Working at Tesco’s was a pretty fun job. Something always happened. A shoplifter, a fight, a Karen or a baby left unattended. The majority of the day was spend screwing up my job miserably. Dropping expensive wines, placing things in the wrong isle and not being able to help customers due to social anxiety. It was okay though. I liked it when interesting things happened. Out of the ordinary. This experience was very out of the ordinary for sure. In a bad way.
It was maybe 1am and I was working a night shift. There were maybe 10 people working and around 25 customers. Everything was boring. I was stocking the dairy isle when I felt a presence behind me. I slowly turned round and some guy was starting at me. He looked… weird. Maybe he was on drugs or something.
“Hi, sir! Can I help?” I politely asked.
But the man just kept staring. I was too socially awkward to ask him to stop staring at me so I spend the next 10 minutes with a stranger staring at the back of my head while I pretended like everything was good. When my stocking was over, I got up and walked to the store room so I could restock the cereal isle. I wasn’t very slowly. My shoes don’t make to much sound so I found it strange when foot steps followed me all the way there. Paying closer attention, I realised that the noise was coming from behind me. I looked over my shoulder and it was the same man huron the dairy isle.
“Can I help you?” I asked once again. No reply.
I sped into the storage room and took the back exit out. I walked back in through the double doors at the begging of the store. I went over to my work mate at the counter number 3. I explained what had happened with the man.
“Do you mean that one?” She pointed to over my shoulder.
I spun around and you’ll never guess who was in line to buy stuff. He had duct tape and rope. Not weird at all. I signalled to the lady who i worked with. We’ll call her Joanne for the purpose of this story. I signalled to her to ask the man why he was following me. She shook her head and turned to the man. “Is that all for today, sir?”
He nodded. First time he used any form of communication.
“So what will you be fixing with these items?” Joanne asked.
The guy didn’t respond. He just payed with cash.
“Would you like a receipt?” She asked
Again, the guy didn’t respond. He went to the end of the cage point and stared at me again.
1:25am My shift ended. It was raining heavily outside. I was so pissed That I had to walk home in the rain. “I can’t walk home in that rain.” I said, making sure the guy heard me. “I’ll get a taxi.” I wasn’t a convincing liar. I went to retrieve my bag from the locker. Sup rise. The guy followed me to the door.
I grabbed my keys and did that thing were you place them between each finger, so that a punch would hurt. Badly. He followed me to the carpark. The best and quickest foot path was the on in the far end of the carpark. Being the dumb person I am I took it.
It happened. He grabbed me and started pulling me towards a caravan He opened the door and flung me inside. He opened a cupboard, tied my wrists above my head and taped my mouth. Yes, it was the stuff from the shop. He yelled at me to be quiet and slammed the door shut. The engine began but then, I heard the caravan door opening. I was struggling so hard to get out and trying to scream through the tape but it was no use. I was so distracted and fearful that I didn’t care about the door opening. Then I heard a thud. The door opened as I began to cry.
Joanne was standing there with two other members of the staff. They ripped off the tape and untied me.
We called the police and the man was arrested.If Joanne and the other people hadn’t gotten there in time thenI don’t know if I would be able to tell this story.
The guy was arrested and given 10 years in prison for attempted kidnapping. He’s probably out right now. Be careful workings late shifts okay?
I quit my job a few days later. Not because of the kidnapping but because I wanted more out of a job than tescos.
Thanks for reading :)