In every workplace, crap happens. And when it does, it is a true nightmare for the employees. It could be a real horror involving paranormal activities or the worst experience from customers.
If you are into those kinds of stories, you are on the right page! People from the Reddit Community shared their nightmare experiences inside their workplace. Check these out!
1. The Flash
Worked at a liquor store for a few years. One of the homeless guys, probably late 50's that stood outside would ask for money 9 times out of 10.
If they said no, he'd flash them his old, wrinkly, crusty package... I had to chase him off every night so people didn't have to suffer that sight.
Annoyingly, people who saw me chasing him off or threatening to call the cops often gave me dirty looks, as if I hated homeless people or treated them like trash.
When in actuality I was saving them from that which you cannot unsee.
Slevin424
2. Not Your Typical Boss
This didn’t become a horror story until recently, but as a teen, I used to close down the gas station/truck stop I worked at alone.
My boss used to pop out of the shadows as I closed the till with the backup lights on. He’d be calm and act like it wasn’t creepy at 11 pm when he should be home with his family.
He was even at my high school graduation. He and his wife’s numbers were still on my phone. Anyhow, he is currently on trial for murdering a prostitute back in ‘94.
Cold cases are potentially solved via DNA & modern science.
ShesAFirecracker
3. Deadly Stare
Oh man, I hate recalling this story. I work the night shift at a rehab facility. We have a protected gate with a camera looking down from above and one of those doorbell cameras.
In the office, the camera monitor is on one wall, and the doorbell monitor is on another. I was doing some paperwork and saw this guy walk past, stop for a few seconds, then slowly turn around, walk back, and stare at the camera.
And he kept staring. The facility is in a rough neighborhood, so I’m fairly used to folks hanging out around the gate and usually ignoring it. But the way he was staring was off-putting.
Like, his eyes and expression were hollow and dead, almost as if he were in deep thought about something horrible. I was pretty sure he was zonked on synthetics. I used the intercom to see if he was okay, but he kept staring directly at the camera.
We have a rule - if it’s not hurt or trying to cross the fence, just let it be. No sense in engaging needlessly with somebody potentially hostile or freaking with the locals.
Y’all, he stood there and stared at that camera for two hours. That same dead-eyed expression stares right at me. I did a round and came back to find him gone, which only creeped me out more.
[deleted]
4. The Raven
Worked in a parking garage at the airport. I cleaned the top deck and noticed about a hundred ravens all over a truck with a tarp over the bed. Took my flashlight expecting something awful.
Noticed as I got closer the smell and the ravens taking turns going in a hole they had torn open and popping out covered in gunk. Some guy left a broken-down beater with a couple of animal carcasses in the back to rot.
No heads.
Checked the logs, and the damn truck had been there since November, and it was April, so everything was just thawing and breaking down.
greatwood
5. Hands Out
There was one time when our store stayed open 24 hours for a week or so. For the most part, this wasn't really a problem-typically nobody comes shopping for home improvement items at two in the morning (except that one couple that came looking for marble countertops at 1:30 in the morning, and the woman was wearing a lovely dress).
I guess there was also that one young lady who came looking for a toilet paper roll holder a little after midnight (I had just gotten off my first break), and she was wearing jorts and one of those white-with-black-belt stereotypical karate outfits.
She was oddly specific about which roll holder to get, too.
But the real story lies within the insulation. It was nearing three in the morning, and I and another guy were stocking insulation, as well as fixing the bays and some such maintenance.
A bunch of big R-30s had fallen in their bay, and while I was sorting through them, a freaking hand came out of the mess and grabbed my arm. I lost my mind enough for not only the guy I was working with to freak out but also for my boss, who was across the store, to come check out the commotion.
Turns out a homeless drunkard had come into the store at some point, and I can only assume before the night crew showed up and had made a nest in the insulation where he fell asleep.
The dude was in bad shape, too. Like, was far gone into whatever inebriation that we had to call the police to remove him. I was always a little more cautious around the insulation after that, for at least the time the store stayed open 24 hours.
Nice_Bake
6. The Grim Reaper
I used to work the night shift as a care aide in an old folks home. It was already creepy. The home was an old hospital that was converted.
Some craphole kept walking around the courtyard after dark dressed as the grim reaper knocking on doors.
It was actually really scary, he ran off, and the facility got a security guard for a few weeks.
thegamblerx
7. Chasing At Night
Many, many years ago, I worked at a regional radio station in the middle of freaking nowhere, Australia.
I was the overnight operator - I kept the overnight playlist running, set up for the morning, did all the manual checks for the next day, and jumped on the desk if anything funky happened.
I spent a lot of time sitting in what was essentially a tin shed in the middle of a paddock with my dog, shoes off, listening to 50s & 60s music, and doing crossword puzzles.
Except one night when the roo shooters came through. They spooked the kangaroos in the paddock, and one of them jumped head-first through our office window.
So there’s me - barefoot and half asleep when this 6’ tall kangaroo smashes through the glass window. Blood and glass were everywhere. My dog starts chasing the kangaroo. I’m chasing my dog.
And the kangaroo bounds around the office, knocking off desks in the dark, bleeding everywhere. I ran and opened the studio bay doors, and my dog chased it outside. Where, I’m assuming, the poor thing (the kangaroo) was shot.
