You've been laid off, fired or quit. Before you say goodbye, how should you handle your last day at work?

Telephone wrapped with rubber bands prank
Photo by Matt Reinbold

Pranks and funny things to do on your last day of work

21. Have a nice onion-filled breakfast before heading in to work for the last time

20. Film your final day with a GoPro'ed helmet so you can later post “highlights” to YouTube

19. Post-It notes are your friend. Hide random notes around the office in places where they'll only be found weeks or even months later. Write things like ‘I know what you just did' or ‘It wasn't like this when [your name] was here'

18. Make smiley faces & leave cutesy messages (“miss you”) on random blank pages in the photocopier or printer.

17. Permanent markers. Whiteboards. Need I say more?

funny whiteboard drawing with permanent marker

16. File expense reports with bills you found on the floor at a supermarket or sports store.

15. Carve your initials into your computer screen.

14. Change your computer's wallpaper to a big closeup of your eyes.

13. Privately tell 3-4 random ex-coworkers-to-be how you heard they're next on the chopping block.

12. If your company has any internal mailing lists, take 10 minutes to subscribe them to external mailing lists that everyone will “enjoy”

11. Then, subscribe the company-wide mailing list to itself.

10. Use the company resource reservation system to completely book all meeting rooms for the next 2 years

9. Now's as good a time as any for those company-related questions you originally left out on your annual performance evaluation forms, don't you think?

8. Cry a lot throughout the day. Not the way you would normally cry though. Screechier.

got-fired-get-revenge

7. Speaking of former employees
 do that a lot.

6. Give an emotional farewell speech where you randomly pick someone and slowly, very deliberately, say “But [their name]
 I'll miss you the most” with a slight smirk, all the while eying them in the creepiest way you can.

5. Look at that farewell speech as your last chance to give others some constructive criticism to remember you by.

evil last day 1

4. Be over-the-top sincere in telling each ex-colleague-to-be how you're still going to keep in touch with them. Extra points for doing this with superiors.

3. Brag about the new, better, higher paying, less stressful job you've already got lined up
 at a major competitor.

2. Tell your boss how you really feel about them. Don't hold back, honesty is the best policy. Next, tell your boss's boss how *your boss* feels about them, in a post-layoff followup email, if they're currently unavailable.

1. Cat-tack someone, anyone

cattack

Bonus

0. Purposely forget to tell everyone about the pizzas you've ordered to the office tomorrow.

0b. Change a critical company password without telling anyone and then demand cash for it (which someone actually did)

evil last day tweet

What you actually should do on your last day at work

READ NEXT: This Checklist is Key to Leaving Any Company Successfully

Question of the article

What do you think are funny things to do on your last day of work? Have you done any of them, or seen anyone else do them? Tell your story in the comments.

What others are saying

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Jacob Share

Job Search Expert, Professional Blogger, Creative Thinker, Community Builder with a sense of humor. I like to help people.

This Post Has 17 Comments

  1. Todd Porter

    REALLY? This is some very bad advice.

    Assume that this is a joke but there are idiots out there


  2. Jo Rowbotham

    I once heard of a co-worker who was asked to leave his company car ‘somewhere safe’ for collection following termination. That ‘somewhere safe’ was on the short stay car park at London Heathrow airport, racking up a huge parking fee. On a serious note, you will have to rely on these ex employers to give you a reference for your next job, so not a good idea to prank on your last day unfortunately.

  3. Jacob Share

    Jo- that co-worker should definitely have been billed for pulling that not-so-harmless goodbye prank. That’s definitely one way to burn bridges.

  4. Sarah T

    #3 – If you signed up for a contract that has a non-complete cause. it would be unwise to brag about having a new job with your company’s competitor. That is actionable – and your present company might sue you for doing that.

    1. Jacob Share

      Completely agree, but this was an April Fools’ post 🙂

  5. Ghufran

    Lovely. Thanks Jacob :);)

    Could not stop laughing the whole day and though, didn’t do any of it, I made the best of last day with a good mood.
    Page came to me in an hour of disappointment on HR policies for leaving employees.

    1. Jacob Share

      Good luck in your job search, Ghufran 🙂

  6. Martin

    This is no good advice. I remember a guy that won a jackpot and went and peed on his boss desk

  7. Jenn "Gogo" Yubari

    Whatever happened to good old fashioned knocking over of bookcases on your way out?

  8. Sultan Giasuddin

    It’s a wonderful lessons for the professional those who intend to leave the job.

    1. Jacob Share

      I really hope you’re being sarcastic 🙂

  9. Moshe

    A friend told me of a high-level system manager that was terminated who embedded a code deep into the system with a time-delay to trigger it. A half year later all company computers and servers had a photo of the CEO with a caption “company ass-hole” !
    No matter what they did they couldnt get rid of the photo as was deep coded somewhere in the system and the company had to bring in an expert to fix it and were left with zero computer access for two full business days.

    1. Jacob Share

      That’s ridiculous, and I hope that manager was arrested or at the very least sued for damages.

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