has anything spooky happened to you at work?

Did you ever work somewhere haunted? Feel the ghost of your predecessor marooned in your office? Encounter an evil spirit lurking in the coffee maker?

It’s almost Halloween, so let’s hear all your stories about spooky experiences at work. Share in the comment section!

And to start us off, here are some particularly creepy stories from past years:

“For a few years after college, I worked at a coffee shop located inside a grocery store. One morning a week, a nearby assisted living facility would bring about a half dozen residents to do their grocery shopping. Most of them would come in and head right for the coffee shop for a drink to sip as they did their shopping. And most had a regular order, same exact thing every time; you could start making it as soon as you spotted them and have it ready by the time they reached the counter. But one guy, Neil, had a more adventurous streak and always placed a different order, sometimes decaf, sometimes regular, sometimes dairy, sometimes soy, etc., so you’d never know until he placed the order.

One morning, Neil came in and ordered a drink, paid, and went to browse the aisles while he waited. I made the drink (in a cup with his name on it), placed it on the pickup counter, and promptly forgot about it while serving other customers. Maybe 45 minutes later, I notice that Neil’s drink is still sitting there unclaimed. I looked toward the front of the store and could see the rest of the assisted living group checking out at the registers. Figuring that Neil had just forgotten to come back for his coffee, I grabbed the cup and walked to the front of the store to give it to him, but couldn’t spot him. I asked the caregiver accompanying them if Neil was already back on the bus, and she looked at me like I’d sprouted a second head. And then informed me that Neil had died several days earlier.

If it were anyone else, I would have assumed I’d simply gone on autopilot upon seeing the other residents, and just made the regular order for someone I hadn’t actually seen come in. But he didn’t have a regular order. I’m absolutely certain I talked to him and marked up that cup with his name and order and took his money and gave him his change. To this day, I have absolutely no explanation and it still freaks me out to think about it.”

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“I worked for a food delivery service in a large city, in an area that had been renovated/improved for tourism in the decade or two prior, and is still a very fashionable area. One night I had to make a delivery to an apartment on the third floor of a particular building, which was actually a really nice-looking place with a pretty ritzy address. The unease started when I was halfway across the lobby; it got worse in the elevator. By the time I started walking down the hall on the third floor I felt like the walls were closing in on me; my heart was pounding, and I had such an overwhelming sense of dread that I could hardly breathe. I was terrified.

I had to visit the place twice more before I asked my boss if I could please never deliver there again. Every time I had the same unease leading into terror, the same sense that something horrible was happening or going to happen. Every time I ended up practically running out of the building with tears in my eyes.

About ten years ago, I finally decided to Google the address, and search for things like “[city] murders.” I don’t remember which search led me there, but I finally found an article that mentioned the address…because there had been a pretty gory drug-related triple murder on the third floor there, back in the mid-80s or thereabouts.”

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 “I work in a nursing home with many folks who have dementia. They live in other realities, and I’m used to residents saying weird things. However, there seems to be a trend in one area of the building where residents typically refer to ‘the little boy’ who always seems to be standing somewhere near. It’s very common for a resident to be talking to the little boy (look like they’re talking to thin air), and it’s also common for them to ask us questions about the boy (‘is this your child?’ or ‘is the little boy going to come to the activity too?’, etc.). It’s only in that one area of the building, but it’s with almost all of the residents who have dementia. Only one of them has a history of having visual hallucinations. It does creep me out a little bit.”

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“I worked at a place where when we renovated our office, they decided to replace all the walls with glass, to show we were a ‘transparent organization’ (as you can probably guess, leadership there kind of sucked). While the higher ups had frosted glass offices, most of the staff had glass, fishbowl offices with no doors. As you can imagine, we all hated when we lost our walls, particularly one guy who routinely complained about it.

Well, a few months later this guy is fired (for unrelated reasons) in the worst way possible, where they did it midmorning, and everyone saw it happen (hard to hide things in a glass office). So he had to pack up all of his stuff and was escorted from the building.

The next day, the glass walls of the fired guy’s office shattered. No one was near that office, no one saw anything suspicious, and we worked in a secure office so people couldn’t come in without us knowing. We never found out what happened, but I like to think that fired guy got his revenge.”

Let’s hear your own stories in the comment section.

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