Scary Work Experiences

JPSloan · Post by **JPSloan** » Mon Feb 14, 2005 7:34 am

I had a situation at my last work very similar to Grace's...

I was in my drafting office, which was a corner office with all windows (nice). Our office was part of a three-building complex in the curve of a street in the industrial district. There were several warehouses and plants down the street, a temp laborfinders service in the back of which was sold crackrock, and a restaurant down the street.

We had police come up to our main office (across the breezeway from me), and tell the secretaries that the restaurant down the street was just held up at gunpoint. Unfortunately for the criminal, he didn't properly vet the restaurant, otherwise he'd have known it was lunch-central for off-duty policemen. The guy had about twenty cops pull on him. He fled and was shot once in the shoulder, but had fled to the large drainage ditch behind our plant. So, we were to lock our doors and be "watchful".

They caught him in an hour. He got across the ditch somehow, and was holed up on the roof of a plant the next block over.

Then there was the time that a delivery truck backed into the lightpost in front of my office, sending it falling and shattering about two feet from my office window... and six feet from my truck. That was fun.

Or the time another delivery truck backed into the eave of my office. Shook the whole building.

Rkolter · Post by **Rkolter** » Mon Feb 14, 2005 8:15 am

I used to manage Dairy Marts (basically a convienence store).

Two scary experiences there:

1) Out of the blue, while ringing up a customer's groceries, he started screaming, punched me in the nose, and ran out of the store. He was later apprehended. Apparently he'd dropped a lot of acid about thirty minutes previously, and the high hit while waiting in line...

2) I was awakened on a sunday morning by a customer calling me from the store - my employee had been cutting open a sleeve of ice cream (ice cream in boxes, comes in sleeves of five boxes), and had slit her arm open from wrist to elbow.

I arrive on site to see her being taken away by ambulence. I walk in and the store is covered with blood. Imagine slaughtering a pig. Worse, the blood had been tracked around the store by the paramedics, the employee, and the good samaritan customer. This was pre-AIDs scare, so I just closed the store and mopped it up.

Pimpette · Post by **Pimpette** » Mon Feb 14, 2005 9:46 am

I had an experience similar to Grace and JP's, only at school and not at work.

The courthouse is just down the road from my old highschool, and at some point this one criminal escaped. The administration at that school were prone to freaking out over anything, so they "locked down" the school: locked all the doors, had us stay in our classrooms, and wouldn't let us leave said classrooms.
Like, at all. You couldn't go to the bathroom. We were stuck that way from about nine in the morning to three in the afternoon, roughly. With one break for lunch, in which they let us out in groups according to floor.
I understand their concern, but I did feel sorry for all the kids stuck in math class or whatever. I got lucky and was "trapped" in commtech (communications technology, lots of computers and video cameras and stuff like that.

And one time when I was working at Subway, the bank down the road got robbed, but we didn't see many cops in the store.
Course, there's only one cop in our town and we think it's a kind of punishment job - sent from the city which keeps trying to assimilate us.

Spriteville, USA · Post by **Spriteville, USA** » Mon Feb 14, 2005 9:50 am

I worked in at the deli in a Market Basket grocery. I can tell you this, those meat cutters are SHARP!

Nice tiny little oval section of my right index finger was sliced.

BOMC · Post by **BOMC** » Mon Feb 14, 2005 4:30 pm

Pimpette wrote: I got lucky and was "trapped" in commtech (communications technology, lots of computers and video cameras and stuff like that.

Hey, I took commtech too... except we didn't do anything in our class. We just played on computers.

Pimpette wrote:
And one time when I was working at Subway...

I used to work at a Subway too (freaky).
One time, this guy came in and was very drunk and asked us for a sub, except we were just closing up at that point, so we said we couldn't serve him. He got really mad and started swearing, saying that we shouldn't hae the lights on if we were closed. We were about to call security, but luckily he just kind of... wandered off.

Protectmyballs · Post by **Protectmyballs** » Mon Feb 14, 2005 4:32 pm

Didn't we all have birthdays at the same time too? It was always a blast when people came in and ordered 5 subs right as we were walking towards to door to lock it. Even more fun when we had already begun putting the food back into the cooler for the night and have to go unload it all again.

Steverules · Post by **Steverules** » Mon Feb 14, 2005 4:36 pm

rkolter wrote:I used to manage Dairy Marts (basically a convienence store).
1) Out of the blue, while ringing up a customer's groceries, he started screaming, punched me in the nose, and ran out of the store. He was later apprehended. Apparently he'd dropped a lot of acid about thirty minutes previously, and the high hit while waiting in line...

That was you, Ryan? I am so sorry. I swore off acid after that incident.

BOMC wrote:I used to work at a Subway too (freaky).
One time, this guy came in and was very drunk and asked us for a sub, except we were just closing up at that point, so we said we couldn't serve him. He got really mad and started swearing, saying that we shouldn't hae the lights on if we were closed. We were about to call security, but luckily he just kind of... wandered off.

That was YOU behind the counter. I apologize for my behavior. All I wanted was to bury my teeth in your delicious turkey sub.

War · Post by **War** » Mon Feb 14, 2005 6:27 pm

Thankfully nothing ever happened at my place. Seeing as it was MoD work, anyone or anything unauthorised happening would have been classed a security breach.
I was almost classed a security breach.

Pimpette · Post by **Pimpette** » Mon Feb 14, 2005 8:05 pm

BOMC wrote:
Pimpette wrote:
And one time when I was working at Subway...
I used to work at a Subway too (freaky).
One time, this guy came in and was very drunk and asked us for a sub, except we were just closing up at that point, so we said we couldn't serve him. He got really mad and started swearing, saying that we shouldn't hae the lights on if we were closed.

