I think working the late shift at a convenience store has to be one of the scariest jobs out there.
I had a friend who worked overnight at a gas station that was right off a highway exit and he used to tell me stories of all the weird and creepy people who used to come through the store in the middle of the night.
And he also believed he was very lucky that he never got robbed.
NO THANK YOU! I’d never do that.
But a lot of people do work these kinds of jobs and they’ve seen some sh*t.
Let’s check out these weird stories from folks on AskReddit.
1. Finally caught ’em!
“I worked at this gas station that constantly got robbed. One night it was me and this woman, we’re dealing with a couple of customers, when these two guys walk in, grab four suitcases of beer, and walk out the door.
They were so slick about it we almost didn’t notice. They peeled out from the parking lot in an old white Ford F150.
So we call the cops, gave them our statements, went on with our lives.
Maybe two hours later we see an old white F150 tearing down the street followed by f*cking NINE cop cars. We’re like holy sh*t.
Maybe fifteen minutes later we see that old white F150 tearing down the street going the other way, followed by about 14 cop cars. (Not an exaggeration, I counted.)
So the rest of our shift goes by, about 5 hours and we’ve forgotten about it. A cop stops in shortly before I punch out and is like yeah, they were in a stolen truck, we got the guys.
So I clock out, get in my car, go to leave, and have to pause while this toe truck trundles on by. I pull in behind it – what’s it towing?
That same f*cking old white Ford F150.”
2. So many drunks…
“Worked overnight at a Kwik Trip for 2 1/2 years.
So many drunks.
People who’d sh*t/vomit all over the bathroom.
Had one guy puke from the middle of the candy all the way to the front door.
Had another guy fall down and break the roller grill.
Had a guy threaten to kill and then f*ck me because his food stamp card declined.
Didn’t happen on my shift, but this one regular who would come in and tell everyone that she was my aunt and flip out over trivial sh*t, threw a temper tantrum one night, and it took four cops to take her down.
The one worker who’d get plastered on her nights off at the bar next door and draw d*cks on her coworkers cars (ok, that was me).”
3. Okay…
“I once saw a man come in, stare at me for a few minutes walk into the soda aisle, and slowly pour a 2 liter bottle of sprite down his pants.
Then he left.”
4. Spoody.
“Had a regular customer nicknamed ‘Spoody’ who was a shell shocked nam vet. He came in once and give me $600 and just said “hold onto it for me I might need it one day” I found out later they kept an envelope in the safe for him to make deposits into cause his daughter would steal his disability checks.
Once Spoody came in with a diiiiirty mangey looking spitz and he goes gets put mop bucket and a big jug of Mop N Glow and goes outside. He ties the dog up to the spigot near the entrance of the store and fills up the bucket and gets some good suds going, then dumps it on the dog.
The dog proceeds to attack him and bites him up pretty bad and Spoody just bails and runs off. Meanwhile the dog is tied up in front and mad as hell and nobody could get in or out. Had to finally call animal control.
They get there, accidentally unleash him and the dog attacked one if the dog catchers and then ran off, presumably to find Spoody.”
5. Crack is whack.
“This happened in ’96 at a store in Live Oak, FL called Suwannee Swifty. We were located on Walker Ave which at the time was referred to as ‘Crack Alley.’
On Fri and Sat nights we’d have a huge number of cars in the parking lot and lots of shoplifting, people getting high and drunk in the lot. I’d already had to call 911 on a heart attack in the bathroom and 2 others in the parking lot (at different times).
Anyway, I was working the store alone and was at the tail end of a double shift that was turning into a triple. I’d been there since 5am and it was coming up on 1am and my relief, which happened that night to be my manager, called in drunk and said I’d have to stay til 5 when the next morning shift come in.
I was mad as hell and I could see folks just openly stealing sh*t and basically daring me to do anything. One of the workers came in from a different location and told me to just shut down for the night. I tried asking people to leave but they wouldn’t. I had maybe 40 people in the store by then.
Finally I called the police and then got up on the counter and made the announcement that cops were on their way, everyone had about 3 minutes to take whatever they wanted and get the f*ck out.
It took about 3 minutes to clear us out of ever case of beer and every 40 of malt liquor, not to mention most of the bread and beef jerky and even the big jar of pickled eggs and pigs feet we kept on the counter.
When the last person left I put a chain and padlock on the door and went home. The next day I came by at lunchtime and police and insurance people were there along with a still-drunk manager who showed up hours late for the morning shift and had no idea what was going on. I asked if I was on the schedule for the week and she just slowly shook her head and told me to get out.”
