Pranks in Corporate America

So I think today has to be one of the craziest and most random days of work I have had in a very long time, and I can’t remember the last time I laughed so much at work – sad I know. Today started off like any other day lately I am running to my desk a few minutes before 8am – granted I am not officially late until 8:30, but I might as well be late when I come in at 8am. So this week has been extremely stressful and busy with everyone on my team running around without our heads attached to the rest of our bodies. There is just a lot going on – reviewing the trans (summer/fall) line with our big boss, finalizing the fall buys, and starting holiday all at the same time. Thanks to Chinese New Year everything has to be pushed up a few weeks, so they can be off for a few weeks. I won’t go into my thoughts about that now; I will save it for another blog. Not to mention we had a day and half this week where our team was not intact thanks to the ice storm that hit Dallas this week. So we were all at our breaking points and tears could come at any time and did for some.

Anyways today our area was having a super bowl lunch – basically just a lunch where we all got together and just were able to be human for an hour – we jokingly call it forced fun around here. JCP calls it Winning Together. Somehow most of my team ended up at one table separated from our boss where we all of the course of lunch went back to high school and high school pranks. One of my team members decided that we needed to take the phone piece of our boss’s phone, so that when people called her she would be able to hear them but they wouldn’t be able to hear her. So a couple of my team members went to place the tape on her phone while the rest of us with the help of some other people on our floor distracted my boss. As soon as the lunch was over our boss was successfully able to talk on the phone so we were all under the impression that our prank had failed us and were disappointed and just decided to give up and go back to work. Minus the fact that one of my team members and I resorted to throwing confetti at each other while we worked, and that lightened our moods a little. About an hour after our boss tried to place the call her computer stopped working, so she called IT only IT informed her that they couldn’t hear her so she talked later and they still weren’t able to completely understand her. None of us thought anything about the tape because it hadn’t worked earlier. Needless to say she started hitting her phone on her desk and then hung up tried again – they still weren’t able to hear her. She then tried crawling under her desk and checking the phone cord and she kind of started to go into freak out mode at this point. So we all knew to keep our mouths shut because she was about to lose it and we knew we were all going to get it if she knew the truth. So she storms off to find our assistant and we all look at each other and say nothing. While she is looking for our assistant someone mentions to her that she should probably check the mouth piece because someone once covered their with tape – we didn’t know this at the time. So we all see her walk back to her desk and starting looking at the mouth piece. She then mentioned something about the tape and we all lose it and burst out laughing very loudly and at this point everyone on the floor is looking at all of us wondering what in the world is going on because my team is never like that at least when our boss is here. Still not sure whether we are all about to get in big trouble we explain to her what we have done and she begins to laugh and explain how she would have never figured it out or thought to do that. Needless to say for a good few minutes we all got a good laugh – then she asks what we did to the computer and we inform the computer was off limits to us. It gave not only my team a much needed laugh, but also the whole floor got a kick out of the fact that we did it and of all people we did it to our boss. It was a good relief for everyone and a good way pass a Friday afternoon.

All that to say I guess even corporate America can be human and have a sense of humor every once and a while. I think my team was, especially my boss was reminded that we aren’t saving lives here by performing brain surgery – we are just picking out clothes and at the end of the day – we all need to just live a little and laugh a lot. So if you ever need a good prank – I recommend the tape on the phone.