Then I had to call my boss.
FormalMango
8. Better Luck Next Time
I was an orderly in a hospital. Two of us were sitting in the basement office adjacent to the morgue. A guy passed our office, looking at us a little shifty, came back again and asked if we had access to the morgue.
We said “yes,” thinking he was doing a pickup for a funeral home, but that seemed strange given it was around 12:00-12:30 a.m. Nope.
He wanted to pay us to let him in and leave him alone with the bodies for an hour.
We escorted him up to security. Apparently, he had tried it in the past, as security knew him.
odd-42
9. Baby Timber Rattlesnake
Warning: medical gross stuff is incoming.
I worked in an emergency room. The worst night that comes to mind involves a patient who was bitten by a baby timber rattlesnake. He was bleeding out of every single orifice by the time he got to us.
More blood than I'd ever seen before outside of a motorcycle vs 75-mph-headfirst-to-asphalt. I don't remember how many doses of Crofab we gave him, but it was the hospital's entire supply.
But trying to get him stabilized, arranging the helicopter transport to a bigger and better-equipped facility, all the blood, those weren't the worst parts. The worst part was when the patient lost control of his bowels.
I will never, ever forget that smell. I spent the entire time standing by the door with a battery-powered fan and a handful of gauze pads saturated with cinnamon oil, trying to reduce some of the smell.
The doctor occasionally stuck her head out just so I could waft the cinnamon oil in her face.
Yes, by some miracle, the patient did end up surviving, and as far as I know, he made a full recovery. But the blood, the smell, and just the shock of it all. Yeah, never underestimate a baby timber rattlesnake.
GrandAdmiralD
10. Hitting Air
Was running the register at 24 hr supermarket. A stock person comes running into produce carrying a mop handle screaming "You mother fudger"
Out of sight, he keeps yelling "Fudger!" and smacking the handle at something, for like 5 min.
I am ringing up customers, and freaking out because he was losing his mind. Still, I am not interested in getting involved in a murder..so I ignore it.
Later, I found out he was chasing a rat.
conniption_fit
11. Unsettling Experience
Many years ago I briefly had a job that started at 3:30 am. The job itself was very dull, but the commute was wild. The world is at its weirdest in the very early morning.
Road hazards haven’t been called in yet, so one day I pulled off the freeway and discovered that the off-ramp was completely flooded, deep enough that I have no idea how my car didn’t stall.
But the most interesting discovery was that if law enforcement has to raid a home, they do it around 3 or 4 in the morning because that’s the best chance of everyone being peacefully asleep.
One day I was nearly to work when I noticed something off ahead of me. I slowed down and came up to a massive police blockade, squad cars everywhere and absolutely crawling with heavily armed officers... but all in ABSOLUTE silence.
They silently waved me down a side street.
Just a creepy, unsettling experience.
QueerTree
12. The Ring
Did hospital security for about two months. It was a small hospital out in the sticks so we were responsible for removing patients who had passed from their rooms and transferring them into the morgue freezer.
We had just brought a decedent to the morgue, and right before we were about to transfer them to the freezer, their cell phone rang.
Granted, it was pretty tame compared to some stories, but at the time it gave us a decent fright.
MurphysCousinInLaw
13. The Sad Side
I worked in a residential treatment center for teen girls. One girl with some severe trauma came sleepwalking into the room screaming to please untie her while clawing at her wrists.
She was begging me to help her because "he's torturing me!" I sat her down and pulled her bracelets and watch off. She went completely limp then got up and went back to bed.
It freaked me out seeing the raw emotion of her trauma since she was always smiling and relatively calm during the day.
Another time I was doing my nightly checks and a guy suddenly walked out from behind the door coming at me. I screamed and threw my flashlight at him.
It was a smiley face balloon.
[deleted]
14. The Log Truck
Leaving one night from work I was followed by a log truck and it kept going faster and faster until I was at 100mph.
I pulled off as the truck blew past my car rocking it.
The thing was, there were twisty turns ahead.
Couldn't find the truck.
rickrolo24
15. Loud Noise
Work in the winter for me is plowing and snow removal, it was late and I had been out for over 24 hours at this point, so I pulled over into a small cul de sac with the nearest house being over 100 yds away so I could let the truck stay on so I could stay warm (6 wheel mack things loud)
As I was nodding off, there was a very loud bang and it felt like someone had pulled on my driver-side door handle.
Luckily I always lock my truck doors. I immediately threw on every strobe/rear/headlight and started looking around and I saw absolutely nothing it scared the crap out of me.
Needless to say, I never sleep anywhere other than lit parking lots now.
Lovetopuck37
16. Weird Man
Used to work the night shift at a 24-hour Retail Store. Customers are nuts enough in the daytime but become WEIRD after midnight.
Once an elderly guy came in wearing only a jean jacket and fishnet stockings. He came up to my register, leaned in, and asked if we carried anything to get rid of lice...
Are those plastic barriers all stores have now to protect cashiers? They need to keep those even after the pandemic ends.
