Prior to the pandemic, many of us had jobs where we interacted with coworkers.
Depending on the nature of the job, working together as a team and having people supporting you are some of the positives in the workplace.
But some jobs don't require numerous employees, and many people in these positions work in isolation – whether they are truck drivers or janitors working a graveyard shift.
While the peace associated with these jobs sound like a luxury, there is something ominous about working alone.
Your mind could play tricks on you during a shift, or you may find you're not alone after all.
Redditor shafaatkhan007 wanted to find out about unsettling experiences from those who work in isolation and asked:
"Redditors who work at remote places like forest officers, oil rig workers, etc, what creepy things have you noticed while at work?"
The Creepy Guy's Perspective
"I was the creepy occurrence....."
"I live on a ranch off of a quite dirt road. Our distant neighbors (nearest house is about 1 mile away as the crow flies) have had issues with people stealing things out of their out-buildings and storage sheds in the area. It was also late in the year, so it was starting to get dark around 6PM. So as a result every time I would see headlights go down our road I would watch to make sure they weren't stopping on the property."
"One evening I see a vehicle going very slowly down the road and come to a stop at the end of our driveway (about 120 yards from our front porch). The vehicle is parked right in front of a 60's pickup I have parked, so I think whoever it is might be looking to steal it, or just looking over the property. Whatever the case, I decide to put on a black coat and grab my rifle to go investigate. It's dark out, so I stay out of the headlights of the vehicle so I can get close. I can tell it is a white van, but I don't see anything else distinguishing about the van. When I'm about 50 yards away the van backs up and turns into our driveway. I freeze as the headlights wash across me standing in the middle of my driveway....and I see the reflective Fedex logos on the side of the van."
"Needless to say the Fedex driver probably sh*t his pants as he suddenly sees a dark figure standing in the middle of a field, in the dark, holding a rifle. Surprisingly after I try to give a friendly wave and smile he continues up the driveway to the house, and I get to explain the situation and we both have a laugh."
"So that's how I got to be the creepy guy in some Fedex delivery driver's story."
– ls1c-10
Demonic Eyes
"Working late at night on a remote mine site, changing out a switch in a substation on the edge of the pit. Just me and a quiet room full of gently humming transformers. I finish up and head for the door and I see three pairs of red eye staring through the window. Nothing else visible, just blackness and three sets of red eyes."
"Turns out goats' eyes reflect red at night, and they like staring in windows."
– alangrai
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Here's Looking At You
"I spent some time in the peat swamp forests of Borneo studying wild orangutan. We would go into the forest very early around 4 am. One morning there was a clouded leopard on the trail we used to enter the forest. It was just crouched there watching us. We shouted, tried to act big, one of the indigenous people we worked with even took out his slingshot and shot rocks at it (he missed on purpose just trying to scare it off). It stayed there for a good 5 minutes watching us before it slowly walked into the thick brush off the cleared trail. When we walked by I shined my light to where it had walked to and could clearly see a pair of reflective eyes only 3 meters away crouched watching us pass. Creepy but also incredibly cool to see one in person for how critically endangered they are."
Out In The Wild
"I've worked in Canada's north for a few years now in oil and gas."
"It's pretty creepy when during night shift you realise a moose has just been standing at the tree line staring you down for an unknown length of time."
"Or finding bear tracks crossing the tracks you just made 5 minutes ago."
"Honestly the silence of a snowy forest in the dead of night 100s of km away from anything is pretty spooky. When Your only contact to the outside world is a radio channel nobody's listening to, you feel pretty alone."
Creatures Of The Deep
"I used to work in the Gulf of Mexico on oil rigs for years, and it may not exactly be creepy, but I found it really unsettling."
"In deep, open water, the water itself is really clear, so everyone can plainly see all the tuna and barracudas hanging around the rig waiting for the onboard cook to throw off whatever food waste he needs to. Every once in a while a huge great white shark would swim up from underneath and snatch a tuna and it really took like less than a second. They're really scary."
Frozen In Time
"I spent several seasons working at a remote field camp in Antarctica...over 1000 km from the main station in McMurdo. Everyone once in a while, a Skua bird or Antarctic Tern would accidentally end up following one of the small planes (Twin Otter) out to our camp. Once there though, they'd basically be stranded with no way to get back to the coast. I'd get out of my tent some mornings and see a lonely Tern circling overhead, knowing it was a dead bird flying. It was quite creepy."
"Along these lines, when birds (or seals) do die down there, it's so cold and dry, that their bodies don't decay either. They essentially mummify. Outside McMurdo at Scott's Discovery Hut, there is still a perfectly preserved seal carcass from 1912 sitting by the entrance of the hut."
Illuminating
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"Working on ships. there was one night I was on a ship sailing through Alaskan Waters. And it happened to be my first night ever seeing Northern Lights. I can't believe how awesome that was.... it made the sky clear, made the night look like it was dusk, we were able to see clearly for miles."
