My dad told me of this one time he went to my mom's work Christmas party, (she was a banker). As the bankers talked shop and tried to sound impressive, the spouses grew bored and talked among themselves. The guy who drew the biggest crowd was this man who worked at a toilet factory and he did quality control. His job was to flush toilet paper and simulated p**p down the toilet. The people at the party, (especially the men) were riveted by his descriptions and peppered him with questions while all these upper management bankers looked on with irritation.

From 15-18 I worked at a glorious dog daycare in a huge air conditioned building. With so many dogs

I worked for them 21 years ago, and they're still thriving. I see employees around town wearing the shirts

Pay me to pet dogs? How could you say no.

I used to digitize my local newspaper's old photo negatives for the local archives. I got to see the most amazing snapshots of everyday life, and how my hometown lived through and reacted to major world events, such as the world wars and the rise of technology and innovation.

It was a great job and I got to bring the pup to work.

Concrete petrographer. I just started this month. I studied geology in college and now my job is to look at concrete using petrographic methods I learned at school and conduct ASTM tests to determine quality of concrete. Very interesting work because concrete is engineered rock and there’s A LOT more to it than you think.

I work in a lab where I raise moths! I got it by telling my lab partner that I love bugs and he hooked me up.

I am studying conservation and restoration of patrimony. I have entered to tombs with archeologists and I am the one who get the bones out, stabilize them and make them presentable for museums. Also I worked in a church, I had complete access to all the rooms, so there are like hidden halls and basements and it's usual to find skeletons or ancient things in there, the atmosphere is quite creepy, humid and dark.

I recently started working in a carrot factory. I stand at a conveyor belt as carrots roll past me and pick out all of the mouldy ones. How did end up in this job you ask? I decided to do an arts degree and now have no career prospects.


In all seriousness though, I work with a lot of migrant workers who work extremely hard doing a job they are accused of “coming to this country and stealing”. They are lovely people who take a lot of care while dealing with the food products and they deserve all the respect in the world for continuing to work hard during the pandemic.

Ooh, I love medical ghost stories! I could write a book on all the ones I've heard over the years. This is one that happened on a unit I worked in about a year ago. For reference, I believe in ghosts and the supernatural. I'm also very pragmatic about my approach to them. But this one is weird.

Note: All identifying information has been changed for confidential purposes.

In the unit I worked in, we used cordless phones to communicate. The shift was winding down and I was just d*****g around on my cell phone. I get a call from the Covid Unit.

"Hey, it's Kim. Are you busy?"
"Nah, just k*****g time until Days gets here. What's up?"
"The call light for 512 keeps going off."
[pregnant pause] "So... answer it."
[whisper] "There's no one in 512..."
"Huh, that is weird. Yeah, I'll come over and check it out."

I tell my charge I'm leaving the floor because Kim is having a call light issue in Covid. I always hated working the Covid Unit because of its location. You had to walk down an empty hallway and it felt like a world away. Usually, it's only staffed by a nurse +1 (nurse-nurse, nurse-aide), furthering the feeling of isolation.

I get to the unit and have them show me to the room. Kim and her aide (an equally scared aide in her late teens/early 20s). I tell them to stay with me in case something happens. We've had people sneak into the hospital at night and steal things. I wasn't about to get attacked so close to the end of my shift.

I walk into the room, with Kim and the aide hovering at the door. Kim reaches in and shuts the call light off from the unit on the wall by the door. The room looks like it hasn't been touched recently. It still looks cleaned by EVS. I turn all the lights on and loudly announce my presence. I say don't want to harm anyone, or be harmed, but if there's someone here to show themselves. I say this as I'm turning on lights, checking the bathroom, closets, etc. I get to the foot of the bed, and the call light goes off. I stare at it lying on the bed.

"Pull it out of the wall!" I heard Kim exclaim behind me. So I do and lay the cord on the bed, shutting off the call light from the wall by the bed. It goes off again, Kim and Aide squeal and runs away. So much for backup.

I walk out of the room and close the door. I walk to the desk, "Call Maintenance and tell them you have a faulty light. Tell Days about it so they don't freak out." And I walk back to my unit.

The next day, the unit is being staffed by Janice and Jordan. Both are really smart and experienced nurses. Janice was my preceptor and has a very no-nonsense attitude (which is why I like her). She and Jordan were working in separate rooms, and "STAFF EMERGENCY RM 512" rings on Janice's phone. Our locator badges had a single button on them. I called them "crisis buttons". You hit them and everyone's phone lights up (basically an "all come" alert).

Janice runs into 512, no one's there. But through the wall, she hears Jordan working in 511. She walks into 511 and Jordan's in the middle of med pass. "Were you in 512?" "No, I've been in here for the past 10 minutes," Janice explains to her about the staff emergency alert, but they chalk it up to the faulty call light situation.

Later Jordan is sitting at the desk charting, chatting with the charge nurse. Her phone rings, but the Caller ID is a jumbled mess of letters and numbers. Before she can answer it, it stops ringing. She calls the number back and it rings to the desk phone sitting just out of arm's reach.

She tells Janice about it and Janice says, "Wait... Henry died in the room last week." In relaying this story, Janice told me she had enough of this BS and stormed into the room. "Henry, I understand you're trying to go home. If you follow me, I can lead you out." She walked out of the room and to the nearby stairwell, held the door open for a couple of minutes, and walked back to the desk. And there wasn't a problem afterward.

I'm a believer that spirits, at least the non-violent ones, are simply trying to complete a task. When that task is done, they leave. I thought about it later when telling Kim this second part that Henry just needed help leaving. And what do we tell our patients to do when they need our help? Press their call light.

When cleaning up incontinent elderly ladies with dementia, some would fight and cry and beg you to stop. “I’ll be a good girl”. “Im sorry. I’m a dirty girl”. “Don’t hurt me anymore”. “Mama, mama, help me”. What did those women suffer in earlier life. Heartbreaking.