I lost count of the times customers got into my personal space to ask about products for fleas, lice, rashes, etc.
thrown12212020
17. Tip Toe
I was once staying late doing some scenic painting in a college campus theater. It was late, pitch black dark outside, and very quiet in the building. A few of us were up on the stage, not really talking, just taking care of business when suddenly I saw out of the corner of my eye something go very quickly by the open door to the lobby.
Wtf? Then it went by again and I actually saw what it was. A guy with long hair, wearing pajamas, and no socks or shoes. He was tip-toeing in a wildly exaggerated way, pulling his knees up very high, and grinning.
WTF?! It sounds kind of funny but it was creepy as hell. We all made eye contact and one of the other painters was just about to go shut the door when the dude walked right in.
He stood there staring at us for a full minute.
You could have heard a pin drop. He threw his arms out to the sides dramatically. He said, “I am YOUR SAVIOR, JESUS CHRIST!” no one responded and he eventually walked out. I guess he was hoping to get more of a reaction.
The door was promptly shut and locked behind him and security called. They were not impressed. Turns out that he was a patient at some sort of group home nearby and had done this multiple times.
I still get creeped out to this day if I’m working in a theater at night though.
cellrdoor2
18. Eye Opener
I was walking through the simulation lab for nursing students at the hospital where I work on very little sleep, all the lights were off and it was my first time working the night shift, I turned a corner and saw what I thought was a person standing behind a lamp that was on.
Turns out it was a mannequin holding the pull cord. Really freaked me out and I was awake after that.
Ghoulthrower676
19. Wild 3 AM Moments
It was 3 am. Popular Canadian coffee shop. There is one old baker in the back who rarely interacts with me past a dirty joke or a dirtier ditty from his Navy days. Other than that I'm alone.
Not another soul around the area and I expected it to remain so for at least an hour yet. I'm boxing up the day-olds for the homeless shelter when I swear I see something out of the corner of my eye. It's behind me.
I turn, then look down. There's a small child standing there. A native little toddler with a faux-hawk staring at me intensely. I'm struck dumb by how absurd the situation is. How did he get behind the counter?
I didn't hear the door open or see him come through the counter. I scan the storefront. No one. I yell for the baker in case he has a friend or something visiting that lost their kid. He comes over, and like me, does a double-take at the kid and is baffled.
The kid starts muttering incoherently. I get him a glass of water and a donut hole and the baker runs out of the store to do a perimeter of the block. I called the non-emergency line and explained I have a little kid with no parents.
I can't get any information from the boy, just mumbles I can't make out.
Police arrive. Baker comes back and says that he can't find anyone else in the streets. The guy from the 24/7 corner store said he'll keep an eye out. Police try to speak to the kid and also get nothing but mutterings and half-hearted gestures. They take him away.
I saw them again for their morning coffee and they told me the little guy walked several kilometers from the nearest reservation in the dead of night to my store. He had got into his parent's medicine cabinet and just... walked out of the house. I'm floored. It must have taken that poor baby hours to get to me.
Seeing him behind me like that in the dead of the night still shakes me. Spooked me more than the guy who threw a pot of coffee at me, the woman who tried to stab me with a plastic spoon because I refused to give her a metal one, and the dude who waited around for 4 hours hoping to catch me alone so he could teach me a lesson since I didn't have the flavor of bagel he wanted.
FlatteredPawn
20. The Knock
I worked the night shift at a large grocery store, one that wasn't open overnight but had a skeleton crew to work the loads and do prep and clean. I worked near the entrance - large glass doors that visually blocked off from my vantage point.
Around 3 am, I heard knocking on the doors. This isn't completely uncalled for, it's someone coming in for an early shift but didn't have a keycard, sometimes it's someone's food delivery, or sometimes a customer who thinks we are open despite clearly being closed.
I approach the door, it's a man that I don't recognize, wet from the rain. He looks normal enough, but something about him unnerved me. He had that vibe to him - you know the one, where it seems like maybe they're on their way to becoming a full-blown meth-head, but for now, they still manage to give the appearance of functionality.
He was holding his crap together just enough to appear normal, but the edges were definitely shaky. Anyway, without unlocking the door, I announced that the store was closed.
He told me that he just needed my help, his car had broken down in the parking lot and he needed a boost. I didn't drive, so I told him I couldn't help him. I should have walked away there, but he was out in the rain and I did legitimately feel bad, so I told him I would see if any of our few crew did drive.
I did find someone who was willing to help and got the night crew manager involved as well. We went out, turns out he was parked a bit off from the entrance, in a fairly secluded spot, and he had a lady with him.
There was a similar vibe with her - almost but not exactly normal. It didn't click right away, but I figured they had been hooking up in the car in the parking lot, maybe left the radio or lights on, and drained the battery.
To me, that explained the weird, unnerving feeling - they either felt ashamed, or guilty, and it was showing through. Anyway, my coworker goes over to help give them a boost.
The manager and I stay out there with him, nearby, watching. The two lovebirds kept peeking over at us a bit uncomfortably.
After a few moments, the coworker returns from the car and hurries us back inside. We don't see them drive off, which seems odd. We get inside, lock up again, and then the coworker thanks us for staying out there with him, and not leaving him alone with them.