"Few buddies and I hit the roof or what we call, Lido deck at 1am just to gaze at it. An hour or so in, there was 6 of us on top, nearly the entire crew now. A big white spotlight shines at us. We were near land, but where the spotlight was, was above the water and it wasn't low enough to be on a ship, this was very high up. It shined on us for about 15-20 seconds. Once the light turned off we looked to see what it was. Saw nothing; no trace of an aircraft or anything."
"Couple minutes go by and the same light shined on us, this time it was on the other side of our vessel, above mountains. Still, unable to see what it was. We all saw it, we all have never seen any aircrafts hovering above these waters, especially at 2am."
"We don't know what it was. We think it might have been some sort of silenced aircraft the military was probably doing drills or something. But anyways, that was one of the weirder things to happen out on the ocean."
Skewered Carcass
"I was a field geologist in the Outback about 12 hours north of Adelaide. One day I was driving the truck and saw what looked like a flagpole sticking up in the middle of nowhere. I wasn't anywhere near a farm or anywhere else that people would be, so I decided to drive over and check it out. It was a dead dog fully impaled on a spike. Like, from butt to mouth. Took some pictures and had my boss call the cops, but for the rest of the assignment I was freaked out that some maniac was out there with me."
"Edit: I don't know if it was a domestic dog or a dingo or something. It was pretty well decayed when I found it."
Rituals
"In my brief stint as a rural health nurse, I was quite unnerved by how many of the families I worked with still practiced ritual animal sacrifice, even though on paper they identify as Catholic."
Hearing the Fog
I work on North sea oil rigs on an ad-hoc basis (off the coast of Scotland) .
Wouldn't say anything was particularly paranormal creepy but it can be very unsettling/weird place.
Fog can come rolling in out of nowhere and other rigs you can see off the sides can disappear in front of your eyes.
Sometimes you can't see the walkways 6ft in front of you or if you're walking over grating you can't see the sea below your feet (about 60m down from top to sea) but you can hear it, all be it muffled. The fog can roll in over the course of a few minutes too so a perfectly clear day becomes pea soup.
You can also feel the rig moving/swaying on high winds /rough seas. Even though it's a fixed leg Platform. Very unnerving to feel your office swaying when it shouldn't be.
My last trip was my first ever Nightshift and I found it particularly unsettling as you've got the background noise of the plant but I walked around the whole rig without seeing another living soul for the whole shift (usually there are about 130 people on board although smaller rigs have smaller headcounts).
Usually once a trip I'm hit by this awareness that you are just very isolated and in the middle of no where (most rigs I've worked on are an hour's chopper ride from land). So if things go wrong it can escalate very quickly.
Deep in the Woods....
I worked at a public forest. One day we had someone report a dead animal on the side of one of our trails. A few of us from the front desk hiked out to see what it was. It looked like a giant piece of... liver maybe? Just a pile of smooth red meat... no blood around. And it was wrapped up in a t shirt, with some coins scattered around it. We called our rangers to go check it out, and one of them was pretty sure it was a placenta. The weird part is, you have to check in through a front desk. So someone either snuck a placenta/liver in or gave live birth/removed an organ on our trails. We never got an answer on what the pile of meat was, how it got there, or why.
On the Zamboni....
Used to be a supervisor for a janitorial company and a couple times a week I had to go to a middle school and clean their hallway floors and gymnasium with a zamboni type vehicle that mopped and scrubbed the floor. When I was there I had the whole school to myself. Used to get finished quickly and go to the library and read while eating my dinner. Well, one morning after being there, I get a call from school security and they want me to come in. When I get there I see a police car too. Uh oh, I think.
They ask me a few questions like "did you notice anything out of the ordinary or strange while you were here last night?" No, I hadn't (usually have headphones in). Security then shows me camera footage of someone breaking into one of the classrooms WHILE I WAS RIDING THE ZAMBONI not far away. I was there for another two hours. Nothing was stolen. But the worst part was they didn't have footage of the person leaving, they didn't go out the way they came in, and police had to sweep the entire school. Never did find out what happened with that one.
'Good morning guys'
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When I was 15 years old, I was doing my 4am newspaper delivery round on bicycle. I was driving into the garden of this one subscriber where I saw two guys with flashlights looking through the windows of the house. I was a bit in shock and just said 'Good morning guys'. They were just as much in shock and an awkward silence followed.
I tried to break the silence by asking if I could pass them to deliver the newspaper through the door. One of the guys said the person living in that house did something to his family and they took it as an opportunity to get away in their car that was still running.
When they were gone I rang the doorbell at the house to tell them what happened and they should keep an eye out.
The February Sideboom....
We were wrapping up for the day in northern Canada. I am fueling up the sideboom, Im all by myself at this point cause i was tired of listening to the laborers whine of the cold so i told em i would take care of the rest. (Think bulldozer with no blade but a giant metal boom on the side that we use to raiser and lower pipe). Its February so pitch black. I keep hearing some weird sound. I cant quite hear it cause the pump is too loud.
I search around a couple times and see nothing. I get in the truck and take off drive past the front of the sideboom to see a cougar sitting on top of a dirt pile 15 feet away. The damned thing was just watching me there and probably could have ended me without me even realizing it. I've never seen a cougar in the wild before and its hard to understand just how big they are and how powerful until you see one up close. That thing leaped off the 6 ft pile and probably didn't touch ground for 15-20 ft.
