Speaker 1: My colleagues. We'll stop commenting on everything I get at
Speaker 1: people and meeting. Why does my coworker keep taking credit
Speaker 1: for all my idea? Have any wisdom for me? Hi,
Speaker 1: I'm Alison Green. Welcome to the Aska Manager Podcast, where
Speaker 1: I answer questions from listeners about life at work, everything
Speaker 1: from what to say if you're allergic to your coworkers
Speaker 1: perfume to what to do if you drink too much
Speaker 1: at the company party. Let's get started, Hi, and welcome
Speaker 1: to the show. This is a special Halloween episode. So first,
Speaker 1: Happy Halloween. Today, we're going to talk about Halloween in
Speaker 1: the office, ways that I can go wrong, things to avoid,
Speaker 1: and questions that I get a lot about Halloween. We're
Speaker 1: also going to hear from callers who have had spooky
Speaker 1: experiences at work, so get ready to be creeped out
Speaker 1: by those stories. In fact, to launch the show, let's
Speaker 1: start with one colors spooky experience at work. So in
Speaker 1: I used to work at Lincoln Castle as a general
Speaker 1: staff member. One of my roles was to sit in
Speaker 1: the corner of a specially made vault containing an original
Speaker 1: Magna Carta document which is about just over eight years old. Anyhow,
Speaker 1: I would pretty much stop people taking photos in there,
Speaker 1: answer questions, and just beyond guard. When nobody's in there,
Speaker 1: it can get pretty quiet if the film isn't playing
Speaker 1: in the next room and there is a sensor above
Speaker 1: the vault door that flicks to red from green. If
Speaker 1: a person walks through Q tow an afternoon when it's
Speaker 1: dead and I'm chilling on my guard store when the
Speaker 1: censor starts flicking fast green to red, green to red,
Speaker 1: and let me tell you, no one is near it,
Speaker 1: not me or any visitors. In addition to this spookery,
Speaker 1: the glass of the Magna Carta casing starts to fog
Speaker 1: up then disappears almost instantly, regards one creeped out ex
Speaker 1: castle staff member aka Natasha from Lincoln in the UK.
Speaker 1: That story has everything that I want from a spooky story,
Speaker 1: an old historical artifact castle, mysterious flashing lights, even fog,
Speaker 1: and of course, completely unanswered questions about what happened. We're
Speaker 1: gonna have more first person accounts from Colors as we
Speaker 1: move through the show, but let's talk about Halloween at work.
Speaker 1: Let's start with should you wear a costume to work?
Speaker 1: Or the other version of this question that I get
Speaker 1: a lot is do you have to wear a costume
Speaker 1: to work if everyone else is and you don't feel
Speaker 1: like it, will you look like a stick in the mud.
Speaker 1: There's nothing wrong with dressing up at work. If that's
Speaker 1: a thing that your office does, it can be really fun.
Speaker 1: The one caution I would give is to think about
Speaker 1: the work that you might end up needing to do
Speaker 1: that day and make sure that your costume isn't going
Speaker 1: to get in the way. Like if you have to
Speaker 1: talk to clients, obviously, don't wear a costume that makes
Speaker 1: it hard to talk or to hear. And if you
Speaker 1: ever have to deliver difficult or sensitive news in the
Speaker 1: course of doing your job, take that into a out too,
Speaker 1: because you don't want to give someone bad news while
Speaker 1: you're dressed as a banana or a ghoul. The same
Speaker 1: thing is actually true when it comes to decorations at
Speaker 1: work too. You don't want to find yourself giving someone
Speaker 1: bad news, or even just talking to a stressed out
Speaker 1: person surrounded by blood and fake spider webs while as
Speaker 1: soundtrack of eerie music is playing in the background. Once
Speaker 1: the other costume rules, if you are new to your office,
Speaker 1: if you weren't there last Halloween and you're not sure
Speaker 1: what their traditions are. Ask ahead of time because you
Speaker 1: probably don't want to be the only person in your
Speaker 1: office dressed as a bloody zombie or iron man or
Speaker 1: what have you. And then be thoughtful about what your
Speaker 1: costume is, so that means nothing sexually provocative, despite the
Speaker 1: trend in Halloween costumes being increasingly sexed up. So no
Speaker 1: naughty nurses, no sexy cat, no flasher or so forth.
