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Comment by airhead969 | Hacker News Reader

IIRC, the trick is practical jokes! Change desktop backgrounds, move icons around, leave goofy/giant text Word documents, etc.

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That is so true. I struggled to develop the habit and then ended up on a team that did this (mainly send silly emails from the victim’s account). It’s over a decade later and I still hit the lock combo every time I get up.

Some more:

Change their profile photo (github/slack/etc).

Flip their monitor orientation.

Swap to left-handed mouse buttons (or vice-versa).

Go on Amazon and add some "interesting" things to their wishlist/cart.

Go on Youtube and "like" a bunch of random videos.

I miss the good old days of Vista where there was a straight keyboard command to change monitor orientation. It was something like win+shift+arrow so everyone would prank each other with it until it was removed.

I remember that. Part of the Intel Graphics driver kit. W10 is pretty good about including basic drivers so that is probably when it stopped working for you. The shortcut still works for anyone who's gone through the hassle of installing Intel's drivers.

At my high school, it was to create a folder with an… incriminating name. Then, screenshot the desktop, delete the folder, and then set the background to the screenshot.

When the …mark… sits down, inevitably with several… "witnesses" behind them, who then point out in "astonishment" the folder on their desktop, they try (in vain) to highlight it to delete it.

(Not appropriate for the workplace, of course.)

Also, scotch tape is not transparent to optical mice? and blocks the sensor. Had that one pulled on me once, took a while to figure it out.

At my old job the tradition was to send an e-mail promising to bring pastries for the team the next day.

Uh, back in high school a schoolmate found a huuge genitalia as desktop background on their laptop since they left it unattended and unlocked.

I can tell you, that person never left that thing unlocked ever again.

I did the same cca. 2001 to a fellow female coworker. She had a big Excel document that day and was under pressure to finish it from her boss (well, our boss). She went to toilet and that's all it took me to set it, then maximize back her Excel document. She unaware worked for next hour and then when she finished she called the boss, which was across the room on his desktop, to verify it. The fun part came when I asked for something from her desktop and she had to minimize Excel. She went red in the face and the entire office burst in laughter for next 5 minutes, the boss included. After that day she learned WIN+L.

   alias ls=echo "Segmentation Fault"

Hahaha.

    source ~/.bashrc

I installed this app on my roommate's laptop in college one time when he left it unlocked and would run it every time he left it unlocked after that: https://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/26793/ipanic

It took several months for him to catch on; for a while I had him convinced that his hardware must have an issue where the laptop being left idle for too long caused it to mess up somehow.

Or Slack everyone with "I'm a noob!"...

Muhaha.

I can think of other broadcast communications that would get people fired.

...or invite the whole team for a beer via e-mail. :)

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