First Day on the Job Horror Stories 1
I once worked as a direct care aid for a 65-year-old woman with a developmental disability. Her daughter, who was in her 40s, worked overnights, and she needed a caretaker with medical experience to watch her overnight. When I say "once worked for them," I mean I literally worked just this one night, and you're about to hear why I never went back.
The 65-year-old woman's name was Martha; her daughter's name, who contacted me, was named Colleen. It's possible Colleen didn't have any other family to watch her and didn't want to, or couldn't afford to, put Martha in a nursing home. Or it was possible that she felt more comfortable hiring somebody with some form of experience to watch over her. At the time, I was already a direct care worker for two other women who suffered from some forms of Developmental Disabilities, so I had experience, but nothing prepared me for that night.
Colleen left for work earlier that day. I worked my first job, so I was really pushing my body to exhaustion trying to make as much money as possible. Colleen had introduced Martha and me. Martha had given me a smile before Colleen brought her upstairs to her bedroom for the night. It was around 9:00 p.m. Colleen told me that Martha would sometimes walk around the house at night acting confused, and I'd need to calm her down and bring her back to her room. She specifically addressed this not to be a form of sleepwalking. When I asked, she said it's one of the symptoms of her mother's dementia. I told her to rest assured that I'd know how to handle it.
I spent my time initially in the living room, catching up on my show. These jobs aren't super glamorous, and for the most part, it's a lot of sitting around. I heard footsteps from upstairs. I went to the stairway and looked up the stairs, then called Martha's name, asking if she needed anything. She didn't answer. I heard her footsteps go back to her room, and then the door closed. Maybe she went to the bathroom. I went back to the living room and watched some more TV.
It was maybe an hour later that I got up to grab my sandwich that I brought from the fridge. As I left the kitchen with a plate and my sandwich to go back to the couch, I nearly had a heart attack and dropped the plate when I saw Martha standing at the doorway, glass shattered everywhere. I apologized to her and asked if she was okay. She started yelling at me, "Who are you?" I reminded her who I am, "I'm her direct care worker here to make sure she's okay." Everything she said at this point was in a loud scream, "Why are you here? I don't know you," things of that nature. I reminded her that we had just met and that her mother Colleen hired me to watch her and the house. This seemed to work for long enough for me to get her to come back upstairs with me and to her room. I brought her up a glass of water and some melatonin and Kazaam, I made sure she took both before going back downstairs.
After a few hours, I was absolutely exhausted. I had to get a couple of hours of shut-eye. There was a spare bedroom upstairs with a twin-sized bed where Colleen said I could rest if needed. I felt like at this point Martha was asleep for the night from the Melatonin. I fell asleep within minutes, but I was asleep for only maybe an hour. I woke up to a sound from...
First Day on the Job Horror Stories 2
"Downstairs, it was this repeated slamming every 1 to 2 seconds. Something from downstairs was being slammed. I jumped out of the bed. I had left the bedroom door open so that I'd hear anything if Martha got up. Case in point right here. When I got to the stairs, I realized the slamming was coming from the kitchen. I walked down the stairs in as quick of a speed as I could while still remaining quiet. Getting to the bottom, I peered around the opening to the kitchen, and what I saw was like a scene from a scary movie I'd seen before. I saw Martha in the darkness standing in front of the oven, repeatedly opening it and slamming it shut. It was horrifying. When I say I saw Martha, I really only saw her silhouette. It was that dark in the kitchen. I said, 'Martha,' really loudly, and she stopped, turned to her left at me, shut the oven door one final time, and started walking towards me, towards the stairs. I said in a now softer kind of scared-sounding voice, 'Are you okay?' She got close enough to me where I could now see her facial features, and she looked at me with this blank expression, then walked right past me and started walking up the stairs. I followed her upstairs, but as soon as she got to her room, she slammed her door shut. I knocked on the door, saying, 'Martha, are you all right?' She didn't respond. I quietly opened the door just to peek inside, and I saw Martha at the side of her bed, just standing, facing the wall. I've seen a lot, but this was some pretty unsettling behavior that I feel like is the exact kind of stuff you'd see in some scary movies, like I mentioned before. I walked over to her and gently eased her into the bed. When she was laying down, I covered her, and for what I was hoping would be the final time, I said, 'Good night, Martha,' and shut her door. I went across the upstairs to the spare room and went back to