Speaker 1: Basically assume that co workers shouldn't see any more of
Speaker 1: your body than they do on any other day of
Speaker 1: the year. That's a pretty good litmus test. And don't
Speaker 1: wear a costume that plays on racist or ethnic tropes,
Speaker 1: and don't dress up as a member of a group
Speaker 1: that's been systemically oppressed, So that means no Native American costumes,
Speaker 1: no black face obviously, Actually I say obvious, but it
Speaker 1: isn't obvious to everyone. Every fall I hear about someone
Speaker 1: whose coworker has apparently not gotten the no black face
Speaker 1: message yet, so it bears repeating. And really you should
Speaker 1: stay away from costumes that could come across as making
Speaker 1: fun of serious issues too, so like no Harvey Weinstein costume,
Speaker 1: for example, and nothing that's very political. Your goal is
Speaker 1: to have fun, it's not to make your coworkers feel
Speaker 1: uncomfortable around you. Yeah, what if you don't want to
Speaker 1: dress up, but everyone else in your office is doing it?
Speaker 1: Will you look like a web blanket if you don't
Speaker 1: join in. You certainly don't have to dress up if
Speaker 1: you don't want to, But if you're in an office
Speaker 1: where everyone is doing it, it might make sense to
Speaker 1: just throw on a witch hat and call it done.
Speaker 1: You know, you can keep it really low key. You
Speaker 1: don't have to go all out with an elaborate costume.
Speaker 1: But sometimes in an office where everyone else is really
Speaker 1: into it, it's easier to just do something simple and
Speaker 1: look like you're participating, rather than field questions all day
Speaker 1: long about why you're not dressed up. But you certainly
Speaker 1: don't have to. And of course, if you have a
Speaker 1: religious objection to celebrating Halloween, as some people do, that's
Speaker 1: a whole different thing, and you of course can opt
Speaker 1: out in that case. But if you're not really into it,
Speaker 1: but you're thinking, I should just do something so that
Speaker 1: I don't get hassled all day over at the Aska
Speaker 1: Manager website, recently, commenters were sharing ideas for really low
Speaker 1: key Halloween costumes that are easy to do at work,
Speaker 1: when you want to sort of make a nod to
Speaker 1: this group experience and not seem like you're totally not participating,
Speaker 1: but when you also don't want to put a ton
Speaker 1: of effort into it. Some of the ideas people suggested
Speaker 1: that I thought were great were just something as simple
Speaker 1: as a headband with cat ears or one of those
Speaker 1: headpieces with an arrow through your head. Or you cannot
Speaker 1: wear a costume at all and when people ask, you
Speaker 1: can say I'm a serial killer they look like everyone else,
Speaker 1: or I'm might evil twin. I have a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of these, by the way, I'm going to go through
Speaker 1: the whole list, and I just want to make it
Speaker 1: clear I cannot take credit for these. These are all
Speaker 1: ideas from asking manager commenters. Another one someone suggested, right
Speaker 1: on a white T shirt four oh four costume not found.
Speaker 1: Or wear jeans and a T shirt and a hard
Speaker 1: hat and now you're a construction worker. Or wear a
Speaker 1: suit and be the CEO. Or get a rectangle of
Speaker 1: yellow cardboard, hold it up to your face and tell
Speaker 1: people that you are National geographic. Or stick your arms
Speaker 1: inside your top and say that you are the book
Speaker 1: Farewell to Arms, or pretty much anything that Jim Helpert
Speaker 1: did on the office is a good model. Here, tape
Speaker 1: three circles to your shirt, say you're a piece of
Speaker 1: notebook paper, were a name tag that says Dave and
Speaker 1: say that your Dave. Put on a wizard hat. Or
Speaker 1: if you normally wear a suit, add sunglasses and now
Speaker 1: you're men in black, or where goffier makeup than usual
Speaker 1: and say that you're goth. Or my favorite suggestion that
Speaker 1: someone made just because it sounds so comfortable, wear a
Speaker 1: hoodie and sweatpants and have messy hair and say that
Speaker 1: you're a frazzled college student. That one gets my vote.
