These Office Horror Stories Will Make You Think Twice About Doing Overtime
Whether you believe in ghosts or not, accounts of unexplainable things happening in the office occur more commonly than you would expect. The following short horror stories in the office were told by employees based on their personal experience.
Horror Story No. 7: The Lady in the Toilet
I work in human resources in a media company in Mandaluyong. At our office, there’s a spacious restroom for PWDs where most of the ladies from our floor prefer to go. The restroom is usually occupied at lunchtime. One day during lunch, I noticed that our receptionist and the lady from the cafeteria had been waiting outside the restroom for more than ten minutes. So, I did my part to knock because I was worried that something might have happened to the person inside.
The receptionist and the cafeteria lady told me that they already did that, and even called out loud “May tao po ba diyan?” but received no response. Nevertheless, I knocked harder and called out to the person inside, but also got no reply. I said there might be no one inside, but the two insisted they saw someone come in. Nevertheless, I ordered the cafeteria lady to open the door with her key.
To our surprise, there was someone inside! There was a lady sitting on the toilet, head bent down, and her hair covering her face. I felt like it was an emergency because she was unresponsive to our calls earlier. We went out and closed the restroom’s door, while I called for my superior, telling him that this could be an emergency. The receptionist and the lady from the cafeteria stayed outside the restroom.
When my superior arrived, he opened the door, but to our shock, the restroom was empty. I never used the PWD restroom again. —Sab, 26
Horror Story No. 6: The Shoulder Buddy
As I was walking in the office, one of my colleagues smiled at me strangely, like he's a child in wonder. Then I realized he was looking at two places—my face and my shoulder. I frowned and said, "What are you looking at?" He casually said, "May duwende ka
Horror Story No. 5: The Sleeping Companion
I work at an office in Makati. My department is on the east wing of the office, while three smaller departments occupied the west and the middle part at the back. The office has two sleeping quarters where I usually take a nap during my lunch. When the three other departments moved out, we had the whole floor to ourselves.
One day, as I was just about to doze off on my usual spot on the sofa, I heard a loud creak from one of the beds as if someone lay down on it. I was alone in the room at the time, but I was too sleepy to get scared so I just said aloud "Bahala ka
Horror Story No. 4: The Extra Trainees
Our training room has glass whiteboards where you can see people’s reflections. I developed a hobby of counting the number of trainees in the room by looking at their reflections on the whiteboard. On several occasions, I noticed that there were more reflections on the whiteboard than those actually present. One day, when I was writing on the board, I counted 11 people reflected in the whiteboard. When I turned around, I only saw nine. I looked at the glass whiteboard again to make sure I counted correctly, and there were 11. That gave me the creeps. After the training session, I checked the attendance record and saw that there were only nine names there. There were two “extras” who sat in. —Stephy
Horror Story No. 3: The Little Girl
My client, who was in Indonesia, told me he needed a video presentation, which he will present to his foreign counterparts that night. Since we have bad Internet connection, I ended up staying late.
While I was waiting for my video to upload for sending, I heard some shuffling from our storage room. Then, “BAM!” Something big must’ve fallen from inside. Then I heard a faint giggle. Like a giggle of a little girl. I lost it and ran out of our office unit! —Betty, 28
Horror Story No. 2: The Early Bird
I went to the office early because I had to get stuff and print some things for our event. I was alone minding my own business and I was confident that, since the sun is out, nothing strange will happen. I left my desk to get water from the pantry. As I was walking back to my station, there were typing sounds coming from the desk beside me. I shook it off and ignored it. But as I sat down at my desk, it became a flurry of furious typing at the desk beside mine. I fled the office! —Nana, 35
Horror Story No. 1: The Elevator Surprise
Our office has a single elevator, so you can imagine how hard it is to get on and off when it’s crowded, considering the building only has five floors. Our department is on the third floor. You can know the lift’s arrival because you usually hear the people talking inside just when it’s about to open. One night, I was left alone in the office because of a job I had to finish for the next day. It was past 11 p.m.
When I was about to go home, I pressed the elevator button to go down, but the lift took some time going up from the ground floor to fetch me. When the lift was approaching the third floor, I heard the passengers inside talking and laughing loudly. I could still hear the voices just before the doors opened. The voices belonged to children, which was odd, I thought, especially at such a late hour. I received the shock of my life when it finally opened, the lift was empty! I froze, not knowing whether I should get in or take the dark stairwell!
I took my chances. I hopped on the elevator and banged on the close button repeatedly. My god, it wouldn’t close! I didn’t dare