Its terrifying to think something so big and powerful could just be sitting there deciding if they want to make you dinner.
Targets
My mom used to live in a small town in the cascade mountains and worked as a forest ranger. The creepiest thing that happened was when the oldest male ranger kept hitting on her and trying to get her to come home with him, not very out of the ordinary, but many years later after she'd left the town she found out he had been convicted of manslaughter and had killed a young female ranger right before she got hired. She would have probably been his next target.
Through the Wind....
I've been fishing out in the gulf of Mexico where they have some oil rigs. This rig wasn't being used (from what we knew) so we would get pretty close to it to fish for red snapper. While we were out there, we could have sworn we heard screams of a woman over and over. It was some crap but the explanation was the wind making the noises as it blew through the rig.
Well, that's what we were told but it totally creeped us the heck out.
Across the Tundra
I work as a polar bear guard. As in, I escort people across tundra and mountains and protect them from polar bears.
I once saw a snowman totem with reindeer antlers coming out of his head. It was deformed, full of bullet holes and rather creepy.
Relocating Beavers
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Some friends and I were fishing a small pond just after dark for catfish.
We started to hear sounds coming off the water like someone throwing softball sized rocks, but they were coming from all over the pond. We thought someone was messing with us and we called out a few times for them to stop, but we eventually got freaked out and left. Cut to a few years later, I'm fishing a different pond and hear the same sound. Turns out it was a beaver slapping it's tail on the water to drive me from it's territory. When beavers become problems in rivers, they relocate them to ponds in town.
ALICE
I'm not sure this counts but I'm a teacher at an urban public school and was at work late grading and getting ready for the next day. Time had kind of flown by and before I knew it, it was 7pm. I start packing up to leave in a building that is, in theory, locked and empty besides me, when our ALICE alarm goes off, indicating an armed intruder in the building. I am 1. Alone 2. Young 3. Freaked AF because I am absolutely not ready to fight a gunman over my lesson plans.
I book it out of the school and dive into my car, hearing the alarm blaring the entire time. I peel out the parking lot, and can see in my rear view the alarm lights still flashing and debate never going back, cause screw that lmao. Turns out they were doing "routine maintenance" and didn't send out an email to the teachers. 🤦🏻♀️
This Little Bear
Spent a summer in Wyoming going to BLM land and other remote locations collecting data on bats and herpetofauna. Heard a lot of weird noises like mountain lions screaming, deer snorting, what sounded like owls fighting. Woke up one morning to find two bull moose sleeping 20 yards behind my tent.
All of this was "part of the job" until one night a truck was driving towards us when we were on a BLM square in the southwestern part of the state. The truck was going overland, no road and was slowly driving at us. It stopped about 100 yards away, turned off the lights and we could see a person get out. They walked a full circle around us at ~100yards away, got back in the truck and turned around.
This was after dark and this shadowy figure did a complete circle around us. You could hear them walking through the sage brush and I'm sure they could hear us talking. We packed up after that and drove to a hotel an hour away.
I called the office and told them I was taking a gun when we went back out. Didn't like having the bear mace as our only defense.
A Steady Stream
I do a lot of stream work so I spend time out in pretty rural areas walking streams and rivers. Once my coworker and I were working in a more urban environment and came across what we initially thought was a body - which of course triggered "Oh crap!!" from us - but it ended up being a firefighter's dummy that had fallen down a hill. We felt pretty dumb.
Other notable things include a small grave in the middle of nowhere for someone's dog (pretty sad), and a stuffed rabbit with shotgun shells placed where its eyes should be, a mannequin very purposely placed in a chair in the middle of the woods, and lots of little random alters.
I also did work in Myrtle Beach (what a hell hole) and accidentally walked into an inhabited homeless camp. I was peering into a stormwater grate when I looked up and saw a homeless person standing in his shelter staring at us and saying nothing. I felt like I was trespassing so we quietly left.
Bigfoot
Not my story but a close friend. He used to deliver newspapers in his Jeep CJ-7, which was lifted and had long-throw headlights for when he would go camping/offroading in it. He would be up as early as 3am to do his rural route, so he would be alert for deer and other wildlife that might try to cross the road in front of him. He was also big into cryptozoology, he believed in Bigfoot and other cryptids, so his mind was in that zone a lot on those nights/mornings.
One early morning he was driving slowly through a curve alongside a pasture when he heard an inhuman wail. He slowed down and as he came out of the curve his headlights lit up a pair of eyes that had to be ten feet off the ground. He stopped, backed up and tried to get his lights to illuminate whatever it was. He heard the wail again coming from the direction of the eyes and he started freaking out, thinking he finally saw Bigfoot.
As he was scrambling for his camera his eyes adjusted enough to realize what he was actually looking at: The eyes were a bull's and they were high off the ground because the bull was currently mounting a cow, which is where the wails came from.
Our friend group ribbed him incessantly for that over the years, and any time one of us would see him we'd ask if he found Bigfoot yet.
Edited for clarity since some people thought my friend and/or his Jeep was mounting the cow.
