A Different Kind Of Work Experience

It's been five years since I last posted an update on here. Quite a bit has happened in that time. I'll start with a brief update to my last post. As I said in the last post, in 2014 I moved from Texas to Ohio. I'd said that a room in our house was feeling odd to us and was cold and we felt uneasy in there. After I posted the entry, we found out that the previous owner had passed away in the room. I asked my pastor to pray in the room, and after that the room felt fine. My roommates were freaked out by it still, so since I had the smallest room in the house and that was the biggest room, I moved into it. I didn't experience anything in that room while I lived in it.

On 28 January 2016, I moved into my own apartment. I lived there for a year and didn't experience anything paranormal while living there. Which I was actually kind of disappointed about because that place had been there since the '70s, so I kind of expected something to be there. Lol

At the end of my first lease at the beginning of 2017, I moved in with a friend because it'd be cheaper. My rent had gone up and I couldn't afford it there anymore. While I didn't experience much paranormal there, we did occasionally hear weird noises in parts of the house neither of us would be in at the time. Could have just been normal sounds, but we would joke that it was ghosts. The weirdest thing about that house was that there was this creepy doll shoved upside down into a hole in the roof of the cabinet above the stove. He said it was there when he moved in and was too afraid to touch it. I've seen Annabelle, I wasn't touching it.

On 18 July 2019, I moved into a big mansion, renting a room. It was closer to where everything was. Even though the house is like a hundred years old, I haven't experienced anything paranormal here in the year and three months I've lived here. Oh, it definitely gives off the creepy vibes because it's so old, but I haven't actually experienced anything here. In preparation of writing this, I asked around and neither has anyone else.

Backtrack to 2015, I got a job working as a dishwasher at a restaurant. People would tell me that the place was haunted. I'd laugh at them because of course it is. But shortly after I started working there, I started seeing things out of the corner of my eye that'd be gone when I looked. I just assumed I was imagining things. But a few times, I literally saw apparitions appear in front of me.

I'll talk about the three biggest occurrences. The first one, there was a metal thing on wheels that the bread racks would sit on. It's just a metal square with wheels that we'd put the bread racks on. It's supposed to be against the wall, and it was. But as I was closing one day, I stepped back from the dish line and tripped over it. My first thought wasn't ghost, because I think it's healthy to be skeptical about things like that and not just assume everything is a ghost. So it didn't even cross my mind. I went to the manager and told him that someone left the bread rack thing sitting out and that I tripped over it, because it was a safety violation. He checked the camera to see who did it so he could write them up. As I was clocking out ten minutes later, he called me in the office and showed me the video. It was by the wall and on it's own moved across the room behind me. When I tripped over it, it'd been there for seconds. I took out my phone to film it and he told me not to because "corporate wouldn't like that".

Another time, I was bussing tables and out of the corner of my eye I saw this little girl staring at me from the next table over. There was this elderly couple sitting there so I figured they brought their granddaughter. But I decided to wait until I finished bussing the table to wave at her (the kids like it when we wave at them), so I ignored her until I was done. But when I finished, I waved at her and she was gone. It was just the elderly couple sitting there. I was thinking that maybe she ducked under the table, but there wasn't even a plate there where she would have been. I asked their server and she said there was no little girl.

The third biggest thing to happen there was again at close. All I had left was to put the last of the dishes out in the front of the store and I was done. So I pushed the dish cart out to the salad bar, which I always used as like a central base thing and distributed the dishes to the rest of the restaurant from there instead of wheeling the heavy dish cart everywhere. I looked into the dark atrium and saw a little girl standing on a booth seat. I let out a sigh, set the dishes in my hands down, and walked to the atrium. She was gone. I rolled my eyes, got on my hands and knees and looked under the booth, and the other booths. No one. I was confused, but after a few seconds it connected and I ran into the office and told the manager. Unfortunately there's no camera back there, but he believed me. As I said, everyone had seen things.

I started a job at a convenience store on 27 September 2019, and quit the restaurant on 31 December 2019. Didn't want to quit until I knew I'd be able to last at the store. I was working third shift, so naturally it was a real creepy vibe to begin with. But for the most part, there wasn't much going on. Both in terms of customers and the paranormal. But one day, a coworker and I were sitting down having lunch (at 3am... Third shift is weird) and we heard the cooler door slam shut. We looked at each other and both ran to the back to check. No one was there. But then I decided to test to see if it could slam on it's own. I opened it and let it go. It softly closed, but didn't latch. I slammed it, but it stopped at the latch and didn't even make the slam noise we heard. The only way to get it to make that sound was when I pushed it all the way closed hard. My coworker and I were creeped out. Another night, she and I were talking and heard children running and laughing through the aisles when there wasn't anyone there.

On 6 July 2020, my store closed for remodel and I transferred to one closer to my house. This store... I don't know what happened here, but it's actively active. Everyone who works there sees things. There seems to be a specific spot that's the most active. When you enter the store, straight ahead like two hundred-ish feet is the door to the office. Turn left and there's a narrow hallway with all the storage (cups, candy, etc) for another two hundred-ish feet. At the end of that narrow hallway is a small room. On one side is the door to the freezer. Across from that is the door to the cooler. That room... That room is the most active. We'll be in the office and look down the hallway and see someone look around the corner, but no one will be back there. I've assumed coworkers were back there because I'd see someone round the corner, but then everyone will be out front.

There have been a few things happen in the main part of the store. One night, it was just a coworker and I and we were discussing the building being haunted, and as we were talking a bag of chips was thrown off the shelf. It didn't fall off and land directly in front. It landed like five feet in front of it. We decided to change the subject.

Tonight, that same coworker and I were cashing out customers when the door alarm went off. If the cooler or freezer door is left open for fifteen minutes, a loud alarm will go off. My coworker had been in the freezer and swore that she closed it. When I went back there it was wide open. I took a picture and showed her and she goes, "I swear I closed it!", and I laughed at her. Later tonight, she and I were sitting in the office talking when the door alarm went off. We looked at each other in confusion. Neither of us had been in there in the last couple hours. We looked down the hallway and the freezer door was wide open.

I'd been thinking about writing this entry for the last couple weeks. Logged in for the first time in five years, but I kept procrastinating. Tonight when that happened, I decided that I needed to write it.

I guess I'll be back in another five years? Lol