April Fools!

Now, those of you with kids will have suffered through numerous lame April fool pranks this morning I am sure. We did. Over the years have even managed to pull a few of my own.

Like the time myself and Boy 2 plus one of his mates managed to convince Big Boy, Boy 1 and a few other kids that I had slipped and broken my leg. They were not too happy about that one. Guess I wouldn't have been either to be honest.

Or the one I pulled on the management team of a large insurance organisation I worked for. I had wangled a lovely redundancy deal months prior, and my last day was to be, you guessed it: April 1st. Had my tickets booked, my bags packed, passport and YHA membership all organised. And THEN had to endure endless months of jokes about me coming in all set to go and being told it was all an elaborate April Fool's prank!

Yeah, funny guys, but wearing a bit thin after all these months...

But I got my own back. I had been delegated the massive task of designing a complex spreadsheet system to combine the annual reports of the many subsidiaries into the Group report. Months of work (hence my power in wheedling a redundancy - they needed me to finish this), very complicated, lots of macros, links, tangled webs. I had a partner in crime. I had to, for I was not there to deal with the fallout, and to present the punch line.

I set up a dummy system. It was identical to the real system, in all but one way. When it was opened it gradually, one by one, deleted all thirty two of the worksheets.

April 1st, 1992. Go to office, complete final redundancy paperwork. At pub by 11.30am. Awaiting the fallout.

It wasn't a long wait. By noon the whole section was in attendance as my former boss, now somewhat recovered, threatened to kill me if I ever pulled a stunt like that again. The details? You want details? Well the story goes like this. He opened the file, my accomplice was standing beside him. As each screen flashed up, and each row vanished he became paler and paler. Sweat started to run in rivlets down his face as he frantically pressed random keys, attempted to turn it off, muttered curses and pleas for help under his breath.

The grand finale as the last screen vanished from view?

"YOU HAVE BEEN DELETED."

Won't forget me now, will ya?

prints in huge letters across the screen. A pause. Let it sink in. Then it too vanishes.

To be replaced by:

 Not really. April fool.

But you really won't forget me...

Real file is saved under *******.

The whole office was in uproar. It was still being talked about a year later upon my return to Australia. My boss stopped shaking after a few drinks at the pub, but he kept glancing my way and shaking his head in disbelief the whole night.

But what about you? I want to hear of some of the funnier jokes you have had success with. Who was it on? How did you manage to pull it off? Either tell your tale in a comment, or blog it and add the link in the comment. But spill, come on...