Poor Boy
My parents live pretty far back in the country and have 1 neighboring house.
The neighbors would let their Basset Hound outside for about 10 minutes to use the bathroom every morning.
One morning they let him out, and he didn't come back inside. After a couple minutes they walked out to his favorite bathroom spot, and found... his head. Judging from the tracks, a mountain lion had ambushed him and apparently torn his head off before carrying the body away.
What I thought was the creepiest part was that the family hadn't heard a sound.
A Ninja?
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Occasionally biking out in the desert I'll stop and get a drink, and realize that there's a cow within 50 feet of me laying in a cow-sized patch of shade, or standing partly behind a rocky outcropping. It's unsetting how anything weighing half a ton can just blend in, especially when its certainly aware of me long before I'm aware of it. And who knows how many times I haven't even noticed ninja cows.
On Overnight...
I work for a Medical Examiner and used to be on the graveyard shift alone. The first night I was on at midnight on the dot our air system shut off which caused the vents to warp. That crap sounded like somebody running through the vents in the ceiling on all fours. Thankfully I got used to it lol but def creepy at first.
Another night we lost power and stupid me watching a horror movie working so hard almost crapped my pants when EVERYTHING went dark and knowing that a room with around 30 dead bodies in it was walking distance away. That one I stayed in my car for. Not to mention the constant long dark red lit hallways. Glad I'm not on overnight now.
- msalv1
In the rice fields
We have a PTO pump spot that comes out of a canal for our rice fields. When I was like 12 years old my uncle found two bodies dumped in the little sump area where our pump sat. Both of the ladies that were dumped there had the same tattoos so they think it was gang related but it was 45 minutes away from where that "gang" operated. I still look in the hole every time I go by there and that was 20 years ago.
The Horror
I work on large ships. If you get a clear view of a hall or passage that runs the whole length, you can actually see the whole ship warp and twist with the sea. If the passage isn't very well lit it can look like a scene from a horror movie.
My partner Eric
Used to teach outdoor education. Which was essentially just summer camp during the school year and school groups would come up and spend a few days at the camp. On their last night we would always tell them a scary story around the campfire. It was the same scary story every time. We worked in partners so there were always two staff members for every school group.
One staff member would tell the story and the other staff member would go hide in the forest and make scary noises. So, I'm telling the story and every few minutes there's like a snap of a twig or rustling in the bushes and of course as always the kids all get freaked out and they start getting scared. It's very fun. Well, as I'm telling a story I'm walking around the campfire looking at all the kids faces and I noticed a familiar one. My partner Eric. Sitting there smiling at me wondering why I'm staring at him.
My heart has never started beating so fast in my life. Eventually I sped through the story and all the kids left and I explain to Eric that I thought it was him in the woods and his eyes got very wide and he said are you telling me that that wasn't one of the staff members? So we both RAN back to the main road.
Speaking Gibberish....
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I worked in a store once in a really small town that was always absolutely dead, a customer every hour or so, shifts all alone too which I'm sure wasn't even legal but hey.
Anyway it's a dark evening and I'm sat on reddit as usual when I hear the door open. I look up and see the back of a man as he begins walking down the first aisle towards the tin foods and he appears to be talking to someone on the phone, I think nothing of it and go back to reddit.
All of a sudden I get this intense smell of soil and earth, I look up and the man is approaching the counter and he's wearing some kind of overalls and his face and long grey hair and body is just covered in dirt. That's when I notice he isn't on the phone at all and is just talking to himself in this absolutely bizarre tone, he sounded like a cartoon elf or something, he's just sort of murmuring and doing this really weird heehee sort of laugh.
I'm just frozen solid, as he's stood at the counter in front of me thinking I'm about to be killed when a policeman storms through the door, he asks if I'm ok to which I don't respond because i'm just in a complete state of what the hell is happening, tells the man to come outside to which he starts murmuring gibberish and saying the words legal over and over again. They come grab the man and put him in the back of the police car and that's the last I ever heard of it, I have no idea who he was, what was going on but I have never been so afraid of another person before, you know when you just sense a bad bad situation. So grateful the police showed up when they did.
Alone the Field
I used to do agricultural work, alone in a field for 10 hrs a day kinda thing. The pure amount of times I heard the sound of running & snapped up to see literally nothing there was horrific. I was convinced it was surely animals between the trees for a while but the weirdest moment was when I heard it loudly from a row of trees next to me & immediately ducked under to see the feet of whatever animal was running by and there was absolutely nothing.
I remember trying to stay calm and walking really fast to the toilet block and sitting in there for a good long while before I came back. I never thought I'd be so freaked out in the day time but there wasn't a soul nearby for quite a way & it really amped up my imagination.
- riarum
An Odd Blue Sight
Actually I don't work in remote places, but when my father was sent to Alwar, rajasthan for archaeological study, I encountered a very strange thing. Our house was near a small forest. One morning I saw a group of blue bulls (a kind of asian antelope). They were 5 in number, and they were running in circles around a skull for like 30 minutes and then one of them took it into the forest and they all followed him silently. It was such a weirdo sight, it still gives me creeps.
