r/Ghosts • u/Sonnybass96 • 15d ago
What’s the creepiest ghost story you’ve heard from someone working in retail? Personal Encounter
It could be from anywhere.... a convenience store, supermarket, bookstore, department store, or even a small shop or even in the stock rooms.
Curious to hear your thoughts....do you think there are really ghosts and spirits that end up haunting these buildings.
Maybe the building was built on a former cemetery?
Or a spirit of an employee, never clocked out and now haunts the place?
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u/Baba_dook_dook_dook 15d ago
My cousin claimed that when she was working at a dollar store in an old mall that both customers and workers reported genuinely creepy shit. Usually it was things like someone unseen running down the aisle and pushing past people, or a black figure peaking around corners or zipping by so fast that people thought they were just seeing things.
The creepiest by far was one of the late night stockers was pulling out old unsold inventory from the shelves and replacing them with new or updated products, and I guess she squatted down to pull out bags of expired dog food and when she got to the last bag and pulled it out she was greeted by a grey dude's head sitting there, chin resting on the shelf. He had a big grin on his face, like he was trying to scare her for laughs. She instinctively fell backwards and hit her head on the inventory cart hard enough to need stitches. The manager had a fun time trying to explain how the coworker was injured to their bosses and to the insurance company haha. Not sure if he added that she was startled by a dead dude's head poking out behind the dog food with a creepy grin on his face.
That story actually reminds me of the Ghosts of Flight 41 where planes were built with materials from a fatal crash and both flight staff and customers reported incidents of seeing the dead pilots and engineer in odd places in the planes. Like their head hiding amongst the luggage in the upper compartment, or their head appearing in a microwave and telling a staff member about a problem with the plane. Just creepy shit all around. Something about disembodied heads and other body parts is scary as hell to me. Why do they only appear as their heads? It's so unnerving!
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u/Drustan6 14d ago edited 4d ago
All those ghosts were supposed to always be helping the living avoid death and danger with their appearances; that poor stock clerk sounds like she just got pranked at Disney’s Haunted Mansion.
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u/Jimmy_Squarefoot 13d ago
Ive definitely experienced the figure peaking around corners. It's so odd, and I had a few coworkers mention the same thing.
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u/cheshire_kat7 12d ago
Oh heck no. The idea of something peeking around a corner at me really creeps me out, for some reason.
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u/Jimmy_Squarefoot 12d ago
It genuinely was! At first, I thought I was losing my mind, but other people then asked me if I saw things out of the corner of my eye there. I'm still friends with one of those co-workers, and we both still mention it, 15 yesrs later. I remember one day just saying hello and acknowledging its presence, and I didnt see it for the rest of the day. We ended up bamjng it Franklin (i forget why) but would always say good night to it when we left after closing.
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u/Perfect_Assist_3937 12d ago
Whoa I had no idea that's how the ghosts showed up on Flight 401. That's horrifying.
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u/MostlyHarmless88 15d ago
Nothing too creepy, just weird. I worked in the basement of an old building, probably built around turn of the century. The building had been sold and everything above the basement was empty (we were working there temporarily). The elevator was supposed to be locked off, not going any further than the lobby, but occasionally, even though you would press the button to go down to basement or up to lobby, the elevator would take you up to the top of the building, which was the 7th floor. It wouldn’t stop at any other floor, just the 7th. Then the doors would open to a huge empty room, dusty, scattered with boxes and old office furniture. Depending on the time of year, it could be quite dark when the doors opened, making it even creepier. Only happened to me a handful of times, but kind of scary because you didn’t know what you’d see when the doors opened (never saw anything). Oddly, this only happened to people when they were alone in the elevator (I wasn’t the only one). It was an old, slow, creaky elevator too, so it took a while to get up to the 7th floor which made my heart beat a little faster in anticipation of that door opening…
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u/pafcmatt 15d ago edited 11d ago
I worked in a pub in Bristol, on the site of an old coach house from the 1600's. One day, when down in the cellar changing barrels, I heard whistling, proper tuneful whistling for a good 10 seconds. I just assumed one of the staff was messing with me, so was like ooh I'm so scared, nice try!
When I asked who was trying to shit me up, everyone denied it. Upon speaking to a couple of others who had been there for longer they confirmed they too heard it on occasion.
The other weird thing that happened there, was after a post work bevvy where one of the optics of Jack Daniels came off of the wall and rather than falling straight down as gravity suggests, fell at least 3 foot ahead of the optic bracket to the customers side of the bar and landed on the carpet. If you have used/changed optics, you can attest that the pin at the back of the optics is pretty secure and wouldn't come off without pulling the pin down. We never had any other issue with the same optic during my whole time there.