He also caught on to the unnerving air about them, and it made him worried. What worried him more was when it also turned out that there was nothing wrong with their car.
_my_poor_brain_
21. Got Spooked
Working late at an ice rink. I’m a Zamboni driver. It’s a local rink with 2 sheets of ice.
I got a phone call from my coworker. He’s calling me on the Zamboni. It’s loud but I can CLEARLY hear him yelling “There is blood... a lot of blood. Oh, God.” And he hangs up.
So I started running. I tear into his arena and the ice is covered... in blood. Like, seriously, so much.
Then I realized how stupid we were. Well him more than me. When he started resurfacing the ice a hydraulic line to his board brush blew and started spewing out red hydraulic fluid. Looked like crimson blood on the ice.
I ran onto the ice and told him to pull off. He was frazzled and driving in circles.
Since he lost hydrologic pressure he couldn’t pull his conditioner up when trying to get off the ice. Ruined the blade on the Zamboni but there wasn’t much else he could do, couldn’t leave it on the ice.
I told him it was hydraulic fluid, not blood. But he should check for dead bodies around the rink anyway.
Best part. After he got off the ice, with fear in his eyes and adrenaline pumping, “Hey can you call our boss and tell him?”
“No, it’s 2 in the morning. It broke on you. You have to call him. That’s how it works.”
thePETEY12
22. It’s Raining Lobsters
Overnight at the supermarket. A man stole the live lobsters and ran out of the store with them in his sweatpants. Like all in his pants. Lobsters falling out of his pockets, out of the cuffs of his pants, etc.
The night manager ran after him yelling, it was quite a sight!
Also, one morning the newspaper delivery guy came to drop off the newspapers at 4 AM, and some rando guy who seemed to be on drugs, that I had just cashed out, jumped in the newspaper guy's car and took off. The night manager chased him as he sped off.
PickleyRickley
23. Nightmare For All
I worked in an open quarry mine down in Texas. We had this storm where it rained like a mother fudger for hours and hours.
Being night shift (6:30 pm-6:30 am) supervisor, I was in charge of 8 CAT 745 haul trucks, 2 CAT 390 excavators, 6 CAT 980 loaders, 2 D8 dozers, and 1 D9 dozer.
It was about 2 am when I had 3 haul trucks get stuck in the bottom of the mine. Just spinning their tires endlessly. It was horrible.
Since we're talking about tens of thousands of dollars of production per shift, I had to get permission to shut the mine down from the superintendent and relay that to the supervisors up in the plant that wash/dry the material (frac sand). They wouldn't shut down because I said so.
I called him at minimum 13 times within an hour to get him to shut the mine down. Since it was 2 am, he never answered which NEVER happened as he always had his phone on.
3-4 of us were soaking wet and covered from head to toe in mud to the point where you couldn't even tell we were wearing neon green hi-vis safety gear. We got the trucks pulled out of the mine after roughly 3 hours of using a combo of dozers loaders and excavators to essentially build a new road from dryer materials.
The superintendent got in at 6 am for the 6:30 am-6:30 pm shift, took one look at the mine, and shut it down for the day.
Turns out his phone charger came unplugged and his phone died in the middle of the night. Never knew I called.
DC4MVP
24. Unfortunate Holiday
I was working the Christmas Eve night shift in my local Emergency Department. The clock struck 4 am on Christmas morning, and the emergency buzzer sounded. A 74-year-old male patient had gone into a sudden cardiac arrest.
The buzzer wasn't working properly so we couldn't locate where exactly in the department it was coming from.
Once we finally figured it out, we got in there and I took over chest compressions.
A team of anesthetists, nurses, doctors, and 20 minutes later, we managed to get him back for just long enough for his family to come and say goodbye to him.
What a crappy Christmas.
cataplasiaa
25. Darkness in the Lockers
Used to work the night shift at a Middle School. Every night while cleaning out the boy's locker room I would hear at least 1 locker slam shut, sometimes more. This creeped me out when I started but after a couple of months, I got used to it.
One night while cleaning one of the girl's locker rooms, I heard a girl scream. I walked out of the locker room and even looked outside the building, didn't see anybody.
Before that, I worked at the High School, and I'd randomly hear doors open & close. Nowadays, I work the day shift at another school.
About a year ago I just got to the building to begin my shift, it was still dark out & I was turning on all the lights, when I walked by the Main Office I heard what sounded like someone ransacking the place.
Papers were being tossed, and I heard what sounded like a table or file cabinet being dragged.
I remember my 1st thought was, "Man somebody must've lost something important."
Then it clicked, it was 6 in the morning & it was either Thanksgiving or Christmas break meaning there was no school & there shouldn't be anybody in there. Took me a second to work up the courage to go in & check it out. When I did, nobody was there & nothing was out of place.
Finally, last month I got a call from dispatch at 3 AM, the fire alarm was going off & they needed somebody to go turn it off. As soon as I walk in, I freak out. The alarm is blaring but what scared me was the strobe light that flashes with the alarm.
The building was pitch black except every other second when that strobe lit the halls up. It looked like something straight out of a horror movie where they're looking for the killer.
I was half expecting to see someone pop up out of nowhere when the halls lit up.
