Skip to content
Search AI Powered

Latest Stories

Night Shift Workers Share The Scariest Things They've Ever Experienced On The Job

Night Shift Workers Share The Scariest Things They've Ever Experienced On The Job
Photo by JC Gellidon on Unsplash

Working in the dark hours of the night has never been appealing to me.

Those are the club's best hours.

But also, things do go bump in the night.

And in this timeframe is when workers are most alone.

If you're having to work those hours though, try to be in a cheery place.

You know, a location with living bodies, not dead ones.

Redditor give-orange-houses wanted to hear from the people who work while we're asleep. What scares you? They asked:

"Night shift workers of reddit, what is your scariest experience while working?"

So why should we avoid working in the wee hours? I think I already know.

Frozen

Turning Around GIF by BounceGiphy

"When I was 18 I worked closing shift at BK and we got robbed. Had a gun shoved in my face and they put us in the walk in freezer. They got away with over 10k but the morons stole the managers car and left a gun in it that was registered to one of them. Then he turned on the others."

mrsmith2929

The Morgue

"Taking my first deceased patient to the hospital morgue in the middle of the night. It's in the basement and getting to the morgue wasn't straightforward. There's a lot of turns and dimly lit hallways. At the time the morgue was being renovated. I was freaking out bc there was no room left in the morgue and there was an unattended, OCCUPIED stretcher in the doorway."

tae_unnie

Allsups

"I was working night shift in a gas station/truck stop in Tucumcari, NM back in the mid 90's. I had another guy working with me who ran the diesel side while I worked the gas side. We had a guy come in around 1 or 2 am and just looked at stuff in the aisles for a while before he left. Didn't really think twice about him."

"Later, about 6 AM, when I got off, I drove home past a convenience store named Allsups, they're big in the southwest. There had to have been 30 cop cars in the parking lot. There aren't even 30 cop cars in Tucumcari so where they came from I have no idea."

"Come to find out that some time during the night the Allsups had been robbed and the clerk had been taken into the cooler, tied up, and beheaded. I found that out when I (day sleeper) was awoken by the state police a few hours later and asked if I had seen anything suspicious during the night. That guy who came in and left was the only thing I could think of."

"The police took a copy of our security footage which led them to a suspect who was later convicted for the murder. I can't even begin to tell you how hard it was to go to work the next day. We kind of assumed that the guy was going to rob us first, but didn't want to deal with two clerks, so he left and hit Allsups instead."

eruditeimbecile

He still died...

"Trauma nights on general surgery. We had a teen who was shot 9 times. Ran the code, did all the things including thoracotomy (so we had opened his chest to access his heart). He still died. I was sitting outside the trauma bay writing the note, janitorial staff cleaning the trauma bay (lots of blood and debris), and about 9 minutes after the end of the code and calling it... he sits up on the table, full situp under the tarp, and belts out a gutteral groan."

"Janitor staff pretty much all died and/or pooped their pants. we all ran in and restarted the code, even got some pulseless electrical activity, but ya, story still ends with him dying. Lots of theories about what it actually was, lazerus effect or just spontaneous diaphragmatic spasm. But ya, was absolutely crazy."

SkippyBojangle

Falling Out

"Charter bus driver: Picked a group of drunk people up from night-life central around 3am. We were going around 50 km/hr on a main road at the time and one passenger opened the sliding door to throw up. Had to get the other passengers to hold him back from falling out the bus before I could safely stop and let him out."

Morrigan_Ondarian078

People are crazy! When you're drunk, sit still!

JOHN!!!

Grandpa Boomer GIF by MOODMANGiphy

"I used to be a caregiver for my grandfather."

"I had just started the night shift with him when he jumped up in his bed, nearly pulled his catheter out, and yelled 'THEY'RE BANGING ON THE WALLS! JOHN (not my name) GO GET THE GUN! THE NEIGHBORS ARE TRYING TO KNOCK THE HOUSE DOWN!!' He had a UTI and it made him hallucinate. Still scary."

WriterReborn2

Behind Me

"I was an overnight valet at a hotel and our overflow lot was a couple blocks away. I was walking back from that lot after parking a car around 1am and I started to get this really uncomfortable gut feeling. I looked around and noticed a guy in a hoodie about 50 ft behind me."

"This was in a business district so it’s unusual to see people walking around there late at night and it was also summer so a hoodie is a little out of place, but I didn’t want to jump to assuming this guy was some kind of murderer. I picked up my pace anyway just in case, and he picked up his. When I turned at the next block, he turned."