bed. I purposely tried not to fall asleep for at least half an hour, just in case she'd wake up again, but I don't even know if I made it that long. All I know is I fell asleep pretty freaking quickly. I woke up once again, however much later. The room was still pitch black, and the 1-hour alarm I set had not yet gone off. I looked around the room, wondering what woke me up. I didn't see what it was until I heard a sound from inside the closet. I then noticed the cracked open closet door and the black shadow of a head peeking out of the closet. Again, I almost had a heart attack. I said, 'Martha.' She didn't answer. I kept saying, 'Martha,' a bunch of times until she pushed the door open, and I saw her approaching the bed slowly. She started saying what she was saying hours ago again, 'Who are you? I don't know you.' As she got closer, I tried calming her down, reminding her who I am. I reached for the lamp next to the bed and fumbled with it until it turned on. Martha was holding a huge kitchen knife in her hand. At this moment, everything changed. Martha was now a threat to my life, and I had to worry about myself, not her. I screamed at this point, 'Martha, put the knife down!' I guess my scream stressed her out because she got closer and started screaming back at me, still repeating, 'I don't know you.' I wasn't going to attempt to calm down a knife-wielding dementia patient. That was not in any job description. I mapped out a way to run around her in the bedroom, and I went for it. I jumped off the bed on the side further from her, and she screamed again, 'Who are you?' She swung the knife at the air as I ran past her. It was a slow and weak swipe from what I saw, but nonetheless showed that she had intentions of actually using it. I got downstairs and grabbed my shoes and went outside. Instead of calling 911, I called Colleen, as she requested I do if there's an issue. I was courteous in doing this because getting law enforcement involved is never doing anyone any favors. Colleen was yelling into the phone at me not to leave her, and honestly, I yelled back that she attempted to kill me and that I didn't call the police. She had to leave work. Of course, I stayed outside of the house, making sure Martha didn't go anywhere until Colleen returned. When Colleen went inside, Martha was back in her bed asleep. Colleen went as far as accusing me of exaggerating the whole thing until she found the knife next to Martha's bed. To not give her any more fuel to blame me for any of this, I left out the fact that I ever went to sleep. But that doesn't mean that I felt in any way I did anything wrong. Colleen even offered me that room to sleep. I never worked in that house again. Martha was a scarier patient than I'd ever dealt with in any of my jobs in my 9 years of being a direct care aid.
It was my first day working for this plumbing company. I was called in for my first job to this house out of town. The plumbing company had five employees, and the owner would choose who does what job. I don't see it as a coincidence that I was sent to some undesirable job far away in a shitty area for my first job. The call was for a leaky pipe under the sink, which is typically the easiest, most basic job to get a call for, depending on the root cause of it. I pulled up to the house, my first-ever call, and it was an absolutely disgusting-looking house, completely run-down as if no one had lived there for years. I went up to the house and knocked until a middle-aged man opened the door. I didn't like his aura from the start. He had this unflattering, disproportionately wide smile that made his entire face appear off-putting. His voice was also really soft and high-pitched, not the voice I was expecting to come out of his mouth, or maybe it was, given his unusual appearance. He welcomed me inside of the house. I realized there wasn't a single piece of furniture in the house. Just moved in, I asked him. He replied, 'Yes,' and then chuckled, or maybe I should say, he giggled, because it was just a weird, high-pitched little laugh. He brought me to the kitchen, and the first thing I did was set my stuff down on the counter, then open the cabinets under the sink. I slid myself under the sink and started to examine the pipe, specifically looking at the P trap and the lock nuts to make sure they weren't overly tight or loose. I noticed the man was standing directly over me, his legs spread wide so that I was sandwiched between both of his feet. It was extremely uncomfortable. I asked him politely to give me some space, and he backed up a bit, but not enough that would make me feel comfortable. I realized that I didn't see any water leaking at all, so I got out from under the sink and tried running the water, but no water came out