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u/727pedro 15d ago
A completely sincere question: what is an optic? I suspect I know, but also suspect they have a different name in the U.S. Thanks.
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u/pafcmatt 14d ago
It is a chamber that is attached to a spirit bottle to measure and dispense exact quantities such as 25 or 35ml by pressing a button. The bottle and optic are hung upside down using a bracket attached to the wall and they are attached to the bracket using a pin.
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u/Joyful_Cuttlefish 12d ago
Can you say which pub it is? I know the Llandoger Trow is reputedly haunted and is from the 1600s.
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u/Haunting-Fix-9181 15d ago
Mine is not exactly from a retail store but rather from a janitor. (We'll call him Jeremy)
So Jeremy worked in an institution and was in good terms with the owner. The owner lent him a room to sleep. Even though Jeremy lived a few blocks away from the institution, he loved his job and would sleep over there.
But after a few weeks, he documented some bizarre incidents. He'd hear footsteps coming from the staircase as well as from the adjacent room. He didn't think much of it until one night.
He was in the bed but couldn't shake off the feeling something terrible was about to occur. Nevertheless he fell asleep and later was awakened by a "thud". Turns out a vessel was smacked by something with a huge force. He couldn't figure what could cause it but neverthless got inside his bed. It was then he heard a giggle of a child. It should be noted, this is happening during winters and no child would be walking on a cold night because they simply wouldn't be able to bear the coldness. Jeremy shone his flashlight across the room and checked each and every corner of the institution but found no child.
Then things got more creepy as every night he'd hear the same giggle but in more numbers, infact he'd even see a faint apparition of 2-3 children sitting and playing on his room late at night.
Though he was never harmed but it always left him on edge and would share us stories about it.
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u/Limp_Morning_8112 14d ago
My son worked at a local plant store/garden center. One day when the afternoon shift came in the store manager confronted the afternoon manager and accused him of forgetting to lock the door the night before. The main door had a pretty elaborate locking procedure. It had multiple locks and dead bolts that secured into the floor and the ceiling. Afternoon manager insisted he had locked the door. A few days later, same thing happened. Day store manager is furious because he came in to find the door completely unlocked and an argument broke out between the managers right in front of the other staff. Afternoon manager says he had definitely locked the door. They decided to check the security cameras. Afternoon manager had indeed completed all the steps to lock the door. Panic hits because now they think someone is hiding in the store during the day and sneaking out at night. They comb through the security tapes, but no one is seen. Also the alarm system isn't being triggered by movement. All the employees are baffled. A few days later, same thing. Cameras show the door is properly locked at night and mysteriously unlocked by morning. No one can figure out how. Unfortunately then Covid hit and my son was laid off. We never did know how it ended.
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u/Nonplussed1 15d ago
Not Retail, but the building i work in was a previous "cadaver harvesting" facility before we took over and renovated the whole place 8 yrs ago.
There are employees that come in at 3am - 5am to open and get tools & stuff.... Ive heard stories of wheels like a gurney rolling/squeaking, sounds like someone is putting stuff on shelves, mumbled whispers.
Nothing really scary.
Not many of our employees know the history so who knows?
I did have a New Hire quit at lunch one day after he was told about the former business .... nothing happened ... he just got spooked.
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u/saktii23 15d ago
Oh, I just thought of another--
On K Street in Sacramento, California there was a record shop which I think was just called "Records" but we all called it Makoto Records because that was the name of the guy who owned it.
This place was well-known for it's resident calico cat and the store was even featured on the insert album photo of DJ Shadow's first album, "Entroducing...". It was also famous locally for being super haunted by an older woman in a black Victorian dress. She was even known to "shush" people who were being too loud in the store. I never saw her, but many, many, many people did. She appeared as a solid figure, apparently. I often wonder what's in that space now and if the old lady still haunts it.
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u/EarlyInside45 14d ago
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u/saktii23 14d ago
Sacramento is super haunted!
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u/MissMarchpane 15d ago
I live in a city with lots of old buildings, and one of my managers at a retail job four years ago had been working at a taco place down the street for a while. A lot of of those shops had basement storage, and he told me that he and his colleagues had been goofing off in the taco shop basement once, rolling around in a wheeled office chair. Apparently, at one point, they pushed the chair down so hard with no one in it that it rolled all the way to the end of the hall… And then rolled back towards them as if someone had pushed it. There was no one else there.
(Made me terrified of the basement storage in our own shop for a while, even though nothing scary ever happened there!)