Speaker 1: Or you can just say, you know, yeah, I didn't
Speaker 1: dress up this year, but I love your costume and
Speaker 1: that is fine too. Also, while we're on this topic,
Speaker 1: if you are in an office where most people do
Speaker 1: dress up and you've got one coworker who doesn't, don't
Speaker 1: hassle them about not getting into the spirit of the
Speaker 1: holiday or whatever. Not everyone likes dressing up. Some people
Speaker 1: have reasons that might be private. Enjoy the costumes of
Speaker 1: the people who did dress up and let your other
Speaker 1: coworkers be costume free in peace. Let's take a short
Speaker 1: break and I will come right back with another spooky
Speaker 1: work story from a collar. Here's a spooky thing that
Speaker 1: happened at work. I often find myself working late in
Speaker 1: the office, and I'm usually there by myself. Sometimes it
Speaker 1: can be really late, it's like ten or eleven o'clock
Speaker 1: at night, and being the boss, I tend to walk
Speaker 1: around the office, which is quite large, and make sure
Speaker 1: that all the lights are shut off at the end
Speaker 1: of the day. Well, I have gone through the building
Speaker 1: multiple times and had all the lights shut off. Obviously
Speaker 1: no one's there because I've gone through the entire building
Speaker 1: been on the other side of the building when I've
Speaker 1: heard a door slam shut. At first, I always thought
Speaker 1: it was a fluke thing, but it has happened so
Speaker 1: many times, and come to find out that the building
Speaker 1: has a little bit of um some just people. Other
Speaker 1: people have experienced a similar thing, doors being shut even
Speaker 1: though no one else is there, and even hearing people speaking,
Speaker 1: and then come to find out nobody's actually in the hallway.
Speaker 1: Needless to stay working until ten or or eleven o'clock
Speaker 1: at night in the dark has become my not favorite
Speaker 1: thing to do in that office. That's my spooky office story.
Speaker 1: You know. In past years, I've asked readers at my
Speaker 1: website to share spooky experiences that they've had at work,
Speaker 1: and a lot of people reported stuff like this, voices
Speaker 1: when no one was there and doors slamming when they
Speaker 1: were alone in the building. It's interesting because if I
Speaker 1: were a ghost, I would not choose to hang out
Speaker 1: at work or in an office building. Possibly these ghosts
Speaker 1: were workaholics in previous lives. I don't know. Okay, There's
Speaker 1: one other context where I get questions about Halloween costumes
Speaker 1: and work, and that is job interviews. I've had more
Speaker 1: than one person right to me and ask if they
Speaker 1: should wear a costume if they have a job interview
Speaker 1: on Halloween, presumably as a way to show some personality
Speaker 1: or that they're fun or whatever. But don't do it.
Speaker 1: I'm sure there is some interviewer out there who would
Speaker 1: like it and think that you're fantastic, but there are
Speaker 1: far far more interviewers who are going to think it's
Speaker 1: a little inappropriate and an odd choice for an interview. Plus,
Speaker 1: you really want their focus to be on your qualifications.
Speaker 1: And not on whatever you're wearing. Anyway, let's get to
Speaker 1: more spooky stories. In fact, the whole rest of the
Speaker 1: show is going to be all spooky stories from people.