-Danger10-
26. The Call
That reminds me of an experience I had several years ago. I went through a bit of a period of working insane hours where I was regularly in the office until midnight.
Usually, I was in the building by myself after everyone else left by about 6 pm. That suited me well, I could crank up the speakers listen to music, and get work done uninterrupted.
One night at about 10 pm I paused the music and went to the kitchen to get myself a coffee. Then, all of a sudden I heard a voice coming from my office saying "Hey!". It was very loud, there was no mistaking it, it was a male voice. I nearly crapped my pants! Our office had actually been broken into about two months earlier.
I slowly crept back to my office. The entire building, except for my office and the kitchen usually had the lights turned off after everyone else left, so it was quite dark.
As I was sneaking back, I heard some more indistinct but very loud rumbling coming from my office. I finally reached the corner where I could peek through the glass walls. There was no one there!
I found out quickly where the noise came from. Sometime earlier I got this game CD of a late 90's first-person shooter called "Redneck Rampage." The CD came with a screensaver that I ended up installing on my office PC.
The screensaver was just one of the redneck characters from the game wandering across the screen, occasionally farting and occasionally just saying "Hey!".
I never actually heard this before because I usually had the sound off during the day and didn't usually take long enough breaks at night for the screen saver to kick in.
saugoof
27. The Basement
Working late at my office/workshop one night. I'm doing analyses that take a while to run so I tend to snack and watch Netflix, or try and do another mundane task that needs to just run by itself.
This is a BIG building, but I'm in the basement where no one goes, and the aircon shuts off at night with little ventilation so it gets warm.
The horror story was more for the security guard that walked in on me, a 2m tall man, with no shirt on, heavily tattooed, eating cereal at like 3 am walking around.
I could never look him in the eye after that.
chalk_in_boots
28. Mac n Cheese
I was working 3rd shift security at a condo and a mother left the bathroom to check on their Mac n cheese. In that time, her 2-year-old drowned in the tub...
Once the police were done, my boss called me and told me I had to go talk to the family and find out what happened even though we knew from the police telling us...
My daughter was about 2 at the time, it broke my heart to even hear the story from the guy I relieved, and then I had to go ask the family to tell some dumas rent-a-cop about it as well.
The1Bibbs
29. Alarming Alarm
So we were doing an overnight refit of my department store - 3 stores for the selling floor and another 3 stores unused. To save on cost they'd just employ the normal day staff but overnight. It's a proper building in the CBD. No way in, only out when locked.
Basically a bunch of uni students working 9 pm to 5 am for that sweet overtime. The store was completely empty except for us and a few tradesmen on different floors. Whelp, something kept setting off the alarms on the top floors. The floors are pitch black as they are unused, and you know it's night shift. The night manager thinks it's an errant tradesman, trades supervisor thinks it's one of us.
Alarms get reset 3 or 4 times. It's pissing off the big manager because he gets called when the alarms go off. So we all are sent out of the building, headcount taken, freaking alarms go off again.
Right, the night manager troops us all back in and goes into the Comms room, brings up all the cameras, goes back in the footage, convinced one of us is dicking around.
Can't see anything. Nothing. Except then a shadow was moving, backlight by the faint light of the smoke detector. It moves out of frame.
Well, now we have a shadow monster in our sealed building above us.
Tradesmen troop up the stairs tools in hand, the manager unlocks the stairwell door - the only way onto the floor- throws the lights on.
Nothing there.
Lights off. The door locked repeats this on the other floors working up.
Nothing there.
Spooked but proven nothing is there, we go back to work.
Alarms go off.
This brave tradesman says "I'll hide upstairs and catch it".
We let him.
We are all waiting in the stairwell. After 20 minutes, we hear screaming and the alarms going off.
Tradesman yelling, "What you doing, you freaking jerk"
We all burst into the room like the Scooby gang as a homeless man Olympic flips himself into the HVAC system.
Apparently, we had the Olympic athlete of homeless people living in our HIVAC system, and our overnight shifts disturbed him.
The night manager got the police to deal with it.
Since this department store was a retrofitted old building there was actually a fair bit of room between the floors on the upper levels. Homeless people made a swag between them. Moved between them by army crawling the big vents. Which also explained why the system was freaking useless.
paperconservation101
30. Hell Shift
I worked the night shift at a group home for disabled adults. It was a pretty chill job. Generally, I showed up for work at 9pm finished up some household chores (did the dishes, swept and mopped the floors, took out the trash, folded some laundry, and stuff like that)
Then, I watched TV with one of the clients until he was ready for bed; after I helped the aforementioned client to bed, I slept on the couch until about 7 am when it was time to get them up, give them their meds, and make them breakfast.
Then I was done at 9 am and had the day to myself. It would have been the perfect job if one of the clients didn't hate me - I guess I looked like a relative that abused him or something - but he was an alcoholic and usually passed out drunk by the time I got there and wasn't a morning person for the same reason, so I didn't really have to deal with him much.
Then, one night was a perfect storm of events. The alcoholic client was still up when I arrived for my shift, which was a bit of a bummer since he swore at me and called me names, but I helped him make a snack and he went to bed after eating.
