The office prank war is a delicate ecosystem. A little lighthearted fun can build camaraderie, but when you’re the new person and the designated target, it can feel like a relentless siege of minor annoyances. One reader, after enduring months as the office punching bag, decided he wasn’t just going to retaliate with another prank. He was going to stage a full-blown psychological operation, a long con that would end the war so definitively, he would go down in office history.
When I started my new job, I quickly learned that my three team members—Dave, Mike, and Tom—had a second job: making my life a series of small, inconvenient jokes. I smiled and played along, but behind my good-natured facade, a plan was forming. I wasn’t going to get them back. I was going to deliver a prank so crushing, so soul-destroying, they would never prank anyone again.
Welcome to the Jungle (Gym)
I was the new IT guy, and the prank crew saw me as fresh meat. The first week, they taped over the laser on my mouse. The next, they changed all my desktop icons to pictures of Nicolas Cage. It escalated. My stapler was put in a Jell-O mold. My office chair was entirely wrapped in cling film. My coffee mug was filled with dirt from a potted plant.
Each time, I’d laugh and say, “You got me, guys!” and they’d all high-five. They thought I was a great sport. In reality, I was a general studying his enemy. I learned their routines, their personalities, and most importantly, their greatest weakness: the office printer. It was an ancient, decrepit machine that jammed constantly. It was the one thing that united everyone in pure, unadulterated hatred. I knew I had found my weapon.
The Seeds of Deception
My plan was a long game. For the next two months, I became the office’s unofficial sweepstakes correspondent. “Hey, just saw a contest to win a new coffee machine, I put our office in the running!” I’d announce cheerfully. A few weeks later: “Guys, there’s a ‘Tired Office’ makeover giveaway, I sent in a picture of the breakroom!”
I did this about five or six times. We, of course, never won anything. They all forgot about it. But the seeds were planted. They were now subconsciously primed to believe that our sad little office was in the running for corporate prizes.
The ‘Mirage’ 5000
Last Friday was the day. I came in early and drafted a fake, official-looking email from a company I invented called “FutureTech Office Solutions.” I sent it to my boss, Sarah, and CC’d the three pranksters. The email jubilantly congratulated our office on winning the Grand Prize in their annual sweepstakes: a brand-new, top-of-the-line, multifunction color laser printer, the “Mirage 5000.” The email stated it would be delivered that morning.
The office exploded with joy. The pranksters were ecstatic, pounding the table and cheering. Their printer nightmare was over! My boss was thrilled. An hour later, as promised, a “delivery man” (my brother-in-law, who I paid $50) arrived with a massive, beautifully decorated box. I had spent a week designing and printing fake logos and marketing slogans for the “Mirage 5000” and plastered them all over it.
The whole office gathered around as Dave, Mike, and Tom eagerly tore open their prize. They lifted the top off the box, their faces beaming with anticipation. And inside, nestled in a bed of packing peanuts, was our old, crappy office printer. I had just cleaned it, polished it, and tied a big, shiny red bow around it.
Taped to the top was a note: “Congratulations! You’ve been pranked. P.S. The Mirage 5000 is not real. This is still your printer. Have a great weekend!”
The silence was deafening. The pranksters’ faces fell, a beautiful symphony of dawning horror and humiliation. Then, the rest of the office, who were not the targets, erupted in laughter. My boss stared at me for a second, then broke into a huge grin and said, “Okay, Ben. You win. You win forever.”
The pranks have completely stopped. I am now a legend at work, and the trio of terror is miraculously respectful. My friends think it was a work of genius, but my sister said I was manipulative and humiliated them in front of our boss, which was unprofessional. I think I simply crafted a proportional response and ended the war on my own terms. AITA for my masterpiece of payback?
In the annals of office warfare, this is a masterpiece. The narrator didn’t just return fire; he built a Trojan horse out of his tormentors’ greatest hopes and dreams and wheeled it right into the center of the office. It was a long con, a perfectly executed psychological operation that was devastatingly effective precisely because it wasn’t destructive or mean-spirited. It was just pure, soul-crushing disappointment. He didn’t just win the battle; he achieved total, unconditional surrender.
What do you think, readers? Was this a brilliant, career-defining act of strategic genius, or was it an unprofessional and manipulative prank that went too far? Let us know.
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