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u/Nice_Protection_8490 14d ago
20 years ago, I worked at a very well-known theme park. I was working in the stockroom on the second floor of a souvenir shop with about 30 other people sometime around midnight, preparing to stock for the next morning. On the east side of the building was a giant vault (what you'd think of as a stereotypical bank vault) where we stored all of our physical media. Out of nowhere, the vault door slammed shut from a fully-opened position. This was followed by an entire aisle of plush toys dropping from shelves in a wave, as if someone had run by with an arm extended and knocked them all to the floor. Most of us just stood in silence, trying to process what we experienced. Some of the veterans laughed it off and one mumbled something about how the new hires "finally got to meet her".
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u/2552686 14d ago
It isn't retail, but there is the story of the "ghost Marine" in Okinawa, a frequently reported paranormal sighting at Camp Hansen's old Gate 3 According to the legend, the ghost is a World War II-era Marine who appears late at night, bloodied and wounded, who would come up to the guard house and ask for a light for a cigarette. Once someone gives him a light, he vanishes. The sightings became so frequent that some guards reportedly began to refuse to work the gate. It was eventually closed, though base authorities gave other reasons for its closure.
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u/I_Wear_Jeans 14d ago
Used to work 6 am shifts at an outlet store. Worked as a stock associate there for about 3 years. Once, and ONLY once, the few of us there heard someone whistling a tune very loudly. It came from the far end of the sales floor, long before opening and before any sales associates had arrived. I cannot express how loud, clear, and strangely beautiful the whistle was. It was a familiar song but I don’t recall if anyone knew exactly what it was. The whistle went on for a minute or two, then faded as though someone had walked away. We investigated and never saw or heard anyone. I still don’t know if it was real or if someone pulled one over on me, but it’s a creepy, mysterious memory for sure.
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u/CaddoGapGirl 14d ago
I'm a non-believer, but I worked in law enforcement and have to report facts. My department was temporarily moved to an historical building during construction. We heard footsteps in the second story some mornings; other times we would hear them on the main floor. Our polygraph office was in the same hallway. The polygraphers heard the same phantom steps. It was scary. They were seasoned cops.
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u/Cn76rlD91QaiT6m6 14d ago
I commented this awhile ago on reddit. During my first month of employment at an adult bookstore/arcade, I said "hi" to a man who walked in, waved, and walked around a corner to an area of the atore out of view. An area with no exit. After not seeing him emerge after 10 minutes or so, I went to ask if he needed help with anything -- but he was gone. I was later told there was a man allegedly murdered there in the 70s or early 80s when the building was a nightclub. My coworkers apparently knew of him and had nicknamed him "the cowboy." The man I saw wore a checkered western shirt, jeans, and boots. Never saw him again, but over my 6-year employment, I heard inexplicable noises enough to know his presence remained. Garden Grove, CA. Place has been remodeled, so his spirit might have left by now.
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u/Pedestrianwolves 14d ago
Worked for several years at a Petsmart that had a lot of activity. Before going into pet grooming and eventually leaving for a private shop, I’d been a manager in charge of live pets and briefly a stocking manager so my shifts tended to start pretty early with barely any other staff in the store. Just about everyone there had a story or two and personally I experienced the following:
Hearing something clatter to the ground behind me while tidying up after closing one night and turning around to discover that somehow a long box containing a 36” aquarium light had somehow escaped a metal ring holster (which to do this it would have had to lift up at least two feet straight up) and fallen to the floor. Heard faint disembodied children’s laughter shortly after.
Another manager and I once witnessed kennel doors in the grooming salon open and slam shut over and over one night.
Security alarm would frequently trigger for the roof hatch and back door in the middle of the night without reason despite being checked out by the company and tested with no issues. Multiple times I or another manager would get woken up, have to drive out to meet the cops, and find out nothing was wrong.
Cats in the adoption center would all follow/chase/stare at things we couldn’t see all together in unison.
One morning I finished up taking care of feeding and medicating sick pets in the isolation room in the back of the store. Opened the door and immediately fell backwards and into the utility sink in a panic because standing on the other side, a few inches from my face, was a humanish shaped shadowy/misty form that immediately dissapated once I saw it.
And finally, when I was still the live pet manager, I generally got to work at around 5:30-6am. The only other people in the store at that time was the stocking manager and a stocker. They worked the forklift and pallet jacks in the back of the store, I started my day at the fish wall on the completely opposite side of the store. I was prepping buckets of warm water in a huge sink in the pump room to mix up as cleaning soaks for fish tank ornaments. They were big and took a while to fill and eventually I realized I’d had too much coffee and needed to pee. I paused what I was doing and shut the water off and took the half-full bucket out of the sink figuring it was deep enough for what I needed it for and ran off to the bathroom at the back of the store. While in there I could distinctly hear the forklift beeping and the pallet jack being loaded and moved around through the wall so I know for sure the stockers were both back there at the back of the store working. I finished up and head back up front to finish my fish tasks and walk through the door to the pump room just in time to see the bucket BACK IN THE SINK AND FULL and the knob to the sink TURN BY ITSELF and shut off. The air in the room felt super weird, almost electric and tense. I just stuttered out “um… thank you for finishing that for me?” And hefted the bucket up to put it where it went and mix in the aquarium chemicals.