Speaker 1: I had mentioned earlier that in previous years I've asked
Speaker 1: ask a manager readers readers over at the website from
Speaker 1: which this podcast has sprung to share their own stories
Speaker 1: of spooky happenings at work. And I thought I would
Speaker 1: share a couple of my favorites that people have sent
Speaker 1: in in past years, and then we'll hear more that
Speaker 1: podcast listeners have called in with. Here's one that someone
Speaker 1: shared that is really a bit spooky. I work in
Speaker 1: a nursing home with many folks who have dementia. They
Speaker 1: live in other realities, and I'm used to residents saying
Speaker 1: weird things. However, there seems to be a trend in
Speaker 1: one area of the building where residents to quickly refer
Speaker 1: to quote the little boy who always seems to be
Speaker 1: standing somewhere near It's very common for a resident to
Speaker 1: be talking to the little boy or look like they're
Speaker 1: talking to thin air, and it's also common for them
Speaker 1: to ask us questions about the boy, like is this
Speaker 1: your child? Or is the little boy going to come
Speaker 1: to the activity, to et cetera. It's only in that
Speaker 1: one area of the building, but it's with almost all
Speaker 1: of the residents who have dementia. Only one of them
Speaker 1: has a history of having visual hallucinations. It does creep
Speaker 1: me out a little bit. I don't know if collective
Speaker 1: shared hallucinations are a thing or not. It wouldn't surprise
Speaker 1: me if they were, but this is a pretty unsettling story.
Speaker 1: Here's another one someone submitted. I worked in a place
Speaker 1: where when we renovated our office, they decided to replace
Speaker 1: all the walls with glass to show that we were
Speaker 1: a transparent organization. As you can probably guess, leadership, they're
Speaker 1: kind of sucked. While the higher ups had frosted glass offices,
Speaker 1: most of the staff at glass fish bowl offices with
Speaker 1: no doors. As you can imagine, we all hated when
Speaker 1: we lost our walls, particularly one guy who routinely complained
Speaker 1: about it. Well, a few months later, this guy's fired
Speaker 1: for unrelated reasons in the worst way possible, where they
Speaker 1: did it mid morning and everyone saw it happen. Hard
Speaker 1: to hide things in the glass office, so he had
Speaker 1: to pack up all his stuff and was escorted from
Speaker 1: the building. The next day, the glass walls of the
Speaker 1: fired guy's office shattered. No one was near that office,
Speaker 1: no one saw anything suspicious, and we worked in a
Speaker 1: secure office so people couldn't come in without us knowing.
Speaker 1: We never found out what happened, but I like to
Speaker 1: think that fired guy got his revenge. I love that one.
Speaker 1: Here is another one, almost twenty years ago. I worked
Speaker 1: for my town's park and Recreation department. Started as a
Speaker 1: summer job in college, but I ended up in a
Speaker 1: program manager role for a while and worked part time
Speaker 1: through the year. While I was in school part time
Speaker 1: because my hours weren't nine to five Monday through Friday,
Speaker 1: I went in at off hours to get my work
Speaker 1: done around my course schedule. The office was in an
Speaker 1: old building that had been a gym. The basketball court
Speaker 1: was ancient but was still used for games and special Olympics.
Speaker 1: This isn't a terrifying ghost story by any means, but
Speaker 1: it's very spooky to be working late at night and
Speaker 1: here the unmistakable squeaking of multiple pairs of sneakers playing
Speaker 1: on a basketball court when there's no one but you
Speaker 1: in the building. There was also a basement that had
Speaker 1: a very scary vibe. I wouldn't go down there alone.
Speaker 1: There had been tunnels under my town that were used
Speaker 1: to run booze during prohibition, and my building had some
Speaker 1: boarded up underground entrances that scared the hell out of me.
Speaker 1: It felt very ghosty. There was also the spot on
Speaker 1: the stairs by the edge of the basketball court. They
Speaker 1: took you up to a small storage space and a
Speaker 1: balcony seating area to view the court. It was just
Speaker 1: this one spot where you could stand and feel super haunted.
Speaker 1: It wasn't so specific like in a really good ghost story,
Speaker 1: like you wouldn't see opparitions or anything, but there was
Speaker 1: this unmistakable scary feeling you'd get at this one spot
Speaker 1: on the stairs. I can still picture it. I had
Speaker 1: a friend who considered herself to be pretty open to
Speaker 1: the spirit world. I thought she was a little looney,
Speaker 1: but I was kind of seeking some confirmation that there
Speaker 1: was a really weird feeling on those stairs. So I
Speaker 1: brought her in one night and she was a wild eyed,
Speaker 1: like the place just scared the hell out of her.
