Hi everyone!
As the title says, I just recently started a new job about four months ago and I’m really not sure if I’m just seeing things, starting to go crazy or if there actually is something going on here. I just opened up to a friend of mine and she recommended to ask for advise in this forum.
At first, a little bit of background: I’m from Europe and just graduated with my master’s degree in Biology. I looked for jobs in the pharma industry, but only got this one offer where I’m at now. Guess the market is overflown with biologist right now post pandemic, so switching jobs is not an option for me. And for the most part, it all seemed to be the perfect position. My direct boss and coworkers are just amazing. We get along really great, probably because we’re just a team of five including my boss (well only four of us now, I guess) and all of us struggle with some kind of social anxiety. To say I was happy to have gotten such a great job was an understatement.
Even now, I’m not sure if I just don’t allow myself to be happy or if there really is something up. The company has your typical “we care for each other” mentality, but they do seem to mean and live it. Though, there are only two types of employees, the one who worked there for 10+ years (just the management and the logistics guys) and the ones who just finished their degrees and started not much longer than a year ago. Apparently there is a high turnover in the young employees, but nothing you haven’t seen in this line of work.
So far everyone outside of my own group has been friendly enough and I even made some friends in our logistic group. But here is where the strange things begin.
We have water fountains in the logistics area, so I have to go there to fill up my bottle quite a few times a day. But hey, at least I get free sparkling water and don’t have to take stale water from the bathroom. That’s how I became friends with the Lorenzos. Yes, all three of them are called Lorenzo. And they even kind of look like each other. But they all were italien farmer boys and came here to have a better life, so it could also just be that. They always talk to me, when I fill up my water bottle and over the past few weeks I really started to consider them friends. Just sometimes they start asking invasive questions about my personal life which make me uncomfortable so I leave as fast as I can. Though the next time I will come by, they are completely normal again. It’s like they try to get rid of me, and I think I recognized a pattern. Every time they do this, I had a weird feeling just going there. The last time I noticed a small light coming from under their tables, where they are working. Like the light shining through the crack under a closed door. There just is no door behind them. They work in front of the wall that should be the outer wall of the building.
Logistics and our Lab are both located on the ground floor and we have the luxury to have a lot of space. Our small group of four has six rooms to work in. Because we work with GMOs (genetically modified organisms) our Lab is classified as a security area 2 (S2) and therefore is protected by a gate you need to unlock with your personal keycard. Besides my direct coworkers and I, no one has access. I’m the only one of us who drives their car to work and is not depending on public transport. Usually, if the others need to catch the next train, I will stay and finish off their work of the day as well as my own. So, I’m quite often alone in the Lab after 5 pm. For the first three month I just couldn’t shake the feeling, that I wasn’t alone. Just like someone is watching me from around the next corner. It never felt evil, more like someone wants me to know, I’m not alone and don’t need to be afraid. I even saw shadows moving from room to room in the corner of my eyes. But that would be impossible, right?
The past few weeks though, I had no such feeling anymore. To be honest, now it just feels glaringly empty in the evenings. Not like “yeay, I’m alone and can do whatever” more like empty in an absence of Good.
It’s not only that. I feel like, I am changing. At first, I just chalked it up, because of the stress and some pretty awful stuff that happened in my personal life since I started here. But last week, in one of those empty evenings, I think I saw a weird reflection of myself. I was waiting for my incubation time to be over and just absentmindedly stared out of the window. It was already dark out, so I basically saw only black out there and my own reflection. It was just the eyes of this reflection, they changed. I can’t remember how, they just changed and the person looking back at me, wasn’t me anymore. Startled, I stood up and blinked. The weird reflection was gone and I saw only me.
But the worst thing is, none of us ever heard anything of the people leaving the company. I mentioned in the beginning, that we were five in the beginning: my boss, two male coworkers and another female coworker. She was here the longest of us, about two years. She showed me everything in the lab, we have gotten really close. Just on her two-year anniversary with the company, she was fired. No reason given. She was going to get paid for three more months, but needed to leave immediately. She even was escorted out of our office. This was about a month ago and since then, I haven’t heard from her. I texted her like 20 times already, but to no avail.
I talked to my other coworker, he has worked here for about a year and a half and he said, he’s seen that with every single employee who was fired. He hasn’t tried to actively reach out to anyone though.
So maybe we should try to get in contact with anyone else who has been let go? Or is it just nothing?
A lot of the stuff I was sure, was just my mind playing tricks on me, but my missing coworker? I start to believe there is more to the story.
What do you guys think? Am I crazy? Or am I up to something? Should I go investigate?
I would be grateful for any and all input and if anything new will come up, I will update you.