If you are lucky enough to be working in an open plan office, you may get slightly frustrated every now and then the bellowing that some of your colleagues make when they are talking to other colleagues or are on the phone. At the end of the day, open plan offices have pros and cons that I could go into another article about. One of the pros is that they are perfect for pranking and playing technological tricks on your fellow colleagues to provide that small level of acceptable ‘banter’ in the work space. With this, here are three office tricks you can play on your colleagues.

With every one of these tricks, make sure your colleague is not at their desk and the laptop/computer is left unlocked – it is important to not get caught!

#1 Turn Their Screen Upside Down

One of the easier and simplest tricks to play on people at work, by pressing Ctrl + Alt + Down Arrow you will cause the screen of your colleague’s laptop/computer to go upside down. If they know how to rectify this trick, it is still quite amusing seeing who can do it the most to each other. If they do not, it is rather funny watching them try to Google upside down ‘how to turn screen from upside down to normal).

It will definitely help yourself to learn to lock your laptop/computer when you walk away from your office!

#2 Sellotape Under the Mouse

When your colleague is away, another great trick is sticking a thin strip of sellotape to the laser sensor at the bottom of the mouse. This will interfere with the tracking causing the mouse to not be able to scroll on screen. The first time you do this to a colleague will be hilarious as you wait to see how long it will take them to figure out just exactly why the mouse is not working for them.

#3 Connect a Wireless Mouse to their Laptop/Computer

By far the best trick to play on a fellow colleague is to connect either a bluetooth mouse to their laptop or a wireless mouse (then plug in the receiver dongle to the back of their laptop) – the receiver dongle is usually too small for them to notice.

What makes this trick so good is the fact that you can play it for months on end until they figure out just what is going on with their mouse. So, whenever you are feeling like winding them up a little, just turn your wireless mouse on and give it a little wiggle every 10 minutes or so. That way, it is not obvious enough that it is a prank but obvious enough to them that they think there is a malfunction with their current mouse!