6. Deserted.
“A car containing a man and a woman stopped in front of the store. The woman got out, came in, and asked for some condoms. As I was directing her to them – which was taking longer than it should, as she was fairly dim-witted and/or drunk – she suddenly looked out the window, and freaked out.
The guy she had come here with DROVE OFF WITHOUT HER. And he had her phone and purse.
She used the store phone to call the police on him, and to call her brother for a ride, while insisting that the guy is either “going back to jail” or “gon’ get smashed” by her brother. Or possibly both.
Her brother never showed, but she eventually convinced another customer to give her a ride by giving him $3 for gas and saying that she needed help to “beat the f*ck out her baby daddy”.”
7. He’s in here!
“A drunk driver got into a car accident just outside the store, calmly exited his heavily-damaged car, and came in to buy some Aleve and a drink.
All while the cops outside were trying to figure out where he went.”
8. See ya later.
“Had a drunk guy come in fully clothed.
Walked around for a minute. Stood in place for a minute then headed to the bathroom. When he came out he was wearing nothing but a t-shirt.
Left the store and walked into 3 degree weather. Never saw him again.”
9. A Saturday night ritual.
“Every Saturday night we had to lock all the doors and turn off the lights before the nightclubs closed, because a mob of drunken lunatics would swarm to the Waffle House next door, usually forming an impromptu party / quasi-riot in the parking lot.
This policy developed — at a store that is otherwise NEVER closed — because it simply cost too much to let them into the store, where they inevitably broke and stole sh*t.”
10. Locked in.
“One guy demanded all the money in the register, he was not armed and the place was in a sh*tty neighborhood so it had bulletproof dividers.
It also had a button that would lock the door. We locked the door on him to prevent him from leaving and called the police.
He spent the next 5 minutes tearing up the place. The place was tiny maybe 80 square feet of merch.
Got a free paid day off out of it.”
11. Graveyard shift.
“I worked the overnight shift at a gas station/convenience store for years and have a few stories.
We were on a major road outside of town and on weekends we used to get the crowd from the nightclubs. You can always tell when they’ve had a good night but on this occasion there was about 5 young women come in, all probably around 18-22 and very drunk. But one in particular is pretty much plastered, she needed help and was essentially being propped up by her friends.
She was beyond wasted. They immediately head for snacks and soda and I watch them leave the really drunk girl, who immediately kind of flops to the floor. They finally come up to the counter with a bunch of items, I scan them through, and ask them about their night. Suddenly there is this really loud noise. Like a bandsaw and a saw mill only louder.
I look at the ladies, they look at me, we look at each other, and then we all turn to see the girl has suddenly started snoring and drooling on the tiled floor. I dont know what it was but it was the funniest thing ever and we all burst out laughing.
Then again, one time I had my boss come in, which never happens, as I work alone. About 3am a guy comes in and he’s bleeding profusely. The boss starts applying first aid and I call the police. I put a barrier up because the floor is covered in blood – he’s lost probably 1L of it.
He’s passed out, the ambulance is coming, and then some guy comes in and shouts and he’s brandishing a knife, and a customer who happened to be in the store at the time tries to run but slips on the blood and hits her head on the ground.
The guy panics and runs, and then the ambulance arrived. So glad my boss was there to witness that – I could scarcely believe it myself.”
12. Paintball attack.
“I worked suicide shift at a gas station for a short while as I was moving soon and wanted to make extra money to help me move out of a town that drove me up the wall with lawlessness and corruption. I wasn’t robbed, probably out of the sheer virtue I only had the job for two weeks.
I did spend those two weeks being shot at by punks with paintball guns. Every d*mn time I stepped outside I got f*ckin nailed, like guys literally had nothing better to do than to hide behind bushes for hours on end and wait for an opportunity to snipe my *ss.
Anyway the police in that town would never show up for a complaint about vandals with paintball guns. It just simply wasn’t a crime as far as they were concerned.
So my mind was made up I’m never opening the front door again for any reason no matter what. And they tried everything they could to con me to come outside. “Oh there’s a fire!” “There’s someone out here having a heart attack! You better get out here quick!” F*ck off already.
Anywho this f*ckin drunk comes up and asks for the bathroom key. And he says he’s too drunk to open the door himself, he needs me to open the door for him. I slid the key through the slot and told him he was on his own.
He was f*cking with that lock for nearly an HOUR. Just how f*ckin drunk are you, you piece of sh*t? So he gives up, brings the key back, drops it on the ground, then whips out his dick and pisses on it.
