“My screen is frozen!” said a co-worker. Despite abusing his mouse and smacking the PC tower the screen maintained its frozen status. How frustrating that must be to see your Outlook email in the background and all of your windows consolidated on the bottom yet unable to open them or move your cursor.
What this guy didn’t realize was that someone had taken a screen shot of his screen by holding the control button and pressing the “print screen” button on the keyboard. This copies your screen as it shows on your monitor and with some saving skills and then posting as wallpaper it can render the appearance of a frozen screen.
It’s really quite a genius prank and can elicit high levels of blood pressure and frustration. It also can elicit secret laughter and concealed snickering by those administering the prank.
Leaving Your Computer Unlocked
The window of opportunity for pranks increase exponentially when one leaves their computer unlocked and vulnerable to other co-workers.
Another common office prank is to rush over to the unlocked computer and send a mass email out to either the company or team from which the victim is a part.
Some examples of the types of emails that are sent out are messages like ” Tomorrow I will buy lunch for everyone! What kind should I order?” or something generic like “I left my computer unlocked”.
Honestly I have had many opportunities to execute such a prank and it takes a lot of self control to not put something madly embarrassing like “Pee wee Herman is my hero” or “I love boogers”. Perhaps part of what keeps me from doing it is knowing that most people would suspect me anyways and my ability to keep the zygomaticus (smiling) muscles from contracting is severely limited.
So don’t become a victim, remember to lock your computers when you go away from your desk!