Speaker 1: I brought her up to the stairs and I didn't
Speaker 1: say anything. I just wanted her to go up and
Speaker 1: let me know how she felt. And she stopped right
Speaker 1: before the spot and said, I'm not going past this area.
Speaker 1: I will not stand here. I can't do this and
Speaker 1: pointed to the spot that always gave me the spooky feelings.
Speaker 1: I'm a fairly logical person and not easily tricked by
Speaker 1: things that could be other things. You know, ghost stories
Speaker 1: don't usually work on me. But I also know what
Speaker 1: I heard and what I felt. I'm not going to
Speaker 1: read too much into it or you know, makeup that
Speaker 1: a guy died there and his ghost still plays basketball
Speaker 1: all night. But that place had some really weird vibes,
Speaker 1: confirmed by many many people. Okay, here is another creepy
Speaker 1: story someone shared. I'm loving all of these, and I
Speaker 1: hope you're liking them too. By the way, I have
Speaker 1: worked at my current agency for almost eight years, and
Speaker 1: during that time, I've been shuffled back and forth between
Speaker 1: my current office were the only scary things are the
Speaker 1: skunks that occasionally get into the basement and the main office,
Speaker 1: which is a restored elementary school building originally constructed in
Speaker 1: the late eighteen hundreds. I never experienced anything myself while
Speaker 1: working there, but there was definitely supposed to be a ghost.
Speaker 1: We had an elaborate security system, and one night, long
Speaker 1: after everyone in the office was gone, the motion activated
Speaker 1: camera came on and started to record. When I reviewed
Speaker 1: the video in the morning, it showed a weird, shapeless
Speaker 1: shadow that floated through the lobby and kind of paused
Speaker 1: at the windows of the doors. The offices were converted
Speaker 1: from the classroom, so each cubicle area had a window
Speaker 1: door that opened under the central lobby. The shadow eventually
Speaker 1: floated up over the receptionist desk and disappeared, and then
Speaker 1: the camera turned off. I wish I could upload the
Speaker 1: video because it is truly creptastic, but I don't dare.
Speaker 1: I t has saved it on the shared drive and
Speaker 1: uses it to freak out new hires. Let's do one fight.
Speaker 1: I'll drink here and then we'll come back with more
Speaker 1: stories from callers. I mean, this is for the Spooky
Speaker 1: Halloween coming cast. I had and I've had experiences where
Speaker 1: I used to work as a dispatcher for a charity
Speaker 1: clothing and toy warehouse, and it was my job to
Speaker 1: close the warehouse and after everyone had gone home, and
Speaker 1: I've finished some compliance and and I cannot count the
Speaker 1: number of times that I would be walking in among
Speaker 1: the carts and all of a sudden, always simultaneously and
Speaker 1: always spontaneously, a bunch of toys in a bunch of
Speaker 1: guards would start quacking or playing creepy music or talking.
Speaker 1: Once doll actually sat up and looked at me from
Speaker 1: from the top of a garbage bag and laughed at
Speaker 1: the creepiest laugh ever. I felt like I was the
Speaker 1: in the first scene of a Doctor Who episode and
Speaker 1: they wouldn't even realize I was gone, or maybe a
Speaker 1: a murder doll movie. But so that's my creepy Aska
Speaker 1: manager story. If a doll sat up and looked at
Speaker 1: me and laughed creepily, I would be out of that
Speaker 1: warehouse in seconds. So kudos to you caller for going
Speaker 1: back night after night. Here's another of my favorite stories
Speaker 1: that was shared by an Aska Manager reader in the past.
Speaker 1: At my last job, I would often work several hours
Speaker 1: past the others and past dark. There were multiple times
Speaker 1: when I would hear filing cabinets opening downstairs. Here the
Speaker 1: printer randomly turn on and start whirring and voices whispering.
Speaker 1: Sometimes the door would be unlocked when I was sure
Speaker 1: that I had locked it every time I thought someone
Speaker 1: else would come back for something, and every time it
Speaker 1: was dark and silent. When I got downstairs to look.