The next thing I knew, there were EMTs knocking on the door; the client had called them because he was in pain. The EMTs assessed him and stated that they didn't see a reason to bring him to the hospital since the pain was caused by a chronic condition.
But he demanded to be taken anyway, so they loaded him up into the ambulance and went. I couldn't go with him because I was working alone and had two other, much less independent clients to look after.
The managers who were typically on-call were away at a conference, so I called my immediate supervisor, who was acting on-call, to inform her of what happened. My supervisor's husband was at work and she was home alone with her young children, so she couldn't go to the hospital.
She didn't want to call someone in either, so the plan was that the client would have to stay at the hospital overnight, and she would pick him up in the morning.
It wasn't an emergency, so the nurses at our small-town hospital probably wouldn't call in the doctor. The client likely wouldn't be seen until the doctor came in to do rounds at about 4-5 am, so it should have been fine.
About an hour later, I got a call from the ER nurses with an ultimatum: Come pick up the client right now, or they're calling the cops because he is causing a disturbance.
Awesome.
I got the client on the phone and explained that I was trying to find him a way home, but he had to calm down in the meantime; I told the nurses I would call them back as soon as I figured something out.
I called every taxi in the phone book, but of course, none of them were running since it was a weeknight and the bars had already closed for the night. I was weighing getting into my car and picking him up myself since the other clients were in bed.
I would only be gone like 20 minutes tops when I had an epiphany: Some kid was trying to start his own Uber knockoff in my town. I got the kid on the phone and he agreed to pick up the client from the hospital.
He demanded an absurd amount of money for the service, but whatever, I was desperate. I called the nurses at the hospital and explained the updated plan, but the client had calmed down since their last call and they were waiting for some tests to come back.
Freaking awesome, girls; thanks for letting me know; great teamwork. The nurses assured me they'd be quick and the kid agreed to wait at the hospital until the client was done, so crisis averted, I guess.
Then, I had to figure out how to pay the kid for picking up the client. The client had no money, and of freaking course, the petty/emergency cash box was empty; all I had on me was my debit card, and there was no way this kid had a debit machine on him.
So I did the best thing I could think of: I borrowed the money from another client, and when my replacement came in the next morning, I went straight to the bank and withdrew the same amount of money I had borrowed.
I paid back the other client immediately. Was it against the rules? Yup. But what other choice did I have besides letting a client get dragged off to the drunk tank on my watch?
Shift from hell over, right? Nope. A month later, I got called into a manager's office and written up for borrowing money from the other client. Honestly, I was probably fine with the write-up since I did break the rules.
But what really pissed me off was the insinuation that I stole from the client I borrowed the money from and that the company was doing me a big favor by not firing me.
The company, the managers, my supervisor, no one would accept any responsibility for the situation they put me in. They just said I handled the situation "wrong," and when I asked how I should've handled it, they said, "Not like that."
So I gave my notice. Curse 'em all.
Mess-Ambitious
31. Worst Guests
I work at a hotel in the middle of the city. I was on the overnight front desk shift when my valet at the time realized there was a man in one of the guest rooms that was previously occupied.
We called the police and found that the guests upstairs HOG-TIED him, so he was escorted out, It was nothing too crazy; stuff like that happens all the time in a hotel like this. However, we had the three lowest floors of the hotel shut down due to low occupancy during COVID-19.
We soon discovered he was caught in the guest room after trying to open every door from the floor up, seeing if it was unlocked or propped open slightly. He was staying in one of our vacant rooms on the low floor, unknown to us, for a week, stealing food from the mini bar and banquet halls.
We watched him on the security cameras on the lower floors walking around the halls every night butt naked and videoing himself...
kcrolius
32. No Idea
I was a night shift team lead at a homeless shelter I have too many horror stories but a stand out is when one of the clients died, when we found her she had been dead for several hours.
We still attempted CPR.
It was a very unsettling and traumatizing experience, not only for the interaction with a dead body but also just knowing she died on the floor in this warehouse and that several of us had likely walked by her while she was dead.
Sad-Dig9321
33. Born Ready
The night shift nurse Picked up the phone at about 2 am, “Don’t panic, but...” Recognized it as one of the C-suite’s voices. I was immediately worried. “There’s an electrical issue in the [something-another] closet.... there’s a chance it may explode.
You need to evacuate all patients from the area.” Just me and one other nurse with 5 moms, their 5 babies, and however many visitors.
We quickly jumped into our own little (panic-driven) task force. We had packed up enough diapers, wipes, formula, water, snacks, and blankets to be evacuated for a week lol. I am happy to report it didn’t explode, and all was back to normal by the 7 am day shift.
There are plenty of ‘horror’ stories from creepy things happening or just not having enough staff during bad deliveries. But this one has always stood out in my memory.
DrunkOnSushi
34. The Siren Sound
A security officer here posted one night to an old site that apparently was a hospital being turned into a rest home. With no power on site, all I had was my flashlight and laptop to watch movies cos it was a 12-hour watch.
The place was massive, and at night you literally couldn't see fudge at all! Anyways, the company had put up a temporary security camera that every time it picks up motion, the thing sends off a loud siren sound for about 30 seconds.