Cat Eyes
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My oldest brother used to work the overnight sprinklers on a golf course. He took me out one time just for fun and as we were driving uphill on a fairway, a figure of a lady appeared in the headlights at the top of the hill. My brother steered a little to the left of her and kept driving right on by. I stared right into her eyes as we drove by and she stared back. Her eyes glowed like a cat in the night.
As soon as we were out of voice range I asked my brother "What the hell was that?!" He calmly responded, "Yea, she lives on the golf course and likes to terrorize the workers from time to time. I usually see her out here once a week."
Alright. Cool.
Coolcoolcool.
Not THAT room
On our drill ship that was built in China, we noticed on the drawings there was a room. We went to look at it and couldn't find an entrance but the spacing was obvious there was an extra room. It might not sound so creepy unless you've been in these shipyards where two things are known to happen: stowaways, although i doubt it in this case, but also hundreds of workers at any given time following orders blindly. So we confirmed that the room had all six sides, yet not a single weld on the outside.
There is only one way this could've happened and I'm sure you're starting to get it now. They must have welded from the inside for this room and then realized they had no way out upon completion if the gasses didn't kill them first.
Its extremely heavy around that room. People say they hear things. I have definitely. This isn't some old ship either. I rode this ship from China to Amsterdam after completion and then the maiden voyage to America. I guess it happens quick.
Just Plain Creepy
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Merchant seaman here. Nothing particularly creepy; most of the time you're too focused on not hitting anything, getting position fixes, updating logbooks, etc. to really think about paranormal or spooky crap.
But the closest thing to "creepy" I've experienced recently has been a strange transmission over the radio. It started with a series of morse code beeps followed by an accented female voice listing off random letters and numbers. Dunno what the hell that was about.
EDIT: I should clarify, it was definitely numbers-station-y, and obviously radio propagation is a thing, but this was off the Gulf of Mexico on a hot day.
Wildlife
I do a lot of work out in the woods. Creepiest thing was finding some headless doves. I also found sticks arranged in circles and paint on the trees in the same spot. Not sure if it was part of a ritual or not, but that's what I saw.
Edit: Okay lots of great points that it could have been just wildlife or cats catching the doves. That's totally possible. I've seen cats do that before too. To add some more context, the type of doves found were not native to this area.
It's possible they escaped or were released and had a run in with a hungry house cat. And the painted circle of trees and sticks nearby was coincidence. Who knows--I certainly don't know what really happened so it's all speculation. It's still the weirdest/creepiest thing I've ever found.
The Hit
I worked night shift at a prison for years.
The one thing that really creeps you out is when a hit is put on someone in the middle of the night.
Inmate's code says it is kept as quiet as possible. No one says a damn word. The only thing you'll hear are grunts and moans from the victims. Then, it goes and stays silent. If you hear it happening, it's already too late to stop it. It'll be over before you pull your keys out.
Occasionally, if someone needs medical attention the first sign we got was an inmate approaching the bars saying they need to go to medical (and are usually bleeding all nonchalant.)
The creepy ones are where no one shows up. All you get is grunts of pain and that's it.
On the Farm
I'm not sure if this counts because it's a farm but when you live on a farm you work on a farm so I guess I'll tell it. I grew up on a farm and in high school used to mess with my friends by hiding and making them find me. One night my friend was over and we were waiting on this other guy. We see him pull up so we take off running to hide. It's funny because they have to wander around somewhere they're unfamiliar with or go ask my parents and be told too bad you'll have to find her. It's like forced hide and seek.
Anyway this one night I saw my friend hide in one building while I ran for the trees. I was hiding under some bushes and heard breathing. Like human breathing. There were no animals around. It creeped me out so bad I ran out of hiding to greet my friend. I felt so uncomfortable for the rest of the night. Some time during the night my dad heard something and went out to investigate. In the morning he discovered that one of our cows was killed and butchered.
- kodaa43
"delivery zone"
I used to be a delivery driver, which doesn't sound very remote because it isn't. However, I did have to deliver to some pretty remote places. One time I delivered to a trailer park just barely inside our designated "delivery zone" and it was very dark and poorly lit. I leave my car running and keep the headlights and inside lights on to go deliver the pizza. Upon returning to my car, I sit down in the drivers seat and look up to see a creepy old man standing less than 3 feet from my side of the car. He was just staring.
It was the equivalent of a jump-scare. I just started driving forward, had to do a u-turn to get out of the park. When I turned around the man was standing in the middle of the road, so I freaked out for a second before speeding around him only to watch him attempt to chase my car out of the trailer park. I put in my two weeks after that.
Tweaked
Mostly just a lot of tweaker nonsense. But, there was a time when I was hiking in a wilderness area and saw a bunch of trash bags hidden under some trees about a quarter mile off trail. About 10 miles from the nearest road. Noped out of there pretty quick. My biggest fear at work is finding a body in the woods.
Sizzler Nights
I used to work on a shrimp trawler. Middle of the ocean.
One night, it was a very bright moon, and kinda drizzling. Long story short, i saw a rainbow in the middle of the night.... it was surreal.
