page that showed when people claim to be left handed their insurance dropped by more than 20% in some cases. We had a meeting, showed the new page and the press release. We even did some training… Hook, line and sinker.”
– Jason Jepson, The Zebra
2. “Since ‘taxidermy’ is similar to ‘tax accounting’ I decided to turn our reception area into a taxidermy shop. We located some stuffed animals that were slightly realistic. My favorite was a blow-up rubber moose head we hung on the wall. Outside we changed our sign from Tax-masters, Inc. to Taxidermy. Oh my goodness. When folks showed up for their appointments, it was hilarious! Some were old established clients who had been coming to our location for 20 years. Needless to say, they were confused. Others were brand new clients coming for their very first appointment so they were sure they had the wrong address.”
– Linda de Marlor, President, Tax-Masters, Inc.
3. “I was working in upstate New York. Our functional manager was well loved by everyone. He genuinely cared about all of us that worked for him. I well remember when a few of his employees turned his entire office into a camp. They took everything out of his office, put up a large tent and put his furniture back inside the tent. Our boss worked from within his tent all day, fully equipped with desk, chairs, lights, and even a toilet set up in the corner. His visitors that day were ‘impressed,’ not so much with their surroundings, but certainly by his staff’s creativity. I never did find out who did that, but it was really funny. The following day, his office was back to normal. I’m sure a couple of the guys were pretty tired after two non-sleeping nights.”
– Diane Piper, President, BORSAbag LLC
4. “Sending an email to our competitors saying we were acquired! Yup, this is a pretty darn funny April Fools’ prank.”
– Stephen Robert Morse, Head of Marketing, Communications, and Advertising, SkillBridge.co
5. “I was involved in an April Fools’ prank that went wrong. I own a singing telegram company and this guy called me to play a prank on one of his sales people. He set up a meeting with me and him in front of the Starbucks. He followed me in with the camera because I was dressed as a Hooters girl. This guy kind of freaked out when I showed up and started to walk away. I followed him and the walk turned into a run and he jumps in his car and I’m trying to finish my show and he whips out a tazer and tazes me. You can watch the video of it happening here.”
– Alan Katz, Owner, sillygrams.com
6. “At Royce Leather we pride ourselves on celebrating April Fools’ Day in style. In 2013, we celebrated April Fools’ Day by informing all of our sales representatives at work that we would begin selling the milk and beef from cows in addition to our leather products. Let’s just say they were unprepared for this request! I look forward to celebrating April Fools’ Day this upcoming year as well at the company.”
– Andrew Royce Bauer, CEO, Royce Leather Gifts
7. “My favorite April Fools’ prank is to put a rubber band around the sink hose in the kitchen, when a co-worker goes to use the sink the water sprays straight out at them. It’s hysterical and not too much damage is done. I have also forgotten I did it and done it to myself.”
– Alix Abbamonte, Publicist
8. “The funniest thing I ever did for an April Fools’ Prank was either the time I put Post It notes wall to wall and on every surface of a colleague’s office. Or the time I went through the copier paper drawer, and every few papers placed a sheet that was pre-printed with the message THIS COPIER IS MALFUNCTIONING.”
– Tiffany S. Franc, Attorney, Pessin Katz Law
9. “A great April Fools’ prank to play in the office is kidnapping co-workers’ most prized office possessions. You should take a co-worker’s stapler, favorite pen, or a ball of rubber bands and hide them somewhere. You can then take pictures of the items and send ransom notes via email leaving a list of demands that need to be completed before you return the items. You can take a picture of the kidnapped stapler with a picture next to a current newspaper– just like a hostage! This prank is good light-hearted fun as long as you remember to give the kidnapped items back! The last time we held this prank everyone was in good spirits and nobody took it personally. (Although, one co-worker was a bit concerned for her stapler.)”
– Ian Aronovich, Cofounder and CEO, GovernmentAuctions.org
10. “In preparation for a floor manager’s first solo opening at a very corporate restaurant chain, which happened to fall on April 1, we closing managers:
– removed one wheel from the legs of all 4 office chairs
– rearranged the letters on the PC keyboards
– removed the wires connecting the base of the office phones to the handsets, then all called the restaurant beginning at 7am. He picked up every phone and couldn’t speak to anyone.
We all showed up an hour early to work that day to watch the security video. I almost wet my pants!”
– Eddie Pugsley, CapitalHQ
Ready to start up your own business this spring? MyCorp is here to help you get started! Leave a comment below, or give us a call at 1-877-692-6772!