of the faucet. I looked at the weird man and asked him why the water wasn't running. He said he must have shut off the main water valve without realizing it. When I say I stood there speechless for a few seconds, I'm not exaggerating. I asked him bluntly, 'How do you do something like that by mistake?' He smiled and shrugged his shoulders. I asked him to turn the water valve back on. He turned and said he'd be right back, and I saw him leave the kitchen, but then I heard footsteps walking upstairs. I'd never in my life heard of a water valve being upstairs in any house. I knew something was off with this guy and the situation. Everything from the condition of this house to his mannerisms. And then I started hearing multiple sets of footsteps from upstairs, coming down the steps quickly. In a split second, I decided I was out of there. I grabbed my stuff and quickly walked out to the front door and my van. I'm a pretty large and loud dude, so I'm not really intimidated very easily by people in a physical way, but there was something about that situation and that guy that told me that something was about to go down. I looked at the house for a second, and then I drove away. I called Dave, my boss, letting him know it was just some kind of prank because that just sounded better than me saying I was scared of that guy. I did a few minutes worth of investigating and found out that that was just a vacant, abandoned house. I got the number that made the call for the alleged leaky pipe from Dave, and it turned out to be a voice over IP number, not even a real number. I reported this shady encounter with the local police department just so that they would be aware of it and maybe close off that house. I've never had a reason to return to that sketchy part of town again. I only worked for that specific plumbing company for about a year."
First Day on the Job Horror Stories 3
"No answer." We waited about 15 seconds and knocked again, harder this time. Still no answer. We were all getting impatient, and there was a smell of something rotten. We couldn't tell if it was the house or if something inside had died. Finally, after about a minute of impatiently waiting, someone opens the door, but not completely. They open the door only showing part of their face and asking who we were and what we wanted. My manager said we had their Pizza. The guy quickly unlocked the door and acted all friendly towards us. It freaked the three of us out. It was an older gentleman in his 50s at least. He told us it took him a while to open the door because it's hard for him to get around or some. Our manager handed him the receipt and asked if he was paying with cash or a check. The man told us he'd be back with the money. He left the front door open, so I looked around to see what the house looked like inside. Empty. Completely empty. No furniture or anything in that house, just the floor and a couple of blankets. Obviously, this guy was homeless and was just living here since no one else was. That's when we heard footsteps coming from upstairs. More than one person too. That's when we got uncomfortable about the situation. The realization of what the other employee said became true; someone was probably watching us as we walked to the front door. My manager yelled out if the man had the money yet, but he never got a response back.
The footsteps stopped. Everything just stopped. It became silent. You could just hear the three of us breathing. My manager told us to stay at the front door in case the man came back and that he'd go around the house to see if the man needed help or something. We nodded at him, and he walked towards the back. The two of us heard footsteps, but not from upstairs. They were coming from below us somehow. We both looked completely puzzled and confused and honestly uneasy about this entire situation.
That's when we heard our manager scream and heard frantic running. He ran to the front of the house where both of us were and told us to go back into the car and that we're leaving. I've never driven a car faster in my life. My manager explained to us that when he was walking around to the back, he saw a group of people in the darkness surrounding a sort of makeshift campfire, but it was very small. He got closer to them and noticed in the middle was a baby deer. The group of men were sitting around laughing at it as if they found it funny. The minute he said that, my heart almost stopped. The new guy and I quit right after, and I heard the manager quit a month after this. I'd never worked a delivery job again. Obviously, we walked into some kind of cult meeting, and I'm just glad we left when we did."
Stories 5, Shadows of the Past.
As the sun dipped below the horizon, casting long shadows across the city streets, I walked briskly towards my new workplace. Freshly graduated from university, I was eager to make my mark in the world of marketing. The building loomed ahead, its dark silhouette against the fading light sending a shiver down my spine. But I brushed off the feeling as mere nerves, attributing it to the excitement of starting a new chapter in my life.
The receptionist greeted me with a warm smile as I stepped into the lobby, but her eyes seemed to linger on me for a moment longer than necessary. I shook off the odd sensation and followed her directions to the elevator, rising to the tenth floor where the marketing department was located.
My first day passed in a blur of introductions and orientation. I met my new colleagues, learned about the company's projects, and familiarized myself with the office layout. Everything seemed normal, albeit tinged with an undercurrent of unease that I couldn't quite shake.