Florida Cypress
I used to work out in the woods in Florida a lot. Creepiest thing would be this day we were working near Big Cypress, tromping thru the brush all day. At the end of the day my coworker and I do a quick drive thru of some of the property and realize the place was absolutely infested with water moccasins. We had been unknowingly essentially walking around a giant water moccasin pit all day. That one kinda screwed me up.
Power Out
I work for a power company restoring power after a storm. Was working when a lady came up complaining that her power went out. We explained to her thats why we were there and she should have power back soon. She said, "oh good, my son went down in the basement and now I can't find him". I went with her with a flashlight down the road to a run down house that was partially caved in. She walked inside and I went to follow.
As soon as I walked into the door she disappeared from my sight and I called for her multiple times. No one responded so I ran back to our work truck to call for help. A man that was living on her street called to me asking whats wrong and I told him the situation. He looked at me with a cold stare and said a mom and her son died in that house 4 years ago. I'm still shook to this day.
Deep in Algonquin Park....
I don't believe in ghosts, but I did see something once that I can't explain, and I have chalked it up to a trick of the brain.
I used to work at a 'resort' deep in Algonquin Park. It was basically rustic living for super rich people. It was a half hour drive to cell service, and an hour drive to the nearest town. I finished my late shift at about midnight, and I was walking back to my cabin. I clearly saw an elderly man with suspenders and a plaid shirt walking by me on the path. We were not allowed to speak to the guests unless they spoke to us first so I didn't say anything to him.
It was pretty dark, to I turned around to make sure he was headed the right way to the guest cabins, and he had straight up disappeared. There was nowhere for him to go except into the thick woods, and if he had done that, I would have heard it. Very strange.
When in Texas
I work off a secluded/Wooded area here in Texas. Every now and again when I finish with a job site, I'll pop into the head office. It's the creepiest feeling at night, mostly no light and I've seen a bobcat a couple of times. The kicker is... the walls are all glass, so when I have the light on inside... I know I'm being watched by someone or something.
The Foothills of Nevada
Archaeologist here-- we had found a rural graveyard on USFS land in the middle of some mountain foothills in Nevada, and had started recording some features of the site. We noticed there were these creepy little porcelain angel figures on top of the graves, meaning that these were not super old graves or at least were being somewhat maintained. We didn't have enough time to finish before sundown, so we wrapped it up and headed back to the bunkhouse.
When we came back Monday to finish the site, all the angels had been systematically covered by old cow patties, like someone was trying to hide them from us. That meant:
A) People had been watching us that Friday afternoon, unbeknownst to us B) People didn't want us there
We called the USFS archaeologist we had been working with, and she told us to finish and leave as quickly as possible.
Hit in the blackness...
My cousin was a deepwater diver/welder on offshore oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico. When working at night or working really deep, it is absolutely pitch dark, you can't see anything. That in itself is a little creepy. To add to the uneasiness, he said that sometimes he would be hit with a big swirl of water as if something very large, very close, just passed by him in the blackness. Now, let's take it up another notch, sometimes he would feel something brush up against his leg or nudge him. He said his imagination would wander, and never to a good place. Totally creeped him out every time.
Through the Trees
When I was in college I interned with the Forest Service. A lot of the time I just spent patrolling hiking trails. Right near Grandfather Mountain I thought I heard someone yelling for help but my supervisor told me to ignore it. Apparently someone went missing in the area in the 60s and was never found and people would hear that voice all the time. I heard it twice more after that and it always creeped me out.
Oh Burt
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I once delivered some soda to a grocery store in the middle of nowhere around 2010, like an hour from any freeway, and the manager had at least 50 pictures of Burt Reynolds pinned up in her office. Does that count?
When we're intoxicated, or even the slightest bit tipsy from having a little too much to drink, our immediate perspective on things is hazy.
But there's nothing like a bit of alarming news or a jarring incident to snap us out of the fog and focus on the moment.
Sometimes alcohol isn't always to blame for our impairment.
It can be a state of mind, like a perpetual numbness from being complacent in life, and all it takes is one shocking moment to rattle us back to our senses.
Curious to hear from strangers online about this type of scenario, Redditor Known_Challenge_7150 asked:
"What’s one thing that sobered you up real quick?"
These individuals were witness to shocking events that sobered them up right quick.
Bleeding Out
"Got out of a taxi and found a naked man profusely bleeding from his head crawling up the driveway in my condo. Called him an ambulance completely forgot I was absolutely wasted until 45 minutes later when I'd helped him translate and in to an amublance and stepped in my front door."
"Later a few days later learned he'd slipped in the tub and literally crawled out for help. Poor dude. He was fine but I genuinely thought he was going to die there."
– DongLaiCha
Tragic News
"At a bachelor party and we got a phone call that the groom’s father had suddenly passed."
– accountnameredacted
Bottom Of The Barrel
"I went to visit my parents back in July. I was homeless and deep into fentanyl addiction so I lost a lot of weight. My folks could see it. They knew something was up. Anyway, I spent the night and I was getting ready to leave in the morning and I looked at myself in the mirror for a good long time. I finally had enough and told them everything. They took me to detox, from there I went to rehab. Graduated in August and been living with them ever since then. I have 160 days clean and sober."
