Is your workplace haunted?

[PorkChop]

I know we are really far off from Halloween. But what the heck! Is your store haunted?

At my C-store, 2 years ago, a guy was murdered in our parking lot. Guess who was working that night, yeah, me. That is another post all together.

Since this guy was murdered, we had strange doings in our store. He hangs around our cooler. I'll be in the cooler stocking beverages and I will see a black figure in the corner of my eye. I turned in that direction and there is nobody there. I go back to stocking and I see it again. He likes to call out my name when I am in there. Crazy!

In the cooler, the glass beer bottles rattle by themselves.

When nobody is in the store, the ice falls out of the ice thingy at the soda bar.

I can only see this guy in the corner of my eye. He likes to sit at the manager's desk.

The phone would ring 3 times in a row and there would be nobody on the line. One time we did star 69 and there was no number that called us.

I would be talking to my co-worker and there is nobody in the store. I keep looking behind me thinking there is somebody in the store at the front counter.

I have asked my other co-workers and they have seen this guy too and they have seen the things that I have seen. So I know I am not crazy!
This spirit is rather humorous but doesn't cause problems. He seems to only get active when there are no customers in the store.

So, you guys have ghosts haunting your jobs?

BOO!!

[king4aday]

At my current job...no...the place is so new (1 year old) that it most likely isnt haunted. While I realize that buildings arent actually whats haunted and that its the land, nothing has ever really sat on the land that my building is on except forest.

At my previous job at a tourist attraction here in the area, the building definately was haunted. On the site of that attraction there was a previous attraction which was torn down and this one was built in its place. Well, in the previous attraction (a museum) a child fell into one of the exhibits and and ended up dying from head wounds which he sustained.

Since I have always been sensitive to perceiving spirits, and felt his presence around me often while I worked there. He was actually a very playful spirit, and a great ally to have. He would move things around once in a while, and wherever he moved the item in the attraction, it made more sense and worked better with the attraction.

[Rine]

Hm...I am convinced that the electronics department of my store is haunted. When I used to work in it, I would usually be the only one there since I came in around 6 am to set the ad or do pricing. Sometimes I would be the only one on the entire floor.

We have one location where customers go in and out and it's a little security gate that goes off if someone tries to leave with merchandise that's not been deactivated. Well, the alarm liked to go off by itself and only when I wasn't looking at it. Sometimes it would be because a display of merchandise was sitting too close to the gate, but most of the time...I dunno. We also have another set of alarms for the camera cases that would go off for no reason and that was hard to deactivate too.

There was this one radio on the end of the stereo shelf that would always turn itself on. Maybe it was a faulty connection some where in the machine, maybe something was sitting on the remote...still, used to freak me out. It would always set itself to the local rock station even if it had been previously on a different station. A couple of the CRTs used to do this "turn on/turn off" thing, but strangely enough, the lcds/plasmas wouldn't do it.

I would always get chills and stuff in that department. I thought someone was always calling my name, though that might just be paranoia. I'm not a strong believer in ghosts, but this experience was different and I gave my "ghost" a name--Roger. So, er, I would pass the time by talking to Roger if I thought he was around.

[Chanlin]

At my C-store, 2 years ago, a guy was murdered in our parking lot. Guess who was working that night, yeah, me. That is another post all together.

Sorry I am ever the eternal skeptic, I would point to this as the root cause of your haunting. The mind is very good at producing things out of subconcious or concious fears. This is not to say that your experience was not something horribly awful, but this is the most plausible reason for pretty much everything else you are experiencing.

I'm going to paraphrase one of my favorite authors here. People will believe anything is true because they wish it to be so or they fear it is so. To this end passion and fear will overrule their reason. (Quoth Terry Goodkind and somewhat Ayn Rand)

I'm not saying that hauntings are by any means impossible, nor do I deny that such things exist, but I would also be remiss if I did not point out that a traumatic experience can cause the human mind to do many things to protect itself from snapping completely.