As the days turned into weeks, I settled into my role and began to feel more at ease in my surroundings. Yet, there was always something off about the office, a subtle feeling of being watched that lingered at the edge of my consciousness.
One evening, while working late to meet a tight deadline, I found myself alone in the office. The rest of the team had left hours ago, leaving me to wrap up the last few tasks before calling it a night. The silence was oppressive, broken only by the soft hum of the air conditioning and the tap-tap-tap of my keyboard.
Suddenly, a chill swept through the room, causing me to shiver involuntarily. I glanced around, but there was no one else present. I tried to dismiss the feeling of dread creeping up my spine, chalking it up to fatigue and an overactive imagination.
But then I heard it—a faint whisper, barely audible above the drone of the air conditioning. I froze, my heart pounding in my chest as I strained to make out the words. It sounded like my name, whispered over and over again in a voice that seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere at once.
Panic gripped me as I realized that I was not alone in the office. Someone—or something—was there with me, lurking in the shadows just out of sight. I wanted to run, to flee from whatever unseen presence was haunting the building, but fear rooted me to the spot.
With trembling hands, I reached for my phone, intending to call for help. But as my fingers brushed against the cool surface of the device, it suddenly went dead, the screen blanking out in an instant. Desperation clawed at my throat as I realized that I was completely cut off from the outside world, trapped in the office with whatever malevolent force was stalking me.
I forced myself to take deep breaths, trying to steady my racing heart and quell the rising tide of panic threatening to overwhelm me. I had to think rationally, to find a way out of this nightmare before it consumed me entirely.
Summoning every ounce of courage I possessed, I slowly rose from my chair and edged towards the door. Every creak of the floorboards seemed deafening in the silence, sending shivers down my spine as I prayed that whatever was lurking in the darkness would not reveal itself.
I reached the door and fumbled for the handle, my fingers slipping on the smooth metal surface. With a silent prayer, I pushed it open and stepped out into the hallway, the dim light casting long shadows that seemed to dance and twist with a life of their own.
I forced myself to keep moving, my footsteps echoing loudly in the empty corridor as I made my way towards the elevator. But as I reached out to press the call button, a sudden gust of wind slammed into me, knocking me off balance and sending me crashing to the ground.
Pain exploded through my body as I hit the hard floor, my breath coming in short, ragged gasps as I struggled to regain my bearings. And then I saw it—a dark figure looming over me, its features obscured by the shadows that swirled around it like a cloak.
Terror seized me as I realized that I was face to face with the entity that had been haunting the office, its presence sending waves of icy dread coursing through my veins. I wanted to scream, to beg for mercy, but fear rendered me speechless, my voice trapped in my throat as the figure advanced towards me with slow, deliberate steps.
I scrambled backwards, my heart pounding in my chest as I searched desperately for a way to escape. But the figure was relentless, its movements smooth and unhurried as it closed in on me with an almost palpable sense of menace.
And then, just when it seemed that all hope was lost, a sudden burst of light flooded the hallway, banishing the shadows and revealing the figure for what it truly was—a twisted, spectral apparition that seemed to flicker and fade in and out of existence with each passing moment.
I shielded my eyes against the blinding glare, tears streaming down my cheeks as I struggled to comprehend the horror unfolding before me. And then, as quickly as it had appeared, the apparition vanished, leaving me alone in the hallway with nothing but the echo of its chilling laughter ringing in my ears.
I lay there for what felt like an eternity, trembling and sobbing uncontrollably as the realization of what I had just witnessed washed over me. The office was haunted, its walls tainted by the lingering presence of something unspeakably evil that defied all rational explanation.
With shaking hands, I pulled myself to my feet and stumbled towards the elevator, my mind reeling with shock and disbelief. I had to get out of there, to escape the suffocating grip of the darkness that threatened to consume me whole.
As the elevator doors slid shut behind me, I glanced back at the empty hallway one last time, a shiver coursing through my body as I wondered what other horrors lay hidden within the shadows of the past. And as the elevator descended into the depths of the building, I vowed never to return to that cursed place again, lest I become yet another victim of its malevolent influence.