Speaker 1: The voices were the worst. When you work in an
Speaker 1: industrial park, you don't expect to hear talking from outside
Speaker 1: after hours, the places in the middle of nowhere. Of course,
Speaker 1: you could make an argument for stress. I sat at
Speaker 1: the top of the stairs in a creaky old building
Speaker 1: with my back to the stairwell, and I was overworked
Speaker 1: and tired. That said my boss, Slash, the owner, did
Speaker 1: die in a tragic and unexplained plane crash a couple
Speaker 1: of months before. H I think the stressing is interesting.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's hard to trust ourselves entirely when we're
Speaker 1: stressed out and tired. On the other hand, you have
Speaker 1: to be really stressed out to be hearing this stuff
Speaker 1: every night, So who knows. Here's another one. This is
Speaker 1: also submitted by a reader. I work in a museum.
Speaker 1: There's always been a joke that the man the museum
Speaker 1: was named after haunted the place. Things would go missing
Speaker 1: and items in the souvenir shop would be moved when
Speaker 1: housekeeping did a deep clean at night. They always said
Speaker 1: strange stuff would happen, sounds, voices, etcetera. When the museum
Speaker 1: was renovated, we added a big screen theater. There's a
Speaker 1: control booth with a small storage area at the top
Speaker 1: of the theater steps. There's also a tiny balcony behind
Speaker 1: the control booth where we have screens that face the
Speaker 1: main hall and that we used to advertise upcoming events, memberships, etcetera.
Speaker 1: Many of the security staff swear that they have seen
Speaker 1: and or experienced ghostly happenings in the control booth, storage area,
Speaker 1: balcony area. One really large muscled ex military guy had
Speaker 1: such a frightening experience that he refused to go in
Speaker 1: the theater. He was on rounds, checked the theater and
Speaker 1: heard sounds in the control booth. He knew the A
Speaker 1: V guy was off that day, so he went up.
Speaker 1: He saw no one in the booth or in the
Speaker 1: storage area, so he was checking the balcony area. He
Speaker 1: said someone shoved him and he almost fell off the balcony.
Speaker 1: There was no one in the theater besides him, but
Speaker 1: they checked the tape anyway, You could clearly see on
Speaker 1: the tape the moment that he was pushed forward, but
Speaker 1: you couldn't see what pushed him. I stay away from
Speaker 1: the theater. If the biggest security guard in the place
Speaker 1: was almost pushed off the balcony by invisible forces, I
Speaker 1: am not chancing it. Are you thoroughly creeped out? Yet?
Speaker 1: I have more? Here's another one, also from a reader.
Speaker 1: Back in college, I worked at a fairly fancy, fairly
Speaker 1: old hotel at the front desk and in the restaurant.
Speaker 1: Most of the restaurant shifts were fairly quiet on weeknights
Speaker 1: and during lunch, so we would sit in the back
Speaker 1: of the restaurant with a book and wait for customers.
Speaker 1: We had a mirror above one of the back tables
Speaker 1: that was arranged so that we could see when guests arrived.
Speaker 1: I'm more than one occasion I saw a black figure
Speaker 1: in the mirror, went up front and saw it moved
Speaker 1: through the restaurant and entered the kitchen. I assumed it
Speaker 1: was just my eyes playing tricks, because it was kind
Speaker 1: of creepy when you were there alone at night, up
Speaker 1: until my friend Rob mentioned that he had seen the
Speaker 1: same thing, except he was in the middle weight station
Speaker 1: and saw a figure walk over from the bar and
Speaker 1: crouched down behind the front booth before disappearing. We then
Speaker 1: pulled everyone else and found out that they were also
Speaker 1: seeing this shadow man thing, and we all thought that
Speaker 1: we were imagining it or crazy. What the hell you all?
Speaker 1: Here's another one, also from a reader. I used to
Speaker 1: work in an office in a manufacturing facility. There were
Speaker 1: two rows of cubicles back to back with high walls
Speaker 1: so that we couldn't see to the other side. A
Speaker 1: co worker and I were working in one row trying
Speaker 1: to finish a project after hours, and it was about
Speaker 1: seven o'clock during the winter, so it was pretty dark.