– Crotch-Monster
A reality check can be enough for some people to snap out of it.
Like Father, Like Son
"Was driving a drunk friend home, he had been on a bender again and was smart enough to call me for a lift rather than try and drive. As I helped in to his house his mother came down the stairs and said 'your as drunk as your father' and went back upstairs. I haven't seen him drunk since then, he still drinks but the thought of turning into his dad scared him out of hard drinking."
– psycospaz
Busted
"Flashing blue lights."
– FiddleOfGold
"This sobered me up just thinking about it."
– redmaple_syrup
Losing Sight
"Woke up to no sight in one eye. I had cataract surgery so just thought one of the lenses had slipped and it was an easy fix. Eye doc says nope, you had a stroke. I loved soy sauce, teriyaki sauce and salty food, which caused high blood pressure, which caused retina damage. Over six months was able to get most of my eyesight back with medication, and all back within a year. Trying to navigate life with one eye was very sobering. Started taking HBP much more seriously."
– MissHibernia
Quitting The Bottle
"Looked up someone I went to highschool with who was an awesome guy. Found out he had been dead for 3 years from alcoholism, at age 33. I made an overnight change. I hadn't started drinking that night yet, 10 months ago. Haven't touched it again since."
– omgtater
These disturbing moments were enough for Redditors to immediately come to their senses.
Unplanned House Guests
"Me and a buddy Woke up in someone’s living room, realized neither one of us knew the people, they were just nice and let 2 drunk guys sleep on their living room floor. We didn’t even say goodbye."
– Oneinsevenbillion75
Serious Health Warning
"Elevated liver enzymes."
"And the knowledge that this sh** was gonna kill me and I just couldn't orphan my family over it."
"So I opted for recovery, instead."
"Clean and sober since June 5, 2009."
– Far_Meal8674
The Joyride
"Grew up in a rural area. The little town hosted dances at the hockey arena, everyone (adults and kids) went and they overserved everyone, regardless of age. I was maybe 16 or 17 and was absolutely sh*tfaced, and jumped in the back of someone's truck with about 8 other people to go back to someone's cottage for after dance drinking. The driver (still don't know who it was) started racing one of his buddies and we whipped around small dirt roads, flying around blind corners on the wrong side of the road, going god knows how fast. It was basically a disaster waiting to happen. It was crazy scary and I was sober and thankful to be alive when we finally arrived."
– foxfood9116
The human psyche is a fascinating thing, isn't it?
How we can automatically focus on something urgent at a crucial time, even after getting buzzed from drinking too much alcohol.
But as we're in the thick of the holidays, it's a good reminder to drink responsibly and stay off the roads if you drive to your celebratory destination.
Cheers. Stay safe. And happy holidays.
We've all complained or vented about something in our lives which, in the grand scheme of things, wasn't exactly a problem, or is very easily solved.
Then there are those who complain about things that others almost hope will happen to them at some point in their lives.
These are known as "first world problems", as they are problems that pretty much only the world's one percent faces.
From having to fly business class instead of first class, or being served Roederer instead of Dom Pérignon, these complaints are often met with amusement, bewilderment, or even anger.
Redditor jennimackenzie was curious to hear the most absurd "first world problems" anyone ever complained about, leading them to ask:
"What’s the most ridiculous 'first world problem' you’ve seen people get worked up over?"
"Tale As Old As Time..."
"I once knew a mom who was legitimately devastated, to the point of tears/grief, because a doctor predicted her 8 year old daughter's final height to be around 5'2","
"Which wasn't tall enough to get cast as Belle at Disney World."
"That was the child's (and her mother's) only dream in life, apparently."
"Didn't appreciate my suggestion that she could be Minnie or Mickey."
"Lol!"
"Only a face character would do!"- TravelLovingMom
"Must Be Funny, In A Rich Man's World..."
"My boss from about a decade ago was this insanely rich dude who always went to the bank to get fresh and crisp currency."
"He'd call the bank in advance to make sure they had some on hand."
"I think he was a germaphobe."
"He had a trash can that he'd throw $1 and $5 bills in that he thought was 'dirty' and regularly just donated it vs spending it."
"I asked him why he did this and he said it was too much trouble and asked if I wanted it."
"I said f*ck yeah dumped it into my bag and when I got home it was close to $400 in singles and fives.
"Another time, he wanted to upgrade all the computers in his studio, so we went to a store and bought 10 PCs."
"They all had $150 mail in rebates and he wasn't bothered to go through the trouble of mailing them in."
"3 weeks later I received $1500 after spending a whole afternoon filling out all those goddamn forms."- azninvasion2000
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Who Wore It Better?
"When I was about 19 years old, I was at my boyfriends family BBQ."
"I was wearing this pretty floral sundress."
"His cousins girlfriend showed up in the same dress and she was SO mad that she went and changed."
"I will never understand being upset when someone is wearing the same thing as you.'
"Did you really think that your shirt you bought off the rack is going to be unique to you?"
"No."- mertsey627
Seeing Red! Or Blue In This Case...