The phone would ring 3 times in a row and there would be nobody on the line. One time we did star 69 and there was no number that called us.

Caller ID can be spoofed. Also *69 won't work on blocked and or private numbers. Again just offering a possible and scientific explanation. Again I don't deny that spirits or ghosts could exist but I also don't jump to them as the first explanation for strange happenings.

A couple of the CRTs used to do this "turn on/turn off" thing, but strangely enough, the lcds/plasmas wouldn't do it.

Again with me being the skeptic

CRT or Cathode Ray Tube screens function by building up a massive electric charge in a capacitor. This is almost always constantly charged. It is not completely unlikely that the residual charge from the CRT firing off from an old monitor or the like would cause it to turn on and off seemingly by itself or do other funny things. This can also cause the faint lines, colors, or colored circle at the center of the screen even after it is turned off. Also CRTs do emit low yield electomagnetic waves which can cause other electronics to do all sorts of funky things, again this is especially prevalent in older models. Most newer models have bleeder circuits which discharge the capacitor, but these systems can fail and the charge has been known to remain upwards to several years after the monitor was last turned off.

Since LCD's and Plasmas don't use a capacitor to create their pictures they would be immune from such issues.

[donruss]

The pizza place I worked for 18-19 years ago is haunted. After one co-worker murdered another co-worker inside the store, we started seeing knives float up from the cans they were placed in and hover towards a table and just fall. (The corner is where co-worker was killed). It could be the power of suggestion that summons some sort of telekenesis or something that is unexplainable. Who knows? I believe tho.

[PorkChop]

I can see what you are saying Chanlin! But, I am not the only person experiencing this weirdness. The people who were at the store when the murder happened have moved on to other jobs or moved. We have a whole new crew.

I have never talked about the ghost until after everyone who worked there when this crime happened left. The new people have seen this dark figure in the corner of their eyes too. Our new manager, who has been there for 3 months, has seen it too.

[Chanlin]

I only ask if they knew about the murder?

Hauntings and other paranormal things have a tendency to be contagious when much simplier explanations exist. I am fully willing to admit I could be way off the mark. I make it a point to visit spooky/haunted places and I tend to (at last so I think) keep an open mind in such places.

I have only ever experienced one thing which I can not explain at all. I could write it off as coincidence or a 6th sense or whatever. My dad was the gym teacher at my grade school and when I was in 3rd grade he suffered a very serious stroke. Not long before it happened I for no explainable reason felt the need to go and see him. This was around lunch time and I was in the cafeteria. I went over to one of the monitors and got fairly insistant that I needed to see him. I ended up getting a detention because I got really insistent but couldn't offer any real reason for me to see him other than I really wanted to.

About 5 minutes into my detention I was called down to the office to find my sister with my Aunt wating to take us home with her and she baby sat us the rest of the day. She never told us what happened but I ended up asking her if my dad was hurt bad and she asked what I had heard and I told her nothing. She related to me that he was really sick and had to go to the hospital and that we were staying the night with her and my cousins because mom was at the hospital with him.

Anyway I could go on and on about this one, and sorry if I took over the thread but that is my one and only strange experience that I can not come up with any reasonable explanation for.

[Antisocial_Worker]

The hotel where I used to work had several ghosts that I and other employees, and also some guests had experiences with. You'd hear footsteps on the lobby stairs when there was no one there practically every day, and you'd also see people going up and down the stairs out of the corner of your eye. A couple of clerks saw a woman in a white dress coming down the stairs and disappear at the landing, and I saw a headless man dressed in gray do the same.

Our most prominent ghost was that of a lady who committed suicide in the jacuzzi suite about a year before I started working there. Some guests saw her standing at the foot of the bed if they awoke during the night, but what she would usually do was turn the TV on. If you switched it off, she'd turn it back on. Sometimes the TV would come on even once it was unplugged. A couple of my friends stayed in that room one night, and unflappable when the TV turned itself back on once unplugged, they just turned it around to face the wall and went to sleep. We had one guest as well who was staying at the end of the hotel and who would not use the hallway to come down to the lobby because every time he tried, when he passed that room, something would bang hard on the door.