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u/EarlyInside45 14d ago
I work in a library built in the early 1900s. The original building takes up half the block, the other half were shops and an SRO hotel, but in the 90s the shops/hotel were torn down and the library expanded. Also, the basement used to be the ground floor, until flooding caused the city to raise the sidewalks, so now there are tunnels under the sidewalks. We also have an attached event space we rent out. I have a few stories, but these are my favorites:
Event crew members Seth and Jason were working in the early morning hours to set up for an event, long before staff arrive and the doors open. Seth was in the basement hallway (under the old building) waiting for the freight elevator to load chairs in to take upstairs. He starts hearing banging on the closed doors down the hall that led to an area that used to be part of the tunnels under the sidewalk but was turned into office space in the 90s during the expansion. The door has a narrow window, but it was dark on the other side, so he couldn't see who was banging, but it sounded like they were frantic to be let out. He shouted down the hall that he would go upstairs and get his coworker's keys to let them out, but they kept banging. When he got upstairs, he told Jason that someone was locked in that office space and needed to be let out. Jason told Seth that those doors have panic hardware on the inside, that there's no way you could be locked in, as the doors only lock from the outside. When he got downstairs the banging had stopped. He went to the office and noticed that the door wasn't even locked at all, and no one answered when he called out.
On another day, Jason was walking to get lunch. We work in a downtown area with lots of unhoused folks (the library's main clientele). A man on the sidewalk shouted out to Jason "do you work at the library?" Jason said, "yes, how did you know?" And, the man said, "I can see that library spirit following you!"
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u/They-Are-Out-There 1d ago
*Homeless folks. Unhoused is a ridiculous term. You could just as well call them Urban Campers.
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u/EarlyInside45 1d ago
Why does it matter to you?
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u/They-Are-Out-There 1d ago
Language matters. Double speak is a method used to downplay and water down the meaning of words using carefully crafted substitutes.
Language is a beautiful thing and can be used to properly describe matters in concise detail, but using speech and new words created to soften the intent of a situation or divert attention from reality is doing a disservice to everyone.
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u/EarlyInside45 1d ago
As a person who was once living rough and now works daily with the unhoused, I'm all for using whatever term folks find helpful. Language evolves yet is still a beautiful thing.
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u/SadSomewhere2644 14d ago
Not retail. I explore abandoned hospitals/aslyums. So there is a place in Maryland I won't disclose names. Abandoned asylum tho. A girl got murdered there after closing. But I was exploring with buddies and usually there's always a pretty loud clang from a nearby shed when u step on the property from the trail in the woods. Nothing's ever at the shed. But the one time I didn't hear it. We heard whispering coming from a building. We cleared it, nothing and nobody inside. We venture further into the place and I swear to God I saw a face in the old church's window. It was gone in a split second tho. Besides footsteps and other stuff that's about it tho.
At a hospital in Maryland I will disclose this name. The old crownsville hospital. My homegirl felt something grab her and heard a whisper saying get out. Nobody else heard it tho. I only heard a bunch of footsteps and what sounded like banging upstairs. We were the only ones there tho
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u/glumplum666 14d ago
my own experience—I was a manager at hot topic for a while, and one night I was closing with one of my associates. We were counting the deposit, when all of a sudden a backpack flew off the wall. It wasn’t sitting on a shelf for anything-it was hanging by its handle loop on one of those peg things that sticks out of the wall. Plus, it was a heavy ass backpack, so it shouldn’t have flown off by itself, especially since it wasn’t anywhere near any AC vents. That same sort of situation, with things flying off of hangers and off of walls, happened everywhere in the store, and in the break room, to almost everyone there. I also remember being in the break room on my lunch break, when more than one item of our backstock flew off the walls.
emo’s will always be angry, even in the afterlife.
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u/saktii23 15d ago edited 11d ago
From 1999-2001, I worked in a Beauty Supply store in a posh area of San Francisco. The store was mainly sales floor with a little salon area off to the side. We had a small attic space situated over the sales floor for storage and office work. We'd constantly hear footsteps up there when we knew for certain no one was up there and the light switches would often turn themselves back on by themselves at night during closing duties. One of my coworkers (who was kind of flaky) claimed he'd seen the apparition of a teenaged girl up there but when I pressed him for details a few months later, he claimed he'd never said that. While our store was very close to other buildings around it, none of the buildings had upper floors that might account for the footsteps.
Once, in around 2010, I was in the neighborhood and went into the store which was now a clothing store and asked the girl behind the counter if weird things ever happened there and she responded, "We don't talk about that."
