Editors Note: Here at Solutions we are very aware of the environment and sustainability. We have several reusing and recycling programs setup here in the office. Then I got to thinking, “Why stop there? If reusing paper is good for environment, why not reuse something like a blog article?” So here’s last year’s April Fools article re-published for your reading pleasure. We’ve saved one virtual piece of paper with this reprint – enjoy!

We appreciate a great sense of humor at Solutions®—in part because so many of us have one! In honor of April Fool’s Day, our newsletter editor has persuaded some of us to part with memorable pranks we’ve played…and ones that were played on us!

“My favorite April Fool’s joke was one I pulled on Mike (a Solutions® coworker). From my computer I created a Word document that I was going to fax, but rather than send it to a fax machine I had it sent to his phone. His phone kept ringing, and of course it was that annoying fax machine squeal on the line – and of course the system kept trying to send it. It was driving Mike crazy! He thought if he ran around to the different fax machines in the building he could find the culprit that was doing this to him. Finally someone clued him in to forwarding his phone to a fax machine. It was only then that the document printed with the word ‘Gotcha!’ on it in nice, big letters!”

— Nancy

“I was only 25 when I started working as an investment officer for a large bank. I was awestruck to be working in a business where the smallest amount of money being handled was a quarter of a million dollars! Seeing how impressed with everything I was, my boss decided to have a little fun at my expense while he was training me. He actually convinced me there was a button on my telephone pad which, if pressed, would automatically “buy” a block of notes worth half a million dollars, and warned me very seriously to never touch it. For over a month I held that button in great respect, and when my assistant was hired I made a huge drama about how she should never touch it, either – feeling very important all the while! My boss had a good laugh in his private office while this was going on before confessing, finally, that the key, when pressed, just dialed a dead phone line. That was how I earned the nickname ‘Salmon Susan’ – because I fell for his prank hook, line and sinker!”

— Susan

“Before Solutions® moved into our current building, we’d grown to the point where we were crammed in like sardines. Mike and Craig, whose cubicles were right next to each other’s, were two of the loudest complainers about the space issue. One day I persuaded one of our maintenance guys, Darryl, to push a wheeled cart full of tools up to Mike’s cube while Mike was on the phone and start busily measuring the walls with a tape measure. Disconcerted, Mike cut his conversation short and demanded to know what Darryl was doing. As per my instructions, Darryl explained that a new person was coming in, and in order to make room for him they were turning Mike’s and Craig’s two cubicles into three cubicles. The look on Mike’s face when he heard this news was hilarious!”

— Amy

“While I was growing up, my mother made pancakes virtually every morning for breakfast. One April Fool’s Day she let me in on the joke she was playing on my oldest sister. She cut a clean cloth into a circle and cooked it inside Sharon’s pancake. The look on my sister’s face when she tried to cut up that ‘pancake’ was priceless! No harm—mom had another pancake ready for her after everyone stopped laughing.”

— Ellie

“A co-worker of mine, Nate, loved playing small practical jokes on the rest of us. One day he took advantage of my being stuck in a meeting to sneak into my cubicle and stuff my coat pockets full of rubber bands. It wasn’t until I was waiting to catch my train home at the end of the day that I discovered this – I reached into my pockets to pull out my gloves, and an enormous wad of rubber bands came with them and fell onto the wet and muddy street! Mortified, I crouched down to scoop them up while my fellow commuters watched curiously – they probably thought I was stealing from my office’s supply closet!”

— Jenn

“It was late in the evening when my husband and I returned from our honeymoon. We were pretty worn out with traveling, and looking forward to dropping into bed the moment we got home. Well, that turned out to be more of an effort than we expected because we first had to remove the hundreds of partly deflated helium balloons that were waiting for us in our bedroom, courtesy of our oh-so-thoughtful friends!”

— Cheryl

Share your favorite practical joke experience with us, whether it’s a joke you pulled, one someone put over on you or one you observed. We’d love to hear about it! Comments are open below.