The family that owned that hotel also owns several others. One sits on the site of the worst plane crash in North Carolina history, when, in 1967, a jet and a small private plane collided in midair and killed 83 people. Guests in our hotel have seen people wearing 1960's-vintage clothing wandering around in the building looking disoriented, they've heard screams, and they've called the front desk to ask what those blue lights are bobbing around in the field next door. One guest looked out a window in the upstairs hallway and saw nothing but flames on the other side of the glass. He immediately checked out, naturally.

The only other workplace-related haunting I can think of involved my mother when she worked at a department store in our local mall. One of the associates was killed in a wreck. For a few months afterward, whenever anyone would be vacuuming the carpet, when vacuuming behind the counter where that associate was usually stationed, something would yank the vacuum out of their hands and propel it past the counter.

Wait... second thought. My aunt was head of housekeeping for a hotel for many years and as such, she got the worst jobs because she was the only one who could be counted on to clean it properly. That's how she ended up cleaning up the aftermath of a man who committed suicide by blowing his head off with a shotgun (funny story there involving hot dogs). The suicide occurred on a rainy day, and for years afterward on rainy days, all the spots where the blood and gore and bits had spattered would glow. Practically fluoresce.

Edit: Third thought... A car levitated at a garage where my father worked once. It had slipped its jack and was falling, on him, when something stopped it, lifted it and held it long enough for him to get out from under it. Once he had, it fell to the floor.

[Monica]

At the video store where I work, I had one thing happen to me. Other co-workers had reports of things happening to them. I was skeptical of what they said, at first.

What happen was I was putting movies away. I had a big stack, and I put away a movie. Now keep in mind the movie was flat against the wall and there was only one copy. There is no one in the store. I turn the corner, and I here a noise. I think someone has come into the store. I turn around and that one movie was on the floor. I know I didn't bump it or put it on the shelf wrong, as I would of heard it almost right after.

Now some co-workers said they saw a dark shadow in the store, and also, the tv's would go off and on by themselves. Now I know the last could be explained away easily, but with my story and some of the other co-workers stories, it all seems to add up to a haunting.

[PorkChop]

Yep, they knew about the murder. But, it isn't something that we talk about often.

HauntedHeadnc, my God, those are some serious hauntings! The story of the 1967 airplane crash is crazy! Yeah, if I saw blue orbs floating, I'd be checking out too!

My grandparents own 20 acres of farmland in Kentucky. There is a horse farm next to their property. In between the properties there is a tunnel of trees. When I was little, I was exploring through there and I heard screams and felt cold spots. This was in the middle of the summer too! I was scared and I ran back to Nana's house. I told her what I have heard and felt and she told me that there used to be train tracks through that tunnel of trees. In the 1930's, there were two trains on the same track and they collided together and killing a lot of people. After the track wreck, the track line was moved to where they are today. Which is a quarter of mile up the road from the farm. After Nana told me that story, I never went into that tunnel of trees again!

My dad used to teach back in the 1980's. In the building where he taught used to be a hospital during the Civil War. The basement was the morgue. There are countless hauntings in that building. Today, it is a middle school. I know of one story where in the second story girl's bathroom has a ghost. Writes messages on the mirrors.

[CanadaGirl]

Kind of off topic-ish, but my manager at my current job says she has to leave the light on in the backroom when closing up now because a few years ago, at a different location that she managed, a co-worker had hung herself in the back room.

[powerboy]

Working overnights, and just 2 of us there. The other one went to grab us some Burger King. I saw something, and without thinking, I told it to leave and never come back. Unless he wanted to help stock shelves,. Afterwards, I looked it up online and found out that, someone died before the store was built. Oh, in case you were wondering, it never came back.

