Invisible Co Worker

In the four years I've worked in the office where I do, there have been regular occurrences which I feel can only be called paranormal. At first, they could be passed off as my imagination, or by some logical explanation, but eventually, it went beyond that.

My office is fairly small, it's in the front of a manufacturing plant, but to my knowledge, the events have been limited to just the office area and restrooms directly outside the offices. It's not too old of a building, maybe late 70s or early 80s, and to our knowledge, all that sat on this property previously was farmland.

I remember the first time something odd happened to me was just a few months after I'd started working here, and I'd gotten in early in the morning, and was making a pot of coffee in the cubicle where we have our coffee maker, water cooler and mini-fridge in (and a table). I put the empty pot under the filter and began walking out of the cubicle when I heard a sizzling sound. The pot was on the table next to the coffee maker and coffee was spilling out all over the place. I dashed over the put the pot down and cleaned up the mess, sure that I'd put the pot down before I left, but guessing I'd just thought I did.

Not long after that, I was in early again talking to a co-worker just outside the doorway that led into the offices near the restrooms, when all of a sudden we heard a door slam very hard inside. I had to unlock the door to the office area since it was locked on that side (but there was another door that led out to the factory on the other side) and my co-worker and I went in, turned the lights on and looked around for someone. I figured that they must've gone out the back door, and checked the door, but it too, was still locked. All the office doors (there were six) were also locked.

Gradually about three of us out of the 7 people who worked in the office began seeing (but moreso hearing) unexplainable things more and more often, like lights being turned out in the mens' room when you are alone in there, doing your business, scratching sounds coming from inside walls, doors being left open that were closed the night before when you left (our cleaning people come in the later afternoon and early evening before everyone has left the office) as well as radios that change stations of their own accord in the time it takes from you to get up from your desk, go to the copy machine or get a cup of coffee and return to your office.

All these things were unnerving to say the least, but not truly scary until one evening last fall when I had come in on a Saturday morning, to catch up on a project I was working on and have access to the copier without interruptions from co-workers as well as the use of our large conference room table to lay my sheets of paper out in orderly piles that would need to be hole punched and put in binders.

I was alone, and it was about 9 or 10 in the morning, and I'd been working away for over an hour without anything odd going on, when suddenly I felt like I wasn't alone in the conference room. It really felt like someone was standing behind me watching over my shoulder. I got very scared, my palms began sweating and heart raced. I turned around and of course I was alone, but the feeling was still there. I still had so much to do, but really didn't want to be in there alone, so I did the next best thing, and flicked on the radio in the cubicle across from the office we used as the conference room and turned it really loud.

When I returned to the conference room not a minute later, all my stacks I'd neatly piled up waiting to be hole-punched were messed up, some pages on the floor, a couple of the chairs next to the table rolled aside, as if someone got up from them quickly or shoved them away. That was it. I ran to my own office, grabbed my car keys off the desk, and left the office, just like that.

Strangely enough, when I got in Monday morning, I was told by my manager, who was there early, that he saw how far I'd gotten with the project and remarked all that really needed to be done was punch the holes in the stacks. I was confused. He said he got in and was the first one there, and happened to see the conference room door open and all my piles on the table neatly piled up. I looked myself and it was true, they were all piled up again, and nothing messed up or laying on the floor. Even the chairs were all neatly pushed in. I asked him if the lights were still on or the radio on when he came in and he said no. Since he wasn't one of the people in our office to believe any of the events that had occurred and never mentioned anything odd happening to him, I thought it best not to tell him what happened to me Saturday morning.

Things still happen out of the ordinary here, nothing really evil or harmful or as dramatic as what happened that Saturday morning, but nonetheless, whatever is sharing our office with us continues to make itself known now and again.

Most recently, about a month ago, I put a picture in a frame up on my desk of my girlfriend and I, and when I unlocked my office door the next morning, found it under my chair. I asked my boss if he'd seen anyone go in my office after I left, or if he was joking around and he said no. A few days later, the picture was moved again, in my top drawer. A couple weeks ago, it was moved yet again, this time behind my office door sitting on the floor against the baseboard of the wall. I had enough, and being the only one in thus far, shouted "Stop playing with my picture-it isn't funny anymore!" I felt kind of silly afterwards, but whatever it was must've heard me, because it hasn't been moved since.