April Fool’s Day at Work

Tuesday, March 30th, 2010 Michael Kerr

A Fool’s Paradise?

Thanks for responding to our “Fool’s” survey. Some of the results:

- 50% said pranks are NOT encouraged in their workplace

- 47% are planning a joke this year at work

- 52% reported having pulled a prank with positive results;

3% pulled a prank that did not go over well

- 59% have had a prank pulled on them with happy results; 3%

had a joke pulled on them that they were not happy with

- 15% said their boss would not react well regardless of the joke

So you and your team have two choices tomorrow morning: turn April

Fool’s Day into a chance for creative teambuilding OR do something that becomes known in your office as a “career-limiting move.” So on that note:

-Devise a prank you could do as a team against another team.

(Safety in numbers is a beautiful thing).

-Honestly ask yourself how you’d feel if a prank you are contemplating was pulled on you.

-Practice safe humor. I have a file of people that have been

seriously injured or killed by pranks gone horribly awry, so

remember that it’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye

to a rubber chicken.

Here are a few easy, safe things to try:

- Page yourself over the intercom

- Send out a fake meeting agenda with preposterous agenda items

- Phone up someone and immediately say, “I’m too busy to talk

right now” and then hang up.

- Change your boss’s caller ID display so it reads something like

“Cuddly Bear” or “Snuggy Bunny”

- Break into song every time anyone says one of your office’s

Favorite buzzwords

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Quote of the Week

“Anything worth taking seriously is worth making fun of.” Tom Lehrer

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It’s a Wacky, Wacky World

On April 1^st 1998, Burger King announced it had created a left-handed

burger. Thousands of people requested the left hander, while

thousands more insisted upon getting a proper right-handed

burger (which, everyone knows, taste much better).

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