The Reason I Dread Work

Hey, USM! First of all, I hope you all had a FABULOUS Thanksgiving, I know I sure did! Sitting here with family talking about creepy stuff that we've experienced made me think a LOT about my job lately...

For those that don't know, I still work part-time at the local bowling centre. I used to do strictly birthday parties, but now I also work the laser tag area. As a laser tag Marshall, I am responsible for the upkeep of all the game vests, running the games, satisfying the customers, and closing things down at nights. Well, I'd never noticed ANYTHING weird about our centre until I began working at the Laser Tag arena.

Our arena is black-light, which means its pretty dark in there, but the designs that are on the walls are insanely cool, intricate designs that immediately capture the eye. All of our designs are hand-done and gorgeous to look at, even. I'm not a fan of the dark, so maybe I'm just feeding off of all of that, but I could almost swear that weird stuff happens in there ALL THE TIME!

I first started noticing it when I was working a birthday party one day. My coworker who was running laser tag that day was telling the children how to play. We have three rooms to our 'arena.' First, there's the briefing room
I wasted no time at all throwing the door open to that room, just to find the other door closing as soon as I'd opened it. My coworker was freaked out by now. I apologized for scaring her, and we let the children play. No big deal. It scared me to be in there alone now. I told Amy (my coworker) about it and she revealed that she'd HEARD weird things in there,and didn't want to say anything because she was afraid they'd think she was crazy.

So, I go the longest time being too afraid to go into any of the rooms by myself. On Halloween, I was working, and my coworker Ryan was working with me. He was getting ready to do a game, so I was setting up the computer in the office (the door to the office is RIGHT across from the door to the arena.) The stupid computer decides to freeze up, and I have to spend time rebooting the entire thing. I begin to reboot it, and I hear something that sounds like someone RUNNING up the ramp to the office. (We have a ramp leading up to our arena door, and it is very hollow beneath, so it is very easy to hear when someone is walking/ running on it). Something SLAMS into the arena door, and I RUN out of the room, crying. Ryan asks me what happened, what was going on. I was sobbing, and he was trying to comfort me as he insists it was nothing. I tell him I'm not setting foot back into that room for the rest of the night, and he agrees to work the games if I work the register. He goes to check the arena after I tell him something slammed into the door. He goes to check, and as soon as he opens the arena door, a shoe is lying in the floor. The door has a chip of paint gone from where the shoe hit... And we still don't know where the shoe came from.

And finally, about two weeks ago while I was closing, I was going around and plugging in all the vests like we're supposed to do. I'm about halfway back to the office (I start at one side of the office and work my way around, that way I'm back at the office after they're all plugged in. I can go straight in, shut everything down, and leave.) when the vest two away from me gets THROWN to the ground. I stand there, heart racing as I register what just happened. There is no way POSSIBLE for the vests to simply "fall off" unless someone puts them on the wall wrong, which I double check that they're correctly put back before I plug in vests. The vest activates and simply says, "BE CAREFUL. DO NOT DROP THE BATTLE-SUIT." like it says when the vests are handled roughly. I simply pick the vest up, plug it in, and quickly close everything out. I couldn't WAIT to leave that night.

It's come to where I dread working laser tag, at least alone. I love doing my parties, but it's actually TERRIFYING to work laser tag alone, especially after my coworker's stories about the night a man broke into our arena while she was working. I love my job, but hate this aspect of it.

Just wanted to share.

*EQ

Show all stories by   Author:  65687 ( Click here )