What do you do when the president of your company says the department that pulls the best prank will win $100 each? Cover an entire office in aluminum foil. That’s right. All the walls, all the furniture, all his office equipment, every paper clip and even the sticky notes on his desk. We aim to never be outdone, and this was no exception.
I currently work at 10x Media. The president of the company, Wendy Hudman, is quite the prankster.
A few days before the birthday of the company’s Vice President, she sent him off on an errand and held a company meeting. The challenge? Each of the departments should pull a prank on him sometime on his birthday, with each member of the winning team receiving $100. Contests like this happen all the time, and my team (the programming department) wins these kinds of things frequently, but nothing with a purse this large. Because of our small size, we teamed up with the IT department.
Van, one of the developers, found a site showing pictures of a cubicle coated in aluminum foil. Those guys covered a 5’x5′ cubicle; we were dealing with a 15’x12′ office. Their time: 3 days. We had to do ours in a single evening. Mission: Impossible, you say? We decided to give it a shot.
Execution
Right after work we went to get the supplies we needed at the nearest club shopping store.
We walked out with 1750 square-feet of aluminum foil. One roll of 1-foot wide, and another of 18-inch wide foil. Some for the big items and some for the smaller ones.
We began foiling about 7:30 pm, when everyone was out of the office. There was a lot to do, as everything in his office had to be wrapped. Our technique improved as we went along, but it took us longer than we anticipated. Early in the project we also thought we were going to run out of foil, but in the end we had more than enough. Every visible item in his office got covered. We also made a special effort to ensure that as many items as possible still worked. The foiled stapler stapled, the foiled filing cabinets opened properly and the foiled white out could be opened and used. We also paid close attention to details. We covered rubber bands, business cards, a business license, paper clips, even the post-it notes on his desk. Everything in the office reflected when we finally left at 4:00 am.
Discovery
Even though we didn’t get to bed until very late, a few of us decided that we wanted to be there when he discovered it, and he frequently arrives at work early, so we showed up to work early enough to watch his reaction. He came in a little later than usual, but when he finally arrived he was quite impressed.
Most of the company arrived before he did. As they came in, most of them stopped by to take a look. To notify any who may have missed it, in the middle of the day we forged an email from him to the entire company announcing the prank and inviting them to make a visit and see the photos that had been taken.
Conclusion
Because of the scope of our handiwork, most of the other pranks fizzled and/or seemed weak in comparison. He recieved some ramen as a gift, pictures of him were posted throughout the office, and one team got him to drink something that attempted (unsuccessfully) to change the color of his urine. The accounting team managed to get him locked in his office for an hour or two while he should have been gone. They locked him in after having given him a box of things which weren’t quite things to do.
The next day, during a company-wide meeting, while he was at the front of the group he was told to choose which of the pranks was best. The foiling and being locked in the office were the only real contenders, he said, so he asked the group which one they thought was better. Overwhelmingly, everyone thought the foil was better. While I think that ours was a bit better, I think the real reason that everyone agreed was because of the publicity of our handiwork. We all came out $100 richer and I came out with some really cool looking photos, as well as a story that I hope rivals any other foil story you’ll hear for some time.
Pictures
Click on any of the pictures for a larger version.
Completed Project:
Details:
Prank Stats
| Total time | About 11 hours |
| Amount of foil used | Approximately 1500 square feet |
| Word of the day on his calendar | Artifice |
| Total prize amount | $500 |
McKay Salisbury
This is the best prank anyone has ever done on my brother. Congratulations!
Even a month later, I am still laughing. Great job. Let me know if you need a family insider for the next prank! (I’m Aaron’s sister)
A better prank is ripping off interns and employees for their money!
I can see that Brenda has had a bad experience with 10xmedia. What happened?
This is all you need to know!
http://www.topix.net/forum/city/provo-ut
So this is where $500 of my $1500 went instead of providing a service to me that I had a contract for? Sham on Wendy!
This is the most disgusting exhibition of spoiled brat interns i’ve seen in a long, long time. You worked at a company that defrauded many people (myself for $3,200). Imagine the karma! No one will ever do that to our business again.
Just so everyone here knows, the person who wrote this post is no longer writing at this blog, and I am not sure if he reads the comments either…
So, just to let you know.. all the people that participated in this prank paid for it themselves… none of it was company money except the prize money. This isnt the place for slander- keep it in your other forums.
I think this is awesome! I Like to do pranks and I am so going to use this idea!