Escape rooms have become all the rage for friend gatherings, group dates, bachelor parties, work events, you name it. You put a group of people in a room and give them a series of clues that have to be solved in order to “escape” within a certain amount of time – some are easy, some are hard, and I imagine which is which depends a little bit on the group that’s attempting to solve the puzzle.
I’ve enjoyed my trips into these spaces, but it is kind of weird to think that some kid is out there listening and watching your every move (in order to help you, but still!).
It goes the other way, too, of course, and these 18 escape room employees have seen. some. sh*t.
18. They had to know that wasn’t the actual solution.
I went to a place with my family and, while we went into our room, we saw some employees working on fixing another room.
Apparently someone from a group before ours decided the only way out was to shoulder charge the door, which wasn’t all that strong, and ripped the entire thing out of the frame. I guess they technically succeeded.
17. That is…sort of impressive.
The group of guests manage to pull an entire twin bed, mattress, frame and all, through a thin passageway and into the final room through the secret door.
They thought it would be part of the puzzle. It was not.
16. Was he trying to show off for a girl? Or?
I asked an Escape Room employee this once.
Our room had a big metal safe.
One guy who played in that room just picked up and carried the safe around the entire time.
15. Sometimes we’re just really tired, okay?
There was a room with a bed in it. Instead of continuing to follow the clues, two guests proceeded to put themselves to bed and then take a nap for half the time.
They weren’t hurting anything, so I let it happen. Before they left, they remade the bed and tucked two of our skeletons inside.
14. This honestly doesn’t surprise me.
Honestly most of the odd stuff that happens is because us employees forgot to reset one part of the room.
The worst was when this new employee reset a room for the first time by himself. He locked all of the locks, but never actually locked the door of each safe to itself, so the customers were able to open everything like there were no locks at all.
He eventually became assistant manager at our store. We were desperate.
13. I will never ever be that smart.
Nothing really earth shattering here. The strangest thing I can think of is this one time the guest skipped every clue and happened onto the final solution to escape the room in the first five minutes. As I was heading towards the exit of the room to offer them a steep discount for completing the room on record time and seeing if they wanted to try another room I overheard the guest starting to unravel the mystery backwards from the end point.
Seeing them sound so exited and into the mystery I walked back to my station and saw them solve every puzzle backwards in record time. After they got out we shared some laughs over what happened then traded a free coupon for their next visit if they told me how they unraveled everything so we can run it as a new scenario.
12. He thought he was so clever too lollllll.
Not an employee, While looking for a key, I put my hand in a box and pulled out a stuffed rat tied to a cord. I was convinced this was important, stuck my fingers up a tear in the stuffed toys arsehole and started yanking out its stuffing convinced I’d find a key, a clue… Something.
I was quickly warned over the phone by an employee that the rat was just part of the set and to please leave it alone.
TLDR: got in trouble for fingering a toy rat at an escape room.
11. What a bunch of cheaters.
My cousin went through an escape room with his friends and were solving the puzzles at an alarmingly quick rate. They were told the entire “escape” process would take anywhere around 60-90 mins. Well, they were finished in 10 minutes. The coordinator running the room was floored, and told them this was the quickest she’d ever seen someone escape. Thinking they were cheating, she went into the room. Well, whoever the employee was that “cleaned up” the escape room before them left the answer key behind.
So my cousin and his friends had found the answer key and it still took them 10 mins to escape the room. They got a refund and were asked to please try again.
10. When Rain Man does an escape room.
We had z a group that, within about 30 seconds, worked out the code because one of the guys figured out a clue from the first two sentences from the video.
They were pissed off
9. These people are the reason the rest of us have to listen to the spiel about not taking the rooms apart.
The story that comes to mind is a group of Swedish construction workers genuinely thought the solution to the puzzle was to lift the door off its hinges
Although a more common experience would be explaining to customers that the games aren’t as fun when intoxicated, and then have them complain that the game was way too hard. That stopped when we started adding a histogram of every players score on the souvenir photos, and their embarrassing times were way longer than average…
8. Okay this could be a scene in a movie.
Bachelorette party came in and booked the jungle temple themed room. They were beyond wasted and I’m not sure why we even let them play but whatever. In the first room is a book with some pictures of ‘fertility idols’, which were just little Buddha statues. One of the girls went to the bride-to-be and pointed to the Buddha and said “Look, it’s your fiance!” and everyone but the betrothed had a good laugh.