Speaker 1: When we heard loud laughter. We brushed it off, thinking
Speaker 1: it was one of our coworkers, so we yelled their name,
Speaker 1: complete silence. We quiet down, and we hear a keyboard clicking,
Speaker 1: so I go check on my coworker, thinking maybe they
Speaker 1: have headphones on and can't hear. There was no one there.
Speaker 1: Needless to say, we literally ran out of the office.
Speaker 1: The worst part is we weren't the only ones who
Speaker 1: heard weird laughter after hours in that office. Nobody stayed
Speaker 1: past six o'clock alone, and we often hurried up to
Speaker 1: leave in groups when we had to work late because
Speaker 1: of how freaked out. We were Okay. Here's another one
Speaker 1: from a reader. I think this one is especially creepy.
Speaker 1: For about a year, I worked at the front desk
Speaker 1: of a youth hostel in a major US city and
Speaker 1: also shared a private room in the hostel with another worker.
Speaker 1: Hundreds of tourists the night would stay in the rooms.
Speaker 1: The building was eight stories. Soon I noticed that pretty
Speaker 1: regularly I was getting complaints from people checking out the
Speaker 1: next morning about noise all night in the room above them.
Speaker 1: Why were people moving heavy furniture all night in that room?
Speaker 1: Was it people who were staying in that room? Some rooms,
Speaker 1: for example, had something like fourteen bunk beds, or was
Speaker 1: it management at the hostel. The complaints were that it
Speaker 1: sounded like heavy furniture was being shoved to the center
Speaker 1: of the room and that it went out all night long. Well,
Speaker 1: I finally asked my manager about it, and he just
Speaker 1: pointed at the layout that we had for the hostel.
Speaker 1: We had these giant paper sheets it was the early
Speaker 1: nineteen nineties, and by hand we would check off beds
Speaker 1: and rooms as they were filled and for how many
Speaker 1: nights people were staying, etcetera. I don't know why it
Speaker 1: had never clicked with me when people made these complaints,
Speaker 1: but we never never checked guests in on the entire
Speaker 1: floor that generated the complaints. And if you went up
Speaker 1: to that floor, the door to the room generating the
Speaker 1: complaints not only was locked, but was locked up with
Speaker 1: big link chains. Yikes. Let's do one more story, this
Speaker 1: one from someone who called in recently. Hey Allison. So,
Speaker 1: basically ten years ago, worked for a very very popular
Speaker 1: scene park on a college internship. If in the custodial
Speaker 1: department at the Seame Park there was an abandoned pavilion.
Speaker 1: It had been closed several years prior, but the actual
Speaker 1: building had not been gutted or anything, so just an
Speaker 1: abandoned part of the steam park. Um and my management
Speaker 1: informed me that a corporation had booked the space out
Speaker 1: and it needed a thorough cleaning. So I was booked
Speaker 1: in for a late night overnight in un abandoned terrifying
Speaker 1: uh rooms that was painted with clowns all over the
Speaker 1: wall because for whatever reason that had a carnival motif.
Speaker 1: That was terrifying. So I I'm very afraid of the dark,
Speaker 1: very afraid of spooky places. The life weren't working great,
Speaker 1: It was very dim. I was completely alone, clown staring
Speaker 1: at me vacuuming uh. And because I was so nervous,
Speaker 1: I was singing Disney songs at the top of my
Speaker 1: lunch when I turned a corner and I saw what
Speaker 1: I thought was humanoid shaped in the doorway, So I screamed.
Speaker 1: I fell to the ground clutching the vacuum cleaner, and
Speaker 1: it turns out that it looked like a humorid figure
Speaker 1: because it was It was actually my boss coming to
Speaker 1: check on me. It was horrifyingly embarrassing. Nothing paranormal ended
Speaker 1: up happening, but it was still probably one of the
Speaker 1: scariest things that has ever happened to me at work.
Speaker 1: So that is our Halloween show. Thanks for listening, and
Speaker 1: I will be back next week with hopefully non spooky
Speaker 1: work questions.