People Talk About the Jobs That Are Way Less Fun Than People Think

Everyone has ideas about what certain jobs are like – how fun they are, how easy or glamorous, et al – but the truth is, you never really know what a job is like until you’re the one doing it.

So there’s a good chance that you thought at least a few of these 15 jobs would be easy and cool…but according to the people who have done them, you were wrong.

15. I never really thought about it that way.

Working in a flower shop. It’s just like any other retail job, but people constantly tell you how fun your job must be.

Also helping grieving families chose funeral flowers is not fun.

14. I never really thought “teaching” 3yos sounded fun but to each his or her own!

Preschool teacher. Especially with new COVID-19 regulations.

Ever try social distancing 3 year olds?

13. I still think this would be a fun job.

I’m a marine biologist. I spent the last week measuring defrosted fish heads.

12. Not like it is on television, I guess.

I’m a Forensic Scientist and it’s literally the only thing people ask me about on dating apps.

It’s very technical work and it’s extremely routine.

11. If you love it you love it.

As a bioscientist it’s never really “Eureka” and much more

“Are my cells dead?”

“Are my fruit flies okay??”

“Are they going to fix the microscope?”

“Will the microscope ever be free to book??”

“Is 6 coffees too many??”

And a large part of my day is spent just doing tasks I need to do to keep my work running. Ie making buffers, sorting fly stocks, splitting cells, cleaning things, etc….

And yet I miss my lab!

10. This is hilarious; it really does seem like it would be pretty fun.

Oh my gosh, BUILD A BEAR.

Weirdest and most frustrating thing.

Granted I didn’t make it a super long time in the job and seeing kids so happy is great.

But they are really strict and the bad times get pretty bad.

9. It’s not the same as traveling for fun.

Not a specific job but traveling for work. I’m in tech and a lot of people starting out talk about wanting to go to customer sites and get “out in the field”…

I love to travel for fun but it’s hard to fit in the fun stuff when you have presentations and stuff to worry about and a lot of times your customers aren’t in the fun cities anyway.

I also think I prefer the stability in day-to-day schedule of traveling less frequently.

8. Working with the public is rarely fun.

Professional photographer.

Not like, hobbyist, but business-owning photographer. Sucks the love right out of your work.

Because you started the business to take pictures.

Then Karen doesn’t like the way she looks in one of them so she wants the whole set for free plus a reshoot for free plus those images for free.

Then the two high school kids getting into a very ill-advised marriage at EXACTLY 18 years old wants to book you for their wedding but their budget is only $50.

Then Karen calls back because she loves your work and wants to pay for another shoot, but only if you agree to do her friend’s daughter’s destination wedding for free.

Then you get a call from your last bride. It’s been two weeks since their wedding. WHERE THE FUCK ARE HER PICTURES?

Then you get no leads from a bridal expo.

Then a client finds out you don’t support their candidate and tries to take you to court to get her money back.

Then some insta thot who thinks she’s influencing people offers a “collab” where you take pro photos of her and she adds shitty insta filters to it and claims her friend took them. And she’s not gonna pay.

And then you get some entitled mom who wants you to photograph every day of her newborn’s first year of life for $100.

I went back to being a hobbyist.

7. It must be heartbreaking work.

A pediatric nurse, being a nurse for children and adolescents. Everyone in nursing school talks about how much they want to work with kids. The reality is that a pediatric nurse sees more cases of abuse and neglect than any other specialty. Doesn’t matter where you are in a pediatric hospital, it’s the thing you see most.

I’ve seen so many DCS (Department of Child Services) caseworkers that I’ve gotten to know some of them and became acquaintances with them. Sure working with children and adolescents is great, but people don’t think about the most essential piece of that puzzle which is their families.

It doesn’t matter how good of care you give to those kids, if you don’t loop the parents in to that care you may as well just not be doing anything for them.

6. Yeah I did this for a very short while as well.

barnes and noble, your job has literally NOTHING to do with books & it obviously attracts a lot of that type, myself included

5. It’s so not worth the pay.

Video editor.

The more I do it the more I can’t be arsed.

4. That is not enough money.

Park Ranger. Don’t get me wrong, I loved it, but a lot of days it was less “talk about cool animals while wearing your ranger hat” and more “the toilets are overflowing again, go clean the septic tank filter and stir the tank with a shovel.” With a little bit of “hey there’s a methed out guy down by the bridge, can you convince him to leave without killing anyone.” All for the low price of $26k/year with a college degree!

3. Why would you do this if you were allergic to bees?

Although not necessarily bad, Beekeeping.

Get used to the constant sound of buzzing during hive inspections/swarm removals plus wearing the protective suit in hot ass weather for hours on end (give or take the situation). Also, there appears to be a large number of beekeepers allergic to bees so epipens are a must.

2. I feel like this could depend on the day.

I do closed captioning.

While I joke that yes, I get paid to watch TV, it’s actually very tedious. And if you don’t actually enjoy the programming you’re being forced to watch something you don’t care for.