Bachelorette stood in the corner and Blair Witched it for a few minutes, while one of her friends consoled her. 15 minutes into the game, the one who made the joke had enough of it I guess and stormed over and whipped her around and yelled “It’s not that serious, get over it!”
Dude got sucker punched by the sash wearing, tiara clad hulk. Straight domed, made a great sound. I look over at the monitor and see them all swirling in a storm of fists. I get up and head over to the phone and call the manager at the front desk and let her know about the fight club happening in Temple. They continue to fight in the hallway outside the room before moving the the sidewalk outside, giving a great show to the next door Cici’s pizza visitors.
Best part is when they’ve stopped smashing their fists into each other’s skulls, they came back asking for a refund since they only used a quarter of the time they paid for. If you’re ever looking for a job that generates good stories, look for escape rooms. People are dumb and you get to watch them do it.
7. He’d had enough of the bullsh*t for one night.
Not an employee but my SO’s old neighbour worked at an escape room and we went to try it out, it was a lot of fun but we finally got the lock off this big wooden door for access into the second half of the room, and for some reason neither of us decided to try the door. We kept looking for clues for around ten minutes until, over the walkie, the guy straight up told us to pull the door and you can tell he was sick of it
6. What a fun gig for an aspiring actor.
I worked at an escape room where the game masters were inside the room with the guests as actors who were in character with the room’s theme.
We had a zombie room with two actors: a doctor and a zombie.
The plot of the room was fun. Guests walk in. The doctor would begin a scientific lecture about a virus reanimating dead tissue. While this is going on, the zombie, chained to the wall (chain got longer every five minutes), is snarling. After like a minute, the doctor would have to tranquilize the zombie as preparation for experimentation. Here, the zombie would attack the doctor. Alarms go off, door “self locks” to contain the virus, and we now have an hour to escape or be locked in forever.
As the doctor, I would get more and more sick as the hour went by all while trying to remain studious and terrified at the same time. With about three minutes to go, regardless where the guests were with escaping, I’d faint. Usually everyone stopped what they were doing to gawk, waiting for me to pop back up. This was usually where the zombie in the room would go ham and start chasing people around the room. With the commotion I’d twitch, and they’d scream each time I did because it added to the confusion and chaos.
With a minute left I’d pop up in a back bend and start spider walking at people with an Alka-Seltzer tablet foaming out of my mouth. I actually made someone pee themselves doing this.
5. Oh man that is super awkward.
A couple broke up in the room I was running… I then gave them loads of hints so they could get out asap
4. When you don’t have brains but…
Yeah this one guy literally walked in and kicked the door down and walked through.
His friends and I just stood there like ohhhh okay then.
3. But seriously that is not fun.
My mother and her friends went to an escape room one night for a girls night out, and while they were solving the room one of them elected to just fiddle around with the final lock on the door which was a 4-digit code, and miraculously unlocked it and walked out.
2. Whoever watched that was dyyyying.
My husband and I did an escape room a couple months ago for the first time. It was serial killer themed, so when we took the blindfolds off we were chained in a dirty, dimly lit bathroom. After getting free, we picked up this suuuuuper dim toy lantern that flickered to be creepy. We crawled around the room gathering tools and sharing this tiny flickering lantern. We solved about 4 puzzles in 40 minutes before discovering they had left us flashlights on a table to use.
1. Those are some people who have been to their fair share of haunted houses.
Was in an escape room with some friends and a bunch of strangers. Premise of the room is that you’ve been kidnapped by a serial killer and you’ve got to get yourself out of his basement before he comes back. So it’s super creepy and gross.
A few clues in, we find the key to a 7’ tall locker. One of the guys I don’t know goes to open it. I’m standing right behind him. He unlocks it and just as he reaches for the handle, the door starts to open from the inside. We were so in the moment, he and I just slam the damn thing shut and hold it with our combined weight. We’re all asking each other what to do, and there comes a polite knocking from inside the locker.
We’re all jumpy as heck, but we finally decide to let whoever is in there out. It was ‘the killer’ and he was supposed to just jump scare the crap out of everyone and run out of the room. After we all escaped, he told us that had never happened before. He was just standing in the locker trying to figure out what to do! So funny afterwards, but it genuinely scared the crap out of me when it happened!!!
Y’all, what is WRONG with people?
Have you worked at an escape room? Have you accidentally seen something you wish you hadn’t? Please, confess in the comments!
