Know where to draw the line on jokes
By Larry Ballard
The best workplace prank I ever saw was by a guy who stuffed part of a child's sparkler in the end of a Marlboro Light and gave it to this other guy, a "nonsmoker" who occasionally bummed cigarettes in the break room.
The resulting conflagration provided several seconds of visual entertainment, followed by about three years of happy-hour conversations that began: "Remember that time ... "
It took 10 days for my nose hair to grow back.
But it was a small price to pay for the prank's positive effect on office morale. It's a proven fact: Pranks "can be used as a tool to knock down personal barriers and help build lasting interpersonal relationships with your co-workers." So says www.funny practicaljokes.com.
Pranks can be simple, such as taping down the button on the boss's phone so it continues to ring after he answers. Or they can be the kind of thing my friend Larry Rife dreams up. (More about him later.)
Either way, nothing brings people together like a good belly laugh at the expense of someone with more seniority.
Then again, it could get you fired.
I'm speaking, of course, about Kemarat Vathananand of Skokie, Ill. He was sentenced last month to three years in prison for spiking the coffee maker nearly a year ago at the metal-finishing company where he'd worked for 15 years.
Sure, it sounds like a hoot, until you find out that Vathananand flavored the java with urine and a highly toxic solvent called lead acetate. That's right. Urine.
No one was hurt, but Vathananand pleaded guilty to felony food tampering.
His isn't the only office prank to end badly:
If the preceding examples have taught me anything, it's that office pranks should be left to professionals. Specifically, the aforementioned Larry Rife.
The Des Moines man is trying to make a living as the mastermind of pranks. He charges $100 and up, depending on how elaborate. Like the time he convinced the office practical joker at a hotel that she had lost a $250,000 client. Or when he and two actors masqueraded as high-powered businessmen to dupe a telephone-systems saleswoman. It's a long story, but suffice to say:
a. She had it coming.
b. They got her good.
Rife's business is called Creative Moments. He specializes in meticulously planned office pranks, birthday surprises and assorted "experiences." Red-faced victims get a "certificate of gullibility" when it's all over.
"We don't pull junior-high pranks. No Vaseline on door handles or shrink wrap over toilets. Ours are much more sophisticated and complex," said Rife, who takes great pains to make sure everything goes off without a hitch and no one gets hurt.
It's been said there's nothing more funny than the misfortune of others.
I'm betting whoever said it was a smoker.
Larry Ballard write for the Des Moines (Iowa) Register.