"The blue of the balloons wasn't quite the same as the bridesmaid's sashes."
"Years ago my wife and I attended a wedding."
"It was very low key."
"The dinner was in the dining hall at the university where the couple met, cinder block walls and all."
"It was a Baptist wedding - no booze and very serious."
"The dark blue balloons attempting to liven up the hall were a slightly darker shade of blue than the sashes on the bridesmaid's dresses."
"The bride lost here sh*t and absolutely raved for nearly an hour."
"I can't remember how they finally managed to talk her down."- mechant_papa
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See You In Court!
"Rich neighbors who end up in expensive court battles because they disagree about where a tree can be planted or whether the color of a fence fits in with the street’s 'amenity'."
'These disputes get really heated and rack up huge lawyers’ bills."
"The most pathetic part is after the judgement when they are arguing about who should pay the other party’s costs."
"Lots of affidavits filed citing the 'emotional distress' they had to endure, or painting themselves as brave warriors who were forced to take a stand to fight for 'justice'."
"Also lots of pompous litigants insisting that the judge refer to them by their 'Dr' title."
"An absolutely insane dumpster fire of entitled rich people problems."- ElectrocRaisin
It's Always People With Money Who Don't Want To Pay!
"I work in a public library."
"People will get so so mad if they have to be put on a wait list for a book."
"A popular book that just came out."
"Ok our services are not only free but so are the books."
"You’re welcome, a**holes."- Switchbladekitten
A Warm Butt Is A Happy Butt!
"My own."
"We have a bidet toilet seat (Fabulous! Everyone should have one!) and not only does it wash your bum and blow dry it, but the seat's heated!"
"It's shocking how much a heated toilet seat makes the whole process more agreeable."
"Except: We had a power outage and I went to use the toilet and the seat was cold!"
"Unacceptable!"
"This shall not stand!"
"I was really upset because it didn't feel good."
"Then I stopped and thought: This is the most first-world problem anyone's ever had."
"I was really pissed because my heiny was tepid."
"I got over it."- DeathGrover
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Holy Matrimony!
"Weddings are a gold mine for this question."
"People get so hyped up over their 'most important day of their life'."
"They'll destroy friendships, go into debt, and have crazy expectations."
"It's not always the couple who go crazy, either."
"Sometimes, it's the parents or another family member who feels entitled to control the wedding."
"It's just a party."
"Be considerate of guests, have plenty of food and drinks, and enjoy it."- magicrowantree
When Fast Food Isn't Fast Enough...
"Having to pull off to the side to wait for a drive-thru order to be brought out to you because your food isn't ready and there's a line building up behind you."- demanbmore
In Case You Don't Think Customer Service Employees Are Undervalued...
"I was working the return desk at a Target next to a military base so I have so many stories."
"One of my favorites was a lady who had her baby shower before revealing the gender and was livid that she had received floral newborn diapers when she’s having a boy."
"It was a huge box of super expensive, all organic diapers, that we didn’t carry and therefore could not return."
"I cannot accurately express her fury and disgust."
"How dare either suggest her boy could wear feminine diapers."
"I suggested she donate them if she didn’t want to use them and she instead threw away the entire box."
"When she left we pulled it out and threw it in our donate bin."
"There have also been multiple times where mom’s order massive toys and when we bring them out to the car they get furious that they aren’t wrapped."
"We don’t offer wrapping services."
"Here’s the thing, if you don’t want your kids to see the toys you got them for Christmas or their bit to day DON'T BRING THE CHILD WHEN YOU PICK IT UP."
'I’ve had multiple women scream and curse me out that I had ruined their kids Christmas by bringing the toys they ordered out to the car like they requested."- clever-mermaid-mae
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Happiest Place On Earth!
"I used to work for Disney."
"That in itself should tell you everything."
"However for fun I'll give you two specific stories one form our tech department and one from my wife who worked bookings."
"I specifically worked for their call center to help with technical issues with magic band and the website."
"Suddenly got worse huh?"
"A right of passage call everyone has at least one story of is the 'Dome call'."
"Basically there is a subset of Disney Guest (TM) that believes if it rains at Walt Disney world there is someone that will push a button to encapsulate the whole of Disney property in a dome to keep out the rain."
"I'm not kidding."
"If this button is not pushed they call our tech department to angrily ask why."
"My wife worked booking."
"Pretty much everything including Bibbidi Bobbidi boutique and Pirate's league."
"These two things did roughly the same thing difference being price and theme."
"BBB was expensive did more and was focused on princesses, pirates league did a bit less and focused on mermaids and pirates."
"Lady called up my wife, and got pissed about BBB being booked up (It goes FAAAAST)."
"Karen: 'Im going to give the phone to my daughter and I want you to tell her how you are ruining her vacation by not letting her do BBB'."
"Wife proceeds to explain how pirate's league is so much cooler and how she can be a mermaid or pirate and basically gets the kid to start demanding to their parents about how they want to be a mermaid instead of a princess."- trollsong
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The horror!
Being booked into a junior suite at Disney World instead of an executive suite!
It's almost as bad as having no money for groceries, or no food to feed you children...
Said absolutely no one.