We had some guy call the store once to tell us to turn off our lights at night. I told him we did, and he started getting angry about the parking lot lights. Like it's my fault they leave those on all the time.

protectmyballs wrote:Didn't we all have birthdays at the same time too? It was always a blast when people came in and ordered 5 subs right as we were walking towards to door to lock it. Even more fun when we had already begun putting the food back into the cooler for the night and have to go unload it all again.

Wow, everyone works at Subway. Go figure.
Yeah we used to lock the door as early as possible - we had to be careful though, the guy in the convenience store next door would rat us out if we closed five minutes too early, wah wah - just to piss off the guys at Pizza Nova. They'd all come over for their break and demand subs *just* as we were closing, so we'd just lock the door and pretend we couldn't hear them banging on it.
Heh.

Luprand · Post by **Luprand** » Mon Feb 14, 2005 9:12 pm

I never worked at a Subway, but I was a dishwasher/pizza cook for Joel's Italian/American Grille for a while (I washed my hands a lot that summer). Worst I ever did on that job was put a little tub of hot sauce in with someone's delivery calzone, thinking it was marinara.

We got a phone call about it, the boss embarrassed me in front of the rest of the crew, and I had to make another calzone for the offended party.

--Sij

BOMC · Post by **BOMC** » Tue Feb 15, 2005 4:34 am

Pimpette wrote:
protectmyballs wrote:Didn't we all have birthdays at the same time too? It was always a blast when people came in and ordered 5 subs right as we were walking towards to door to lock it. Even more fun when we had already begun putting the food back into the cooler for the night and have to go unload it all again.
Wow, everyone works at Subway. Go figure.
Yeah we used to lock the door as early as possible - we had to be careful though, the guy in the convenience store next door would rat us out if we closed five minutes too early, wah wah - just to piss off the guys at Pizza Nova. They'd all come over for their break and demand subs *just* as we were closing, so we'd just lock the door and pretend we couldn't hear them banging on it.
Heh.

The subway I worked in was in a mall, and if we closed 5 minutes early we got a fine, which would come out of our paychecks. Needless to say, we always closed right on time.

JexKerome · Post by **JexKerome** » Tue Feb 15, 2005 8:05 am

Though it didn't happen to me, perse, it happened to my local gaming/comic book shop. Basically, a guy lost control of his car and drove it into the store., during regular opening hours. I can only imagine the shock and fear,

http://www.knightlygames.com

Do not click the IVPress link, since it needs an account to show you the suff, and they charge for it. Just look at the pictures of the before and after (there's about a hundred of them), and weep for the sheer amount of money wasted in miniatures, sculptures, cards, and board games. The salvageable items are on sale, BTW.

Being gamers, they took it in stride (after the initial scare), and now the front door has a sign saying "customers please park outside".

Protectmyballs · Post by **Protectmyballs** » Tue Feb 15, 2005 9:32 am

Pimpette wrote:Yeah we used to lock the door as early as possible - we had to be careful though, the guy in the convenience store next door would rat us out if we closed five minutes too early, wah wah - just to piss off the guys at Pizza Nova. They'd all come over for their break and demand subs *just* as we were closing, so we'd just lock the door and pretend we couldn't hear them banging on it.
Heh.

We were inbetween a bank and a Chinese food place that sold pot out the back door, so no one was gonna tell on us if we closed early.

Pimpette · Post by **Pimpette** » Tue Feb 15, 2005 9:36 am

Hah. ours was in a brand-new plaza in a small town. It was rare that anyone actually came by past ten or eleven (though when they did they came in packs), so we could probably have closed an hour early and no one would have noticed.
Except maybe the people working at Tim Horton's looking for a sub on their break.

And Jex, omg.
About a year ago a cab crashed through the front of my uncle's house; straight through the front porch and into the living room. They've still got the deep marks in the yard where the tires were.

Creepychick · Post by **Creepychick** » Tue Feb 15, 2005 9:46 am

Collections: I have been called every name you can imagine, and some that you would have a hard time imagining. Also, I have had death threats, and have caused grown men to cry.

Starbucks: People flip out if the milk is not hot enough or cool enough for them. It is absurd. Not to mention the people who don't understand that Decaf is not completely without caffene.

Fabric stores: Never, ever let the customers have the scissors. Ever.

Isukiyomi · Post by **Isukiyomi** » Tue Feb 15, 2005 9:53 am

Creepychick wrote: Fabric stores: Never, ever let the customers have the scissors. Ever.

Did someone get stabbed?

Creepychick · Post by **Creepychick** » Tue Feb 15, 2005 10:00 am

No, people cut their own samples, and scare other patrons.

BrownEyedCat · Post by **BrownEyedCat** » Tue Feb 15, 2005 10:39 am

I've never worked at a subway, but I did work at a gas station.

Of course, it was a gas station in the adorable Christian retirement town, with flowers and kittens and a police station one block away. So we never had any trouble.

The Neko · Post by **The Neko** » Tue Feb 15, 2005 10:45 am

My friend works at the NY Times, so she's had lots of experiences with bomb threats and the like. Recently they had to close off the subway and areas around her building because they found a backpack with explosives inside. They turned out to be fireworks, but the police acted nonetheless...

Dr Legostar · Post by **Dr Legostar** » Tue Feb 15, 2005 5:44 pm

On a daily basis I am surrounded and work with: highly concentrated acids, volitile organic compounds, radioactivity, carcinogens, very potent nerve toxins, a substance that can basically make any compound disolved in it pass through your skin instantly, viruses, bacteria, razor blades, needles, and to top it all off my building is directly connected to the hospitial and there are occasionally mentally disturbed people roaming the halls (and I'm not just talking about the other grad students).