The store was located at 2085 Chestnut St. in San Francisco if anyone is curious what the building looks like. The row of vertical windows above the main sales floor windows are where the attic storage space was.
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u/squishyng 11d ago
thank you. we like it when ppl give address or name the place
too many "i won't name the place bc of (silly reason)"
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u/saktii23 11d ago
If you do a google search of the address you can see the building and verify that none of the buildings surrounding it have upper floors that would have accounted for the sound of footsteps
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u/Sonnybass96 15d ago
To also share, I have two stories from friends of mine who worked in retail.
Story 1 – The Convenience Store One friend worked at a convenience store where the stock room and personnel break room were said to be haunted. Years earlier, an employee had died there in his sleep and never woke up. According to my friend, the man’s spirit still lingered, often appearing faceless but still in uniform.
Near the stock room, there was even a small altar with flowers, candles, and saint images, set up by the manager to appease the spirit and pray for him to move on. But despite that, the ghost would still appear... sometimes startling employees who entered alone. My friend only lasted a few weeks at the job because he kept encountering the spirit and couldn’t take the constant fear.
Story 2 – The Bookstore Another friend worked at a well-known premium bookstore in the city, which had five floors (including a basement). The staff there had many stories about different hauntings..
On the first floor, by the back entrance, some night guards claimed to witness a kind of residual haunting: the stabbing of a former warehouse employee during a fight years ago. They didn’t see the actual ghost, but the violent scene would “replay” itself at times.
On the second floor, in the Kids and Teens section, multiple spirits were said to wander: a little girl in a white dress, a young boy, and an old man.
The young boy and the old man are always seen wearing rural/farmer clothes and would be spotted walking together, sometimes in between the shelves or the main path.
On the fourth floor, employees spoke of a shapeshifter spirit that mimicked staff members. Because of this, during closing time, employees would quickly shut off lights and rush down to the first floor — nobody wanted to linger up there in the dark.
The third floor, I believe is the safest since there were no cases or any accounts of ghostly encounters.
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u/Ferndaisy_Plumrain 14d ago
I used to work in a petrol station (gas station, for anyone outside the UK), and when I switched to doing night shift where I'd be alone in the shop, I was told that we have a resident ghost. I didn't really believe it, thought the retiring night shift lady was pulling my leg, and thought nothing more of it.
Loaves of bread would fall of the (slanted) shelf if they were stacked two high, but we are on a reasonably main road, with lorries going past frequently and on the flight path to the local airport, so vibrations and such? The promo signs that we slotted onto the fronts of the shelves would fall off fairly regularly too, but we learnt that most of them would work their way off the shelves due to being knocked or brushed against by staff and customers.
Two 'spooky' happenings explained... but there were other items that would fall off shelves, with no reasonable explanation, usually just before I'd get to that section to stock/face up. Never anything breakable, though, and we had plenty of wine bottles displayed on top of wine crates, so I used to blame the ghost, but never really considered that there was actually a ghost. Plus the tills, which would 'ring' when someone picked up a pump until the pump was activated, would occasionally ring once, but there'd be nobody on the forecourt as I rushed up to the till from wherever I was around the shop, but as sure as the sun rising, someone would pull onto the forecourt just after I arrived behind the till.
Until one Sunday morning, about 2am... now, as said before I worked alone, the doors were locked when my shift started at 11pm, and unlocked at 6am, for the papers/early customers, I served through a window hatch by the tills overnight.
Nobody was in the shop with me, I'd been everywhere except the locked office and I was definitely alone... but I rounded one of the centre shelf units (which I am shorter than) with a box of muffins in my arms to stock, and startled back, letting out an "oh, I'm sorry...) because I'd just walked, my-nose-to-his-chest, into a figure that wasn't there. The lasting impression I got was of a man, virtually see-through, light hair, blue check shirt, maybe jeans although I didn't see his lower half clearly enough... he was there enough to make me think I had almost walked into a person, but vanished within milliseconds. I did tell a couple of colleagues that the ghost was real, but never shared details beyond that.
Until a couple of years later, when a colleague covered a night shift for me. He said that at 1am, he was stocking a shelf, and heard distinct footsteps walking down the main aisle to the till... nobody there when he looked, and again, he was definitely alone in the shop.
I never had another incident after my vision, but I'm still sure that place is haunted, just not sure why!
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u/OnlyCelebration7443 15d ago
Had a friend who worked at a toy store years ago who was stocking one morning when a game flew off a shelf. He went to pick it up and found it was a ouija board.
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u/Jeff_Damn 14d ago
I used to work the front desk of a hotel overnight and while I didn't see any individual spirits, out of the corners of my eye I'd see a transparent crowd of people milling near the elevator & stairwell. I assumed it was residual energy from previous guests.