Or worse, if it’s something I do enjoy like a long form drama, we usually chop those up into 15 minute increments and split between everyone so I only see chunks and not always even in order it actually ruins the show for me.

1. You have to know what you’re getting into.

TV/Film production. I think most people dream of being the actor, the director, the people making the creative decisions, or the big shot producer calling the shots, but most of the people working in tv and film production are part of a machine, the grind, working in a system, trying to climb up to wherever they want to be.

Many don’t get to actualize their creative vision. Also the industry can be project based (job security concerns) and location limited (NY/LA, maybe other cities). Pay can be low starting out too, though it can be good if you work way up. But I did enjoy the type of people that work these jobs, a little more fun than the business folk I work with now.

I was definitely surprised by a few of these, how about you?

Which one shocked you the most? Share it with us in the comments!

The post People Talk About the Jobs That Are Way Less Fun Than People Think appeared first on UberFacts.

Jobs That Are Less Fun Than You Think

We all have ideas in our head about what jobs might be super fun and cool to have – working in film or television, for example, or maybe in professional sports.

But every job is still a job, and it still has its downsides, right?

Which is the point people are making about these 14 jobs people assume are super fun…but aren’t always.

14. They do it because they love it, not because it’s fun.

Working in an animal shelter. For sure, it’s probably less intense than zookeeping, but the amount of people who apply or volunteer expecting to come in and play with cute puppies all day is absurd. We’re basically animal maids.

You deal with animals of all sorts of behavioral and developmental stages shitting and pissing every fucking where and then you look over and this fucking dog named Chumbawumba swimming in his water bowl so you gotta fill that up six times and dry his kennel out and then you go and mop up the cat room around 10 kittens who want to eat your mop and also four children who are all yelling that there’s puke in the floor and I MUST clean it, NOW.

Not to mention all the extra behind the scenes work that the public never sees. How in the summer, during kitten and puppy season, the shelter built to house 500 max has 750 and I didn’t take a lunch or sit at all for any of my shifts for the past six days. How the courts force us to put down animals that we know can be rehabilitated, but we don’t get enough funding to fight it. How animal control just showed up with the fourth pregnant stray of the week but intake is full and even double stacked in some cases, so your coworker fosters the cats on her own.

Not even to mention the shitty fucking people who do dumb shit and end up getting bit or scratched and the animal is the one who bears those consequences. I am the proudest shelter worker in the world. I adore my job, even at its hardest. I didn’t sit for 9 and a half hours today and I found a cat turd in the cuff of my jeans but it doesn’t matter because a bonded pair of adult cats got adopted today. I took six applications this morning and the cat in bank 4 with the goopy eye is already looking better, and we sent a mama out to foster. The hard work is always worth it for these babies.

13. Working at an amusement park honestly sounds like a nightmare.

I always say the more fun it is to go somewhere the worse it is to work there like amusement parks and arcades

12. Working with people is not typically fun.

FLIGHT ATTENDANT. 1) You are on call (on reserve) forever, have a terrible schedule, have no life, and make no money for 5-10 years.

2) While you work for peanuts, you can’t afford to use your flight “benefits” in any substantial way.

3) Then, when you finally get a chance to use your benefits for a trip, you have to fly standby which means you aren’t guaranteed to get on the flight you want.

4) Then, if you do make it out of town you better have like a week off so you can make damn sure you’re back in your base city in time for your next work shift.

5) Did I mention there is an act of US legislation (Railway Labor Act) that allows airlines to exploit so you don’t get paid for certain work hours that you actually need to be working? For example, FAs don’t get paid for boarding, or any time the plane is at the gate. WORST JOB EVER.

11. You probably need to be a morning person.

Baker. Coming into work at 3/4 am so you can have a six am baked goods is miserable.

10. Everyone thinks it’s a cool gig.

Google Street View driver.

You’re all alone for 8+ hours a day, can almost never take a break, need to constantly be “on” and focused (lest you crash the $25,000 Subaru with $60,000+ worth of camera equipment on it), you end up becoming an amateur meteorologist to keep track of weather patterns and cloud cover, and in my experience there are a lot of people who just get insanely upset at you, at Google, and the job in general for a wide variety of reasons. I enjoyed myself when I did it, but it was nowhere near as glamorous or fun as I or my friends & family assumed.

Edit: Thanks to everyone who expressed an interest in my summer job from almost 10 years ago. I’ll just answer the most asked questions here real quick:

Pay? $15 an hour, but contingent on hours driven, which were themselves dependent on clear weather to ensure optimal image quality

Why not drive every day no matter the weather? Google got around this problem by making you re-drive routes whose pictures turned out subpar. To prevent people double billing by driving the same easy route constantly, you also had a weekly quota of unique miles driven, so no double dipping.

What could you do in the car? As long as the camera and the napping software (Edit: MAPPING software, thanks for the heads up) was running properly I was on my own. I listened to music, the news, and lots of books on tape. I could stop for short bathroom breaks whenever I felt like it