"He was also gaining on me pretty quick. I was REAL freaked out at this point so I pulled out my pocket knife and ran as fast as I could back to the hotel. I don’t know at what point he stopped following me but I refused to park anymore cars in the overflow lot that night and ended up finding a new job not long after."

Hanz_VonManstrom

WTF?!

"I was delivering some food once on a college campus and my wife was asleep in the car. When I started back towards the car I saw a college student looking in the window and taking pictures of my sleeping wife. I yelled at him as soon as I saw (something like, "what the f**k are you doing? get away from there!")"

"And instead of running away or apologizing straight up this motherf**ker said, "oh, I didn't realize she was with somebody. do you need help carrying her somewhere?" I chased him away but was dumbfounded... like... what the actual f**k?!"

golden_death

Jumper

"I'm a security guy at a paper plant. Night shifts are slow, it's mostly watching Netflix if there isn't any emergency or fire on the site. One night will dozing off I was woken up by a loud and near sound. Got up off the chair in panic. Right in front of me in the parking: a big freaking moose. He just jumped the fence and wandered around the lot for a bit and took off by swimming down the river."

TheObnixiousGoat

Check Out

Hannibal Lecter Killer GIFGiphy

"Once had a lady check out, and pull me and my coworker (both women) aside and tell us the guy wandering around the gas station had a gun and was paying way too much attention to women walking out."

LeatherHog

This why I'll only work in daytime hours or from home.

Want to "know" more?

Sign up for the Knowable newsletter here.

Never miss another big, odd, funny or heartbreaking moment again.

More from Trending/best-of-reddit

Rosie O'Donnell; Ellen DeGeneres
Neil Mockford/WireImage; Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images for Live Nation

Rosie O'Donnell Reveals The Public And 'Most Painful' Way Ellen DeGeneres Ended Their Friendship

Perhaps no star has had a fall from grace quite like the one that came for Ellen DeGeneres.

After rising to a household name in the '90s she was blackballed for coming out as gay on her sitcom.

Keep ReadingShow less
@appalachianqueen5; Donald Trump
TikTok; Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

MAGA Fan Dragged After Claiming Trump Signed A Bill Making It So That She Doesn't Have To File Taxes Anymore

A self-described "Conservative mom in her don't give af 40s. Crunchy & carnivorish!" TikToker who went by @appalachianqueen5 got royally roasted after making a false claim about MAGA Republican President Donald Trump's tax plan for those who aren't among the ultra wealthy.

She said that Trump passed a law saying anyone making under $120,000 didn't have to file a tax return because they wouldn't be paying any taxes.

Keep ReadingShow less
Screenshots of Will Thilly breakdancing
New York Post/YouTube

Guy Breakdances His Way Into Town Hall Meeting To Ask Why Taxes Went Up—And Becomes An Instant Legend

Cranford, New Jersey town council candidate Will Thilly went viral after dancing his way up to the podium at a recent town hall meeting to ask why property taxes in Cranford have gone "up so much."

Thilly's unique tax protest began when he danced his way up to the podium and continued to dance even after a Cranford Township official said, "Mr. Thilly, I started your time." People laughed when Thilly held up a finger to stop the official and continued to dance anyway.

Keep ReadingShow less
Screenshot of Brian Kilmeade
Fox News

Fox News Host Apologizes After His Suggestion That Homeless People Be Euthanized Sparks Outrage

Fox and Friends host Brian Kilmeade was criticized for suggesting that homeless people with mental health issues get "involuntary lethal injection" after the murder of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska on a train in North Carolina—and was swiftly condemned for an insincere apology several days after the fact as many are calling for Fox News to terminate his contract.

Zarutska was stabbed to death at the East/West Boulevard station on the Lynx Blue Line in Charlotte last month; her killer, a homeless man with a history of mental health issues, has since been charged with first-degree murder.

Keep ReadingShow less
Sofía Vergara
Bryan Steffy/Getty Images

Sofía Vergara Reveals She Missed Presenting At The Emmys Due To 'Craziest' Medical Emergency

Almost everyone has a favorite television show they like to turn on at the end of a rough day or binge-watch for a bit of nostalgia, and most of us pretty frequently check out new shows to see if we can spot a favorite.

Needless to say, the Emmys award show is a huge deal every year, honoring all of the people involved in the projects that are currently gracing the small screen, and basically anyone who's anyone will attend.

Keep ReadingShow less