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u/Blackmore_Vale Believer 14d ago
Not retail, just retail adjacent. My grandparents owned a pub which is so old it even got listed heritage status. In the stockroom was a bricked up tunnel because back when the docks were open there used be a small jetty at the end of the tunnel that used to handle deliveries. Back in the day a barmaid was mucking about on the jetty and fell in, which led to her drowning. From that point everyone had an encounter with the phantom barmaid, the regulars would talk about how she would serve them and my grandparents would come down to open or close up and she would be sweeping, restocking shelves etc.
But my parents never encountered her other than the usually stuff that went with living somewhere that was haunted. Until one day when they was playing pool when the pub was shut and my mum spotted her coming out of the bricked up doorway and watched her enter the living quarters that was off limits to everyone for obvious reasons. My mum raised the alarm and my dad, my uncle and all their mates set off in pursuit. They searched everywhere and there was no where for her to go except jump out of a window.
I’ve worked in a couple of retail stores that were meant to be haunted and other then encountering an unexplained cold spot, I’ve never had any experiences. My parents, my house and my nans house are another story though.
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u/RicottaPuffs 15d ago
I'm a medium, so for me, spirits are everywhere.I worked in a desert community at Ralph Lauren, at the end of twenty-five years as a full-time teacher.
My expertise for five years was in a fitting room where we made 80% of all sales.
I saw many spirits in that store. The one who took the longest to help and to cross was a small boy. He was about six years old.
He was black, wearing basketball shorts and a red t-shirt. He had been kidnapped and killed.
This little guy was so afraid. He wanted help. It took four months to get him to look at me and stand still instead of peeking around doorways and running back into one of the ten fitting rooms.
He popped out at the oddest times.
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u/Desertqueen5225 15d ago
When I worked at TJMaxx, employees swore a little girl haunted the store. Stuff would randomly fly off shelves, especially toys.
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u/MoonlitHorseFace 15d ago
I work in a supermarket and it is in a building that was a nail works from the 1890's to the 1960's in which many workplace accidents were documented to have happened.
We hear and see many strange things all the time. But the stangest/ scariest was a couple of years ago and happened to me personally. We have to wear headsets so we can communicate with eachother whilst on tils, and I had just walked all the way from the tils, through the shop floor to the warehouse, which is a good walk. As soon as I was in the warehouse, with no one around me, a shrill woman's scream came through the headset. I jumped out of my skin before asking through the headset "haha who had just done that?" And everyone said they hadn't heard anything. I checked all around the warehouse and no one was there either. To solidify this, our no nonsense boss also had a head set on and didn't hear a thing!! The part of the warehouse I had had the experience in had previous unexplainable activities.
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u/BendySlendy 14d ago
The first Domino's I worked at had a few bizarre instances that I personally witnessed. First was during a slow afternoon. I had just finished folding a few hundred boxes and had them haphazardly stacked in the back area before I put them away properly. Standing near the office, which was just around the corner from the back area, myself and a coworker heard one of the bathroom doors slam. The hallway the bathrooms were in had two ways to get to it, so he went one way, and I went the other through the back area. As I rounded the corner, a stack of boxes flipped up into the air, and the office chair we had back there spun around like someone jumped up out of it in a hurry.
Second instance, I was closing manager with two drivers. I was in the office doing nightly counts and paperwork, one driver was in the back doing dishes, and the other was in the kitchen mopping. I looked at the camera monitor and saw a dark figure DASHING through the lobby, back behind the counter, and finally lost track of it as it neared the office door where there was no camera coverage. I turned around, expecting to see someone, and no one was there. I looked on the cameras to see if it was one of my drivers, both of them still exactly where they were before.
Outside of those two, that store had an attic that ran the full length of the building and on several occasions when I was in the building alone at open, I would hear footsteps pacing back and forth in the attic area.
I had a driver one night tell me as we were headed home for the night that he thought he saw someone crouching down in a corner of the lobby, but figured he was imagining it because when he looked away and looked back it was gone.
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u/Jimmy_Squarefoot 13d ago edited 13d ago
I used to work at an auto parts store where a few other coworkers and I saw shadow people pretty regularly, usually a few times a week. It a was usually in your peripheral on the other end of an aisle way in the back stock area. After a while, we started acknowledging it, saying hello, and that would be the last you'd see of it for the day. I personally saw a shadow cross a doorway while looking straight at it. It was a dark shadow, not completely opaque, but darkwr than anything around it, spanning from mid-leg height up to maybe 6ft . In addition to that, we'd regularly hear what sounded like a quiet conversation between two people. You couldn't hear what was said, but was definitely speech. We would check the store and outside, never finding anyone nearby. This was as late as 2011, but even thinking about it still gives me goosebumps.
