Air Horn Chair Prank

Summary

The Air Horn Chair Prank was a workplace prank practice at Dayna's office involving duct-taping air horns to the bottom of colleagues' office chairs. When someone sat down, the air horn would sound. The prank became so widespread that employees developed defensive habits around it. As Dayna described in Session 10, "You'd come in after a long weekend and you'd, like, have to look under your chair just to. Just to. In case."

The practice was considered acceptable within the office culture because, according to Dayna, there was "nobody else, like, in our level" and "the people that were downstairs were engineers, so it didn't matter" as they "had Nerf gun fights downstairs all the time." However, Erin pointed out a flaw in the prank's design: "That kind of hurts everyone," noting the unavoidable noise impact on anyone within earshot.

Details

The mechanics of the prank were straightforward: pranksters would duct tape air horns to the underside of office chairs so they would be triggered when someone sat down. The execution method — "So we'd like duct tape it to the bottom of people's chairs" — required minimal setup and could be deployed while the target was away from their desk.

The prank's prevalence transformed it from an occasional surprise into a background hazard of office life. The ritual of checking under one's chair became routine, particularly after extended absences like long weekends. This shift from novelty to norm indicates how thoroughly the prank had saturated the workplace culture.

The office environment Dayna described was stratified by floor and department. The engineering team downstairs maintained their own culture of play, including Nerf gun fights, which provided cultural cover for pranks on Dayna's level. The isolation of Dayna's level — with "nobody else, like, in our level" — created a contained zone where the noise disruption would theoretically affect only the participants.

Erin's observation about the prank hurting everyone highlighted an inherent contradiction: unlike targeted pranks, the loud noise from an air horn affects everyone in range, including those who set the trap and innocent bystanders. This indiscriminate impact distinguished it from more controlled office pranks.

The practice has since been discontinued. Dayna noted that the office culture has changed and more people now work in the space, making the prank no longer viable or appropriate.

History

Session 10

The Air Horn Chair Prank was discussed during the pre-session conversation in Session 10 of the campaign as part of a broader discussion about workplace pranking culture at Dayna's engineering company. Dayna described how the prank worked and how common it had become, while Erin critiqued its indiscriminate noise impact. The conversation established the prank as a past practice that represented the playful but potentially disruptive environment that characterized Dayna's office before recent cultural changes.