u/iggnorantslut
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To give you some sort of idea of how the store I (f 19) work at looks like, imagine a big squared-warehouse, at the very front of the store are the front lanes, entrance and exits and at the very, very, very back of the store is the electronics department. Once you walk down past the front lanes going down towards the market, there's a big walkway that leads down to electronics and you could see some of the book aisles but that's about it.
Two nights ago I closed (we close at midnight on weekends) and we were pretty short staffed. Many people called out and one of those people were supposed to be in the toys department which is right across from electronics. Usually toys and electronics are pretty busy but that night there wasn't really anyone shopping around these departments. There are call buttons that guests could press that will notify the team members where service is needed.
45 minutes before the store closes, I have to put all of the Apple products away in a smart cart and bring it to the stockroom in the back room/warehouse. As soon as I unlocked the stockroom I started to feel extremely uncomfortable. I've been in there before many times but for some reason it felt like there was someone waiting around the corner of the stockroom to scare me. I pushed the cart in, locked the door, and walked quickly back to the department. As I was approaching my work area, a call button started going off "Service needed in electronics. Who is responding?" but as I was walking towards the call button I didn't hear or see anyone around. Mind you, I was pretty close to the call button so I don't think they could've walked away that fast. I cleared the call and turned around to grab a few carts when the call button went off again, "Service needed in electronics. 30 seconds remaining, who is responding?" I cleared the call so I was a bit confused as to why it was still counting down and the fact that I turned my back for not even two seconds and the button goes off again kind of scared me. I cleared the call and went back to work, after that nothing really happened.
10 minutes before the store closes, everyone is supposed to clear their department by walking down the aisles and checking for guests. I was walking down the toy department when I noticed there was a guest looking at board games, his back was faced towards me so I didn't get a good look at him. I told him that the store closed in about ten minutes but he didn't even look at me. He just mumbled something and started walking away.
5 minutes before the store closed, I was walking back up to the employee's room to clock out when I felt like there was someone walking behind me. I turn around and there's no one there so I disregarded it. Suddenly I heard one of the Apple alarms going off and since there was still some time left I kind of ran back to electronics to turn it off but noticed that there was no one coming from the department. I did another quick walk around toys and electronics and saw the same man standing in the exact same aisle where I told him 5 minutes before that the store was closing. I reminded him that he needed to make his way up towards the front and he just raised his hand, back still faced towards me, and walked away. I followed him to make sure he was walking to the front and once I reached the employee's room I just walked in and figured the front lanes would take care of it.
Midnight. The store was now officially closed and I was one of the last people to walk out of the employee room. I'm walking up towards the front when I just so happen to look down the walkway that leads to electronics when I see the same man walking down the book aisles towards the toys. This time I yell, "Sir!" and start running down the walkway to catch up to him but by the time I get down to the book aisle he's disappeared. I literally walked through both departments to check if he was there but I didn't see him. The Apple alarms go off again so I walked back to them to disable it and hear boxes falling in the direction where I had previously told the man that he had to leave. Of course, I walk down and find a huge mess of toys on the ground but don't see anyone. I start yelling saying that the store was closed and he HAD to leave. Apple alarms go off AGAIN but I was too scared to walk out of the aisle into electronics so I ran the opposite way towards the front of the store and notified the team lead that there was a man in the store who wouldn't leave and was causing a mess. She told me to leave and that she would take care of it so I just went home.
Today I walked into work and the security and team lead from the other night ask me to come into their office and show me the footage from two nights before. The footage showed me talking to absolutely no one. The man was not on footage at ALL. The camera footage shows ME pressing the call buttons, walking away, and coming back to clear them. The footage shows ME setting off the Apple alarms and disabling them. The footage shows ME knocking down the toys and running away. I am completely shocked and don't know what to do.