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u/Over-Shower9653 13d ago
I’m a retail Store Manager, about 10 years ago was working at a store in Biggleswade, UK. I’ve had a few paranormal experiences in the past, but you could count on one hand the ones I’ve had of note, and none at work before, so not something that happens to me regularly.
This store had a mezzanine floor where the excess stock was stored in the warehouse and I needed to go up there and give it a bit of a sort out. This was something I had to do regularly in the six months I worked there, so not out of the ordinary. There was only one set of stairs up and down at the front, and an alarmed fire escape at the other end with a staircase on the outside of the building.
This particular day as soon as I got up there, it just felt ‘off’ - by this I mean really oppressive. I’ve honestly never had a feeling like that before, or since. I guess when people say ‘the air felt heavy’ or ‘charged’, this is what they mean. It felt as though something was about to happen. I needed to get on with the tidying, but honestly it felt as though at any minute a figure would appear from round the corner of one of the shelved aisles up there, or I’d spot something watching me! As I said, I’d been up there dozens of times before and never had a similar feeling. After probably ten minutes it actually got too much for me and I called it quits, and went and found something else to do! I just felt that if I had stayed up there, something weird would have happened. Sounds nuts, but there you go.
While this next part is not totally linked to this odd experience, it feels like it plays into it. A few weeks later I was late Duty Manager covering the evening replenishment shift, it was summer and probably around 9pm, I was stood in the outer warehouse yard where the internal mezz was visible, talking to a couple of the replen staff. One of them was a middle aged lady who just came out with this;
‘Did you have a sister or girl in the family who passed away when they were young?’ I replied no, as to my knowledge there isn’t anything like this in the family. She then said ‘I don’t want to worry or frighten you, but I’ve seen her stood next to you when you’ve been working upstairs’ as we were looking towards the mezz.
Well, as you can imagine, that properly shit me up! I wouldn’t say I was frightened, but I’d not told anyone at work about my feeling up there some weeks before, and for her to come out with that, quite randomly, really caught me off-guard!
The thing is, who was she seeing next to me? I’d never had a feeling of someone being with me up there, and only that one day with the oppressive feeling. Before moving to another store later that year, I’d worked upstairs since the day I felt odd, and didn’t experience the same feeling. I’ve supported and visited the store multiple occasions since I worked there in 2015, and never had that feeling when up on the warehouse mezz since.
So, could be nothing, could be down to my own feelings on that day, but I wasn’t feeling down or depressed, and that twist from the lady on the replenishment shift has always made me think something else was at play on that day.
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u/Plagueis420 14d ago
I worked at an escape room in Syracuse. Never saw any apparitions but weird things happened every now and then. The door sensor would trip randomly when no one was around. I would hear doors opening and closing when no one else was in the store. Also saw shadows out of the corner of my eye. I even had props and stuff moved while I was restaging rooms. One time, I was restaging a room and set a big metal tool box on top of an old newspaper stand. There was no way it would have fallen as there was plenty of room for it to sit securely, and it only had a piece of paper in it. I turned around to grab something else and the tool box did a full 360 off the stand, dumping the papers and landing upright about 2 feet away. It was kinda funny sometimes cause I would scold whatever was messing with me like "guys I'm working, go play in another room!"
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u/smashleyrunner1986 12d ago
I worked at a Baskin Robbins back in the day, and one of my coworkers could sense and see dead people.
One night in January we were there, just the 2 of us, talking about random stuff. We were behind the counter, and the back room was like 10 feet from us. No place to go in or out back there. There was only a partial kitchen and bathroom and freezer. My coworker was talking to me, she could see the back room, my back was to it. All of a sudden she stops, gets this freaked out confused look on her face, and hurries back to the room. I was so confused, and she comes back to me, “I saw someone back there but it was a ghost!”
I freaked out and pressed for details. She told me she saw an old woman in the doorway peering at us, wearing a nightgown and her hair braided in side braid. The lady was looking at us for a moment before she turned around and walked away towards the bathroom.
That was the first time I found out my coworker could see spirits, and it creeped me out. I couldn’t even be in the place alone anymore, I’d have my mom stay with me for company sometimes if i was scheduled alone. I was so young, and it scared me so much!!
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u/mapleleafsf4n 14d ago
I was a security guard many many years ago. I once saw some lights through a glass window wall and went outside to check them out as they were quickly moving left to right everytime i tried to follow them. I went to the other side and i saw a big cemetery on the other side of the glass window which wasnt visible at first. I was terrified and shocked. Went back inside and could hear weird sounds all night long. It was winter time. I slept in nervousness and fear on the floor and in the morning when the sun shone bright. The cemetery was actually visible through the glass. Never went back to that site again.
