By leah jones
April Fools Day is a light-hearted and fun holiday. However, it can also go a lot farther than some people are comfortable with. There is a balance that must be found when bringing celebratory antics to the workplace.
Here are some harmless and appropriate April Fool's Day jokes for work that capture the silliness of the holiday in a way that won’t upset coworkers, but make them laugh instead.
Press Ctrl + Alt + Down Arrow on a Windows PC to flip a coworker’s screen upside down (Ctrl + Alt + Up Arrow to fix).
Put a small piece of tape over the bottom of a coworker’s mouse sensor and watch as they struggle to figure out why it’s not working.
Change common words in someone’s email or Word settings to autocorrect into something else (e.g., "the" to "teh" or "yes" to "definitely not").
Print out an image of a "Loading..." screen and tape it to a colleague's monitor while they’re away.
Put a donut box filled with vegetables in the break room for a disappointing surprise. Or tell coworkers you brought brownies, then hand them a box of brown cut-out letter “E’s.”
Change a coworker’s mouse settings so the cursor speed is really slow or set the pointer to "invisible."
Switch a colleague's keyboard settings to the Dvorak layout in their settings, causing everything they type to come out as gibberish.
Print out name tags with everyone’s name swapped and stick them on coworkers’ desks. Or cover everything on a coworker’s desk with sticky notes.
Pretend to not know the mic is on in a virtual meeting and say something funny. Or change the name/background to something silly in a Zoom meeting.
Add food coloring to a coffee pot or someone’s water so it pours out blue, green or bright red.
Book a fake meeting on a coworker’s calendar titled "Very Important – Do Not Miss," but provide no other details.