Old Office
Used to work in an old engineering company in the North East of England
& had quite a few `moments` there. make of this what you will & hopefully other people can input or elaborate.
the office was an old L shaped building in a yard. Hard to describe but through the door a small office on the right, on the left a counter & open plan office & then a door in the corner to the other part of the L (if you see what i mean) in this office there was a toilet & a door to the outside. This led to the front of the yard & a little alcove which was like a short `alley` about 15ft long & about 6ft wide, nothing above us except for attic space & a slate roof.
Any how at any one time there would be me & the office manager (who I will call Pat) who sat in the open plan office. Now apart from the phones ringing, us talking or the radio, most days you could hear a pin drop as we worked. A few times we heard someone in the other office walking about & taps & knocks.....as expected we`d get up to see who had come into the office through the outside door (back office) & 9 times out of 10 no one....... The door into the other office was 90% of the time open & quite a few times through the gap youd see a figure or a dark shape go past quick, only for no one to enter the office.....Me & Pat both agreed that we never felt threatened or scared but that on some occasions when we happened to be in the office on our own for whatever reason, there was always a feeling we where being watched & this feeling would really get to you (on a few occasions Pat admitted that she had gone outside for 1 or 2 mins & then gone back in)
The Incident which unerved us the most happened one afternoon (winter time, clocks had gone back & it was approx 3.30 - 4-30pm) all the lads who worked on site where at a job & only I & Pat where in the place. Now what happened was I out of the corner of my eye saw I noticed a figure walk past the window at the end of the office, Quickly i jumped up & thought someone was in the yard stealing or up to no good I shouted to Pat `quick Pat` & she got up & followed me, I went through the door into the back office & threw the door open into the alley way, it must have took me about 2-3 seconds to do this, I jumped out to catch the mystery person & as you guessed it, no one..... No one could have gone out & through the gate in that time, no one could have jumped the wall etc & the figure in all honestly looked as if theyd come through the end wall of next door & into the alley way.........me & Pat at first thought one of the lads may have been having a laugh but no, they all pulled into the yard about 30-40 mins later in the vans........
Ive looked at websites & books on the area & before the yard, warehouse & office block where built, this was all street housing & it was a very run down part of the area. I always wondered who occupied this site or who it could be who kept me & Pat on the edge of our seats.....
The business has moved now & the buildings are still there waiting for development etc........i may see my old boss & see if hes got a key, it may be a nice idea to have a look in that old building.