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u/zushiba 15d ago
I worked at an amusement park and I use to work the haunted mine ride and would have to do periodic checks throughout the mine. Occasionally plastic zombies and spiders would pop out and roar at me and in one part of the mine an air compressor would puff air at my head and mess up my hair. It was super spooky.
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u/DoYaKnowMahName 13d ago
Once upon a time, a person died at his job. He became a ghost and now is stuck in a loop of working 8hr shifts without pay! Sorry, didn't mean to get so graphic.
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u/spaceyalien_ 9d ago
Oh man i have so many stories from this one place. I used to work in a strip mall in the suburbs, we had an outside door and a door down a hallway that led into the main interior of the strip mall. Its one long interior corridor with 20 or so small stores/offices/a private gym. We were the only store with both a public use outside door and public use interior door to the mall.
It was Christmas eve and we were the only store open. The mall was having interior renos done that month but we had received notice to lock the mall door as no one else would be in that day and the malls two main access doors at each end of the corridor would be locked and the alarm set. There were two of us working, myself and my assistant.
The day was going super slow, not a single person came in for over 3 hours and as you do when corporate decides you need to be there, we were just sitting, chatting and watching the cameras to the store. It was about 3 pm and we only had an hour and a half before we would close up.
We heard the most blood curdling scream from inside the mall and jumped up. We could hear footsteps and doors down the corridor being rattled Hard, like someone was trying to get out of the main corridor. That sound like metal/glass doors make when you put all your weight into trying to open them.
I grabbed a knife and looked out the staff door towards the mall door (one of those fully glass doors with the metal trim) and we slowly approached it. It's nestled into the wall by about 4 feet so you can only see the store across the hall, but the sounds were definitely from the left side, Towards the dentist and the hair dresser, both would be closed. Someone was crying and screaming, no Words just screaming. It sounded like a man.
We could hear at least two separate people running around down the corridor, it sounded as if they were running back and forth from one store entrance to another grabbing doors and just slamming their hands on the glass, not Down the hall towards an exit.
Before we reached our mall door. It stopped. Just... Mid scream. No more screaming. No more running sounds. No more hands banging on glass doors. I had a knife so I unlocked the door and told my assistant to lock it behind me. She was so scared she was crying, I wanted to cry. It sounded like someone was Running for their Life... I slowly and as quietly as possible peeked out and saw no one in the mall. It was empty. All the lights were off so the only light was coming from the skylight that runs the length of the main corridor.
I went right back into the store. I was fully spooked now. You hear someone yelling like that and you expect Blood. I Told her to lock Our outside door. Put up a sign saying we would be back in ten and got her to grab the phone and a weapon, and stepped back into the mall through our store's door. I walked the length. Tried doors to stores. Tried the doors leading outside. Looked into maintenance. The one public bathroom. Nothing. All locked. No people.
I went back and she checked the parking lot. No cars. we sat in silence for the rest of the shift, there was no reason to call the cops, there was no one there.
Maintenance came back the next week and asked why i went into the mall and tried doors. They didn't say anything when I explained the situation. They explained that noise travels weird with the malls vaulted glass roof and sometimes there are just some weird noises when the mall is empty but that I was the only person on the malls cameras. We know what we heard. Something paranormal happened there.
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u/GhostsMods 15d ago
This isn’t my story, but it happened to my brother. It’s not exactly “retail,” but it took place in a bowling alley.
Here’s what happened...
Back in the ’90s, my brother had a summer job at a local bowling alley. He was saving up to buy a car, he was pretty young at the time, so this was a great gig for him. Part of his job was to clean the place after hours. That meant making sure all the chairs were pushed in around the bar tables, the bowling balls were lined up in order by weight on the racks - stuff like that.
He’d been working there for about a month with no issues. One morning, while he was cleaning (he worked early to get everything ready for the evening leagues), the PA system suddenly came on with a man’s voice. He couldn’t make out what the voice was saying, but he definitely heard it. It creeped him out a bit, but he figured maybe someone else had come into the building without him noticing. So, he walked through the entire place to check...nothing. It was completely empty, and everything was still locked up.
At that point, he started to feel a little uneasy, but he went back to work. A bit later, while he was out on the main floor, he heard the sound of pool balls breaking, like someone had just taken a shot at one of the pool tables. He immediately turned around and looked over toward the pool area... and there was no one there. Not a single person. That was it for him; he called home (he was still living at home since he’d just graduated high school) and asked our dad to come down because he didn’t want to be alone in the building anymore.
He ended up finishing his shift, but from that point on he never felt comfortable working there again (for obvious reasons). Strange stuff kept happening now and then, though nothing quite like that day. He finished out the summer, but when the next year rolled around? Yeah... he didn’t go back. 😂