I was livid, I went out there to beat the sh*t of that drunken bastard. Guess what happened the second I opened the front door? The whole godd*mn station came under a barrage of hundreds of paintball rounds. There had to be a dozen of those sh*theads hiding in the bushes across the street.
It took an entire day to wash that sh*t off the windows. I got hit a few times but that drunk got the worst of it. He took at least three rounds to the face.
That was the last time I ever opened that door for charitable reasons. We also sealed off the bathroom to non-customers. But those punks still found a way to get to me. They come in (I don’t know it’s them BTW), buy gas, and ask to use the bathroom. So I slid out the key to them.
When the box was slid out two of them grabbed the box and yanked it out as hard as they could, making it impossible for me to close it. Three more jump out of the car. One of them yanks his trousers off and the other two pick him up and drop him with his *ss on top of the open box, and he sprayed diarrhetic sh*t all over the inside of that box.
So with the box out of commission guess what happens every single time someone has to pay by cash? I open the front door and everyone gets f*ckin nailed with paintball gun rounds.
Jesus I’m so glad I got out of that f*ckin town. Abbotsford, British Columbia, in case anyone is wondering.”
13. Crazy folks out there…
“I had a guy come into the gas station Where I work about a year ago. Obviously on drugs, but I have a lot of regulars that are addicts, and most aren’t violent, just weird. So he wanders around the aisles, occasionally looking over and staring at me for 10 seconds or so each time.
After the last customer leaves, he comes up and pulls out a small pocket knife, the Swiss Army knife kind. Looks at me and say, “I was supposed to do something very bad to you, but I decided not to, I think.” All while opening and closing this knife. Robbing me is one thing, but this guy just directly threatened my life.
He gives me the knife… just hands it to me. Tells me to “hold onto this for me”. Looks around for about 15 seconds, and asks for it back. Obviously I shouldn’t give it back to him, this dude just threatened to murder me, but this guy is huge. About 6’3″ ~200 pounds lean muscle. He could’ve killed me with his bare hands, so I just gave it back to him. He tells me to “keep my eyes open” and leaves.
I called the cops after he left, turns out he’s an Iraq war vet who wasn’t taking his medicine. Such a shame. I started open carrying my handgun after that though, since the owner was a pro-gun conservative. Really cleared out a lot of the trouble makers so I haven’t had anything that crazy since.
I did have a (edit: homeless) guy try to pay for junk food with jewelry, before asking about any houses for sale in the area. This guy wasn’t interested in buying a house, if you catch my drift.
Oh, and yesterday I found some used needles in the trash, so that was fun.
Another time I had this lady comment on my gun, talking about how she wanted one. This was right after trying to sell me a scale that has what I can only imagine is drug residue on it, with other customers in the store. Bold f*cking move.
She runs to the bathroom for 20 minutes, during which a local police officer comes in to buy some cookies, perfect timing. My coworker tells him what’s up so he calls for backup and they search her and find some her*in and stuff, turns out she was shooting up in my bathroom and left some blood on my floor, which upset me the most because I had to clean that sh*t up.
Seen lots of small weird stuff, but those are the ones I remember the most.”
14. Late night antics.
“At a Missouri based convenience store. Had a guy in our parking lot, doing what looked to be Tai chi at 1 in the morning. He would do the motions, then kick flip off the side of the building and go back to doing the motions.
We told him he needed to stop doing that. Goes to the pumps, takes the nozzle off, buzzes for inside pay, chooses a grade of fuel and splashes it in his mouth. He spits it out, chooses another grade and does it again. This is the point where we called the cops.
After he decided he was done Mouth washing with fuel, he comes in and just starts loading up with bags of chips, candy bars, a single 12oz bud light from a 6 pack. Half of the stuff was opened. Cop got there, told the guy he had to pay then put him in the back of his car.
Word from the cop the next day was that he was an extremely disturbed individual and he was admitted to a mental ward. Creepy as sh*t. That was by far the weirdest.
I’ve had a 45 year old drunk lady dry hump me, people taking deuces in the bathroom and playing finger paint all over the walls. I had an idiot, one time, that stuffed a 6 pack down his pants, walked down the aisle, dropped it on accident and had 5 cans drop and just roll away and he walks out the door.
By far the most disgusting one was someone placed the two plunger in the bathroom on adjacent walls and balanced a piece of sh*t on them. I just couldn’t put my head around that one.
I didn’t personally experience this one, but down the road at a competing convenience store, they had a guy one night come in, sit down at one of their tables and filet himself from ear to ear. Even hearing the story still bothers me.”
How about you?
Have you ever worked the late shift at a job?
If so, did you have any weird experiences?
Tell us all about it in the comments! Thanks!
