Larry Osterman - Pranks over the years at Microsoft | TheChannel9Team

Over the 20 years that Larry's worked at Microsoft he's seen a wide variety of pranks played on people here. So, we wondered, what were the ones he remembered?

What are the funniest pranks you've ever seen played in your offices?

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Manip

Nov 02, 2004 at 12:28 PM

Bet you couldn't get away with these things now ..

I'm surprised Microsoft (even then) would be happy for people to be blocking in office doors and raising the floor high ..
ZippyV Fired Up

Nov 02, 2004 at 12:37 PM

I want to hear more, MORE, MORE
sc00ter Always in motion the future is..

Nov 02, 2004 at 12:45 PM

Thats so hilarious! I love these videos.. gotta get more of them.
scobleizer I'm the video guy

Nov 02, 2004 at 1:16 PM

Manip: actually, these kinds of pranks still go on even today. David Treadwell's office had a layer of sod in it when we passed by last week. I heard he just got married, so while he was on honeymoon his team turned his office into a golf course. Heh.
adamfield Eet ees dirty and you want eet!

Nov 02, 2004 at 3:44 PM

Last time I was in building 44 someone came back from a 2 week vacation to find their office transformed into a beach complete with sand.
GaryBushey The blob in the upper right hand corner is my dog

Nov 02, 2004 at 4:26 PM

Hmm...I've done the disappearing office, yarn (never thought about the black light), and moving offices. We have even filled up an entire cube with packing peanuts (tooks weeks to clean them all up). Never did sod but one guy I worked with rigged up some fishing line up through the fake ceiling onto a tile. He then made a paper cone in the ceiling and filled it with packing peanuts and rubber balls. when the victim sat down he pulled the line and dumped it all on the victim's head. Best part was we got some great pictures of it happening.

Although the pranks are great, I would think there would be some more high tech ones.
rasx Emperor of String.Empty

Nov 03, 2004 at 3:02 PM

Pranks are a form of violent entertainment. I think Ghengis Khan did some really funny * with horse *.

When I went to college from the 'hood---the O.G. I will kick your * 'hood---I found this prank behavior not funny.

The pranksters tried to console themselves with cultural traditions of legendary tales of superior intellect suggesting that I did not "understand" what they were doing. I'm a long-time Monty Python fan. I know what is funny. I am quite silly (as you see here). Nudge. Nudge.

The only way these pranks would be funny to me is when my 1990s Microsoft stock goes through the roof and I know I am about to make enough money to never have to work with people I did not choose to work with ever again.
pdrg Who Was Prouder?

Nov 05, 2004 at 3:33 AM

I think different subs have different tolerences - I could see this stuff going down very badly outside Redmond
ajauch

Dec 21, 2006 at 9:10 PM

About six months ago, I came into the office to find my boss' office completely wrapped in tinfoil. Every surface. They had also carefully taken every object off his desk (stapler, mouse, montior, etc. etc.) and wrapped those also. Very nice. When I asked how they had done it, the reply was "Costco".

Alex