The first time that thing went off I went to investigate with emergency service on speed dial and goosebumps flaring. I couldn't seem to find what was causing it to go off. It then would go off a couple more times into the night it got to the point where I would just let it do its thing.
But every time it went off it would send shivers down my spine. When we do our handover with the next guard I would tell him all the time how the siren just goes off at night all the time. I haven't been back in a while.
But man, I still think about that place to this day. It scares me.
Silent_Tonight_3000
35. Face Recognition
We used to have face recognition software on our motion cameras; it would drop a little blue box around someone's face as they walked across the frame.
Management turned off that feature when the camera kept tracking "faces" all over the building when no one was there. The final straw, I think, was the camera focused on the hall outside our control center.
The camera saw "faces" entering and exiting the office and going down the hall all day and night, randomly, with no other possible explanation.
Now it just records the motion events with no creepy face recognition. I just watch the empty museum track visitors throughout the night.
AnArdentAtavism
36. Other Sound
I'm a warehouse security guard in Indiana. I started on midnights and have since moved to 2nds. It was around 4 am, and I was in the exterior part of my perimeter tour since no one was there, I was singing a song, just something I like to do while I'm alone. (I picked up the habit in Scouts when we would go on hikes)
So I'm outside, it's maybe a hundred-foot walk to the door I'm supposed to re-enter the warehouse with; I hear footsteps and an awful voice singing the same song behind me.
I whip around, and this dude who's basically emaciated, his eyes are bulging, and he's got a bunch of pockmarks on his face is walking behind me. I kid you not, my craphole was so tightly puckered I could've sucked in a bicycle.
Some freaking meth or crack addict had snuck up on me, and he was less than 15 feet away. I asked him who he was and why he was there. He didn't respond and just kinda watched me.
I told him this was private property and was closed at this time; he needed to leave now or I'd call the police. He looks around, scratches his arms a bit, and turns and walks away, looking back occasionally.
He finally left the property, and when I was absolutely sure he was gone, I bolted in the door. The scariest night I've had working there. If he hadn't started singing, he could've done whatever he wanted to, to me.
I have tinnitus and sometimes I hear noises that aren't actually there. When I hear footsteps nowadays, I typically just chalk it up to hearing a faint echo because that's what it typically always is.
Now whenever I hear anything, I look to see what it was. I told my supervisor in the morning that I had to kick a person off the property cause they were loitering after hours.
My supervisor just kinda told me that stuff like that happens, and it's fairly normal this close to the edge of inner Indy.
[deleted]
37. The Guards
My buddy and I were in the guard shack at an important entry point - like 100% ID checks, can't be expired, gotta double-check against a list put out even if the IDs are valid, so if you're not on the list your ID doesn't mean crap.
It's around 3 AM, and we're watching creepy YouTube videos during the time that nobody is coming through. He looks up and shouts, "What the fudge?" I look up and scream like a little girl and nearly jump out of my chair.
Dollar Store Jason Momoa was just... face pressed against the glass, grinning, and once he scared the crap out of us, he laughed and walked in. The dude was as big as Jason Momoa and pretty similar looking, I mean, Dollar Store version of him.
10 minutes later, after we calmed down, I looked at him and asked, "Wait did he even show an ID?"
No, no, he did not.
Artyom150
38. A Man With a Backpack
As a former retail store graveyard worker, I can attest to the absolute weirdest people coming out at night. I’m not sure what it is about 12-3 am, but that’s definitely the sweet spot.
The weirdest thing that would happen at mine was that periodically, a man (or should I say a typical Walmart brand tweaker) would come in, you know, tall-white-bald-weird dirty sweatsuit type pants/shirt, and he wore a backpack. So the first time you saw him, you were thinking, of course, he’s gonna steal crap.
And he did, a lot, actually. But that’s because he was the fastest tweaker alive. The man had to have mapped the store out because he was in and out of departments like he had an underground route!
He’d stroll right in, someone would see him and walkie his location, and he’d snatch whatever and simply vanish from hardware to suddenly appear in HBA. Then we’d run after him, and he was gone again.
It was honestly kind of creepy knowing that he could be around somewhere close because he was always really messed up on meth or something. You wouldn’t know he left until you heard a fire exit go off. That’s how we knew he was gone.
It wasn’t a one-time thing- it happened at least once a month. Same guy, same operation.
Sometimes, I miss that job, just for the absolutely crazy stories like that.
imakehersay
39. Wake Up
I work with disabled people, youth, and adults.
In an adult unit, I was paired with another guy, and we were looking at the cameras, waiting for the patient to wake up and go to the bathroom. That'd be around 4-5 AM, right before the day shift comes in.
At some point, my colleague was dozing on and off (thanks to overtime) and I just saw the patient get up like they sometimes do in horror movies (rigid body movements) and just start to slap his face.
Then, he ran to the door to slam his head into it.
When we got to him (15 seconds later), we saw what the evening shift guy meant when he said the patient wasn't well. His face was bruised and cut all over from his self-mutilating.
He looked like a swollen statue of himself crying blood.
Brock2845
40. Bad Call
I worked the night shift at a small hotel in a small town in Utah. Every so often, some guy would call us and ask questions about booking a room but would never actually go through with it.
