--- title: Annie Murphy Paul: Can Pranks Make People More Creative? description: It's late spring, the time of year when school administrators arrive at work to find toilet paper festooning their offices, chickens let loose in the... canonical: https://time.com/archive/7133328/office-pranks-can-they-make-workers-more-creative/ author: Annie Murphy Paul article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2012-05-09T10:30:01.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-03-16T09:31:38.687Z article:section: Ideas og:title: Office Pranks: Can They Make Workers More Creative? og:description: Pranks encourage innovation and fruitful camaraderie. Now get that cow down from the roof! og:url: https://time.com/archive/7133328/office-pranks-can-they-make-workers-more-creative/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt9920911f258968dd/698a91c6cabb1d5892e5a20a/a42-17303865.jpg?branch=production&width=600&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 600 og:image:height: 338 og:image:alt: Mock fire truck sits atop the Great Dome at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Office Pranks: Can They Make Workers More Creative? twitter:description: Pranks encourage innovation and fruitful camaraderie. Now get that cow down from the roof! twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt9920911f258968dd/698a91c6cabb1d5892e5a20a/a42-17303865.jpg?branch=production&width=600&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [Ideas](/section/ideas/) # Office Pranks: Can They Make Workers More Creative? > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: September 2026. ## TIME Newsletters: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition TIME publishes seven free email newsletters, written and edited by TIME journalists, reaching more than 1.1 million engaged readers. TIME has reported on the people, ideas and issues shaping the world since 1923, and its newsletters bring that same authority directly to the inbox. 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Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=c7063ff1-b888-45c2-93a6-5a1f3820cb7a&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1) by [Annie Murphy Paul](https://time.com/author/annie-murphy-paul/) May 9, 2012 10:30 AM UTC  11 Sep 2006, Massachusetts, USA --- A mock fire truck sits atop the Great Dome at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts September 11, 2006\. The fire truck was put there as part of a student prank. REUTERS/Brian Snyder (UNITED STATES) | Location: CAMBRDIGE, MA, United States. --- Image by © BRIAN SNYDER/Reuters/Corbis 11 Sep 2006, Massachusetts, USA --- A mock fire truck sits atop the Great Dome at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts September 11, 2006\. The fire truck was put there as part of a student prank. REUTERS/Brian Snyder (UNITED STATES) | Location: CAMBRDIGE, MA, United States. --- Image by © BRIAN SNYDER/Reuters/Corbis © BRIAN SNYDER/Reuters/Corbis—© Corbis. All Rights Reserved. by [Annie Murphy Paul](https://time.com/author/annie-murphy-paul/) May 9, 2012 10:30 AM UTC It’s late spring, the time of year when school administrators arrive at work to find toilet paper festooning their offices, chickens let loose in the hallways and used tires slung around the flagpole. Senior pranks are a headache for principals and janitors alike, but before punishing the perpetrators too harshly, those in charge might pause to acknowledge that many highly creative organizations have long valued traditions of such hijinks. All of us, in fact, could benefit from a bit of the gleefully enterprising spirit that animates such pranks, even if we have no intention of parking a car in the middle of the company cafeteria. (**LIST:** [The Biggest Pranks in Geek History](http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1839579%5F1839578%5F1839524,00.html)) At IDEO, the storied design firm that brought the world the Apple mouse, a culture of subversively entertaining stunts reigns. A boss goes away on vacation and returns to find a sheetrock wall where his office door had been. An executive returns from lunch and discovers that everything on his desk — pens, papers, a soda can — has been glued down with windshield cement. Such pranks challenge the hidebound rules that can stifle creativity, explains IDEO general manager Tom Kelley in a book about the company’s practices, [_The Art of Innovation_](http://www.theartofinnovation.com). They also encourage the camaraderie that’s so essential to fruitful collaboration. One group of IDEO designers, sailing around San Francisco Bay on a work retreat, realized the boat would pass right by their office — and together created a giant slingshot made of bungee cords to lob water balloons at the firm’s windows. (**MORE**: [Paul: How to Increase Your Powers of Observation](http://ideas.time.com/2012/05/02/how-to-incease-your-powers-of-observation/)) Tony Wagner, the co-director of the Change Leadership Group at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, sees pranks as an expression of a vital need. “Research shows that human beings are born with an innate desire to explore, experiment and imagine new possibilities — to innovate. How do children learn such skills? In a word — through play. And it’s not just infants and children who learn through play,” writes Wagner in a new book, [_Creating Innovators: The Making of Young People Who Will Change the World_](http://www.tonywagner.com/resources/creating-innovators). He quotes Joost Bonsen, an alumnus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a lecturer at the MIT Media Lab, a hotbed of invention. “Being innovative is central to being human,” Bonsen tells Wagner. “We’re curious and playful animals, until it’s pounded out of us. Look at the tradition of pranks here at MIT. What did it take to put a police car on a dome that was 15 stories high, with a locked trap door being the only access? It was an incredible engineering feat. To pull that off was a systems problem, and it took tremendous leadership and teamwork.” Indeed, the elaborate pranks regularly executed by MIT students (coaxing a cow onto a dormitory roof, inflating an enormous balloon reading “MIT” on the 46-yd. line of the Yale-Harvard football game) require close collaboration, calculated risk taking and a determination to bring into existence something completely new — all key elements of the kind of creativity that drives the 21st century economy. Pranks are themselves a statement about what matters, claims André DeHon, an MIT graduate who is now an associate professor of electrical and system engineering at the University of Pennsylvania. “At MIT, intellect and its applications are valued and not, for example, athletic prowess,” DeHon writes in a collection of essays about MIT pranks, titled [_Nightwork_](http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=9559). “It’s not that we can run faster than you can. It’s that we can manipulate the physical world to do things you hadn’t imagined possible.” MIT’s Bonsen seconds the point: “Pranks reinforce the cultural ethos of creative joy. Getting something done in a short period of time with no budget and challenging circumstances. It’s glorious and epic.” Pranksters, Bonsen adds, “don’t ask for permission. Not even forgiveness.” That was certainly true of the 18-year-old high school senior who unfurled a [giant banner](http://www.businessinsider.com/steve-jobs-wozniak-pranks-2011-10#the-infamous-swab-job-8) during his graduation ceremony, picturing a hand with its middle finger raised. The year was 1972, and the mischievous mastermind behind the stunt was named Steve Jobs. **MORE:** [Paul: Why Morning Routines Are Creativity Killers](http://ideas.time.com/2012/02/01/why-morning-routines-are-creativity-killers/) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/archive/7133328/office-pranks-can-they-make-workers-more-creative/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/archive/7133328/office-pranks-can-they-make-workers-more-creative/"},"headline":"Office Pranks: Can They Make Workers More Creative?","datePublished":"2012-05-09T10:30:01.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-16T09:31:38.687Z","description":"It's late spring, the time of year when school administrators arrive at work to find toilet paper festooning their offices, chickens let loose in the...","url":"https://time.com/archive/7133328/office-pranks-can-they-make-workers-more-creative/","keywords":["Pranks","MIT"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt9920911f258968dd/698a91c6cabb1d5892e5a20a/a42-17303865.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Annie Murphy Paul","url":"https://time.com/author/annie-murphy-paul/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt9920911f258968dd/698a91c6cabb1d5892e5a20a/a42-17303865.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Mock fire truck sits atop the Great Dome at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts","caption":"Mock fire truck sits atop the Great Dome at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts","creditText":"© BRIAN SNYDER/Reuters/Corbis—© Corbis. 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