At my first factory job. I was working on the one machine. I also was working underneath the Giant Claw, as what we called it. Well, every once in a while, it would start up by itself. Since my grandfather worked there before he became disabled. And also he helped put it in. I asked him about it. He mentioned that the original operator died while working it. He had a heart attack and the nurse was more worried about the guys looking up her dress, then to climb the latter to help him.

I will now tell you about one of my dad's experience.

He was working as a chef for this one restaurant. one day him and another chef was working and they needed to find a pan. Well they looked all over for it, but they could not find it. Well out of the blue, it dropped straight down.

At the same restuarant:
A year before the place went out of business, a waitress told us about this one experience she had. She was closing up with a few other people. A family was still inside finishing their meal. Well since they were the only customers inside, they saw a little girl go by in a blue dress(she had red hair). They asked the waitress about it and went to look around for her. For some reason, she had the urge to look up at the porcelain dolls locked in a glass case. Well, it was not a little girl they saw, it was a porcelain doll. And the glass was opened and it was missing. After the employees cleaned up. The next day, when they came in, they saw that doll in the case. Mind you the fact, the restaurant opened from 2pm - 10pm, every night. I would love to investigate that place.

Whenever we went there to eat, I would always get touched somehow.

[Raieth]

The Zellers I used to work at had a ghost we all called "George". He must've been just a kid because he hardly ever left the toy isles. One of our jobs during night stocking was to front face while we stocked.

Well you'd stock, front face and move on to the next isle. Then you'd hear one of the motion sensing toys turn on. Sure enough whenever we went to look the isle would be a total disaster.

[PepperElf]

supposedly so, cos this place has been around for a few decades and there's been a number of accidental deaths and suicides.

i haven't really seen anything myself, but i think maybe i'm just closed to whatever - i wont discount what others say though (except for a couple of people who strike me as insane / pathological liars).

nurse was more worried about the guys looking up her dress, then to climb the latter to help him.

what a bitch. i hope the family sued her for that. i mean wtf.
i'm a female but ... the last thing i'd give a rats ass about is if they peek. ... first save the life, THEN kick their asses if they peek.

[wagegoth]

The last place I worked at was really bad, especially the floor I was on. I've told these stories here before, I'm retelling them to the best of my memory. What happened is the same, but what was said probably is different.

I was in a small, interior office. I had a file cabinet shelf that I kept a bunch of toys in, including my watch dragons.

One day I was sitting at my desk and the overhead heating vent was pouring cold air on me. I mean frigidly cold. I kept checking the thermostat, but it stubbornly read 73 degrees F. I finally asked for maintenance to come check it out. Then my friend R came by. She said, "My God, what is going on?" Then she noticed what I hadn't. "You're file is closed." She opened it, and as soon as she did the air turned warm again.

I was always feeling cold breezes chasing around my ankles under the desk.

Another day, I called R in. I was really upset. I told her, "There's something in here. I don't think it's evil, but it's lost or something, and I need help to get it out of here." She came right in. When she came in, whatever it was jumped up on my head and shoulders. I could feel the weight. And it hurt. It was really cold.

I told her where it was and she brushed her hand through the air just above my head. It jumped off. "Where did it go?" she asked.

"I think it's under my desk," I said. "It's really cold down there, and there's a sort of fuzzy shadow. It's moving."

"Do you have a candle."

I was worried about fire sprinklers, but I handed her a white, scented candle I kept on my desk.

"It's moving," I said. "It's under the printer table."

"I can't see it." She lit the candle and moved it toward the table.

I was surprised and worried. R is really good at seeing things like auras, that I can't. But I could see this shadowy thing that she couldn't.

"Wait, I see it." She pushed the candle under the table. She pushed the shadow thing out of the room with the candle. We relaxed and went back to work.

But it got weirder. Whatever it was came back. I called R. We talked, and I decided to try to help it. I let it up in my lap and then I sort of herded it over to a window. I pointed it toward the outside and talked to it. Suddenly, it was gone.

We had a tech person who was a hereditary witch who hated coming on that floor. She said it was really messed up. We don't know what went on on that floor. The building dates back about 35 years.