One night, he calls in again, and I'm entertaining his questions. He asks about rooms and rates, things to do around town, and our location. Then he started asking personal questions like where I was from, if I was Mormon, and if I was alone.
He then asked if I was standing up, which freaked me out because I was, and I was sure he was somehow watching me.
Looking back, it would make sense that I was standing behind the desk on the phone, but my sleep-deprived brain didn't make that connection until later.
I told him to stop calling and hung up the phone, then I went to the back room and cried. I called my then-boyfriend/now-husband, and he talked to me while I calmed down.
When I think about it now, it was probably some guy high or drunk and thought it would be funny to mess with someone. It was so freaky, especially since I was alone, tired, and couldn't think straight.
sweetcheeks524
41. Full Moon
I worked the 3rd shift as an RN on an orthopedic floor. Never failed; every full moon, crazy things happen. 1 night, we each had 11 patients and 3 nurses, no CNA. It started with the man who was on oxygen constantly trying to smoke in his room despite hearing the dangers and warnings.
Before I could contact the shift manager, I heard a noise I can't describe. 1 of my coworker's patients with a rectal tube had slid out of his special air mattress onto the floor with the rectal tube out.
The phone is ringing as she and I try to get him back in bed. Get him in bed with the help of strong security guards. I answered the phone, and 1 of my patients kept calling 911. She was receiving too much pain medication.
When I walked in to check on her, she had climbed (post-op 2 knee replacements) over the side rail and was all tangled up. That wasn't even the whole shift. Gunshot victim with angry family around past visiting hours.
Literally got yanked by 1 patient's family member into a room and shoved towards a guy who they say is going to vomit. Of course, before I could grab a bucket, it went all over me.
Many mornings, I went home with vomit, urine- had a full urinal thrown at me-, or worse, somewhere on my person. Always disrobed on the mud porch and immediately showered every morning.
Between all of those calamities, there were strokes, codes, and DNR patients who passed away even on orthopedic. There is a lot entailed in preparing the deceased patient for the family to say final goodbyes, then much more after the family's departure.
Not sure why this particular memory is so prevalent in my mind, as there were much worse incidents that happened.
Ok_Point_1680
42. Swallowed Up
Downtown Vancouver, Canada.
I worked the overnights at a famous fast food chain. This guy, who was clearly very strung out, kept screaming at me because he wanted free food and almost looked like he was going to leap over the counter.
As someone who is a female and only 5 feet tall, of course, I was terrified and just trying not to further aggravate him.
The worst part was that the manager knew this was happening, as well as the kitchen staff (as they could also hear it).
No one was really doing anything or even coming up front to make it appear like I wasn’t alone.
Finally, after a few threats that he was going to stab me and telling me multiple times that I needed to give him free food + and more drugs, the manager finally called the cops.
The dude had bolted by the time they arrived.
I was just super angry that it took them so long to even attempt to help me or take any form of action. I didn’t work there for much longer and moved on to brighter days of a 6 am-2 pm life as a barista.
unicorndreamz94
43. Not Funny
I worked at a gas station on the night shift for a year. It was pretty deserted a lot of the time.
I didn’t see too many bad things except some runaway teens, a super creepy guy who wanted me to date his son after he found out I was married, and a guy who just stared at me the whole time with pure hatred but didn’t say more than two words to me.
But the worst thing was on my first night working there, a regular came in with a gun, saying he was robbing the place. After what felt like forever of me just frozen in fear, he started laughing and saying it was just a prank.
That was 7 years ago, and I still hate his guts.
zelda_slayer
44. Unexpected Event
This happened 5 years ago on my 21st birthday.
I was working at the family restaurant at the time on the evening of my birthday. I will preface the story by adding that around this time, several shootings had happened over several months.
Anyways, it's about 1:30 am, and suddenly, an entire wall, along with its windows, explodes all across the inside of the restaurant. I screamed and ducked, literally fearing for my life because I thought I was in the middle of a shootout on my goddamn 21st birthday.
As it turns out, a car had blasted through the wall/windows, so my coworker went to run outside to see what the hell just went down.
I call 911, and while I'm talking to dispatch, I go outside to see the damage for myself.
My coworker managed to get the unresponsive driver out of the destroyed car by the time I got there. WELL, the person driving the car was our food delivery driver. He had left just moments before the accident to drive out his final delivery of the night and coincidentally experienced his first seizure.
Absolutely bad luck, right?
Anywho, first responders come, take him away, and he is okay. I'll also note that, thankfully, no one else was hurt.
We all stayed until about 5 am cleaning glass, car parts, and other shrapnel out of the restaurant. A birthday to remember!
mstamato
45. All Eyes On Me
I work in the supply chain of a children's hospital. I was having a crappy day in my dept, work politics, and such. Went to deliver a child-size body bag to a Pedi ICU room.
Normally the nurses are at a mini desk outside the room, but I saw her through the door of the room partly open. Handed her the bag and saw the patient's entire family around the bed.
They stared at me with expressionless faces and sadness in their eyes as I handed a nurse a body bag for their loved one.
It was the most awkward and depressing thing, and it humbled the crap out of me for the day.
I should have just left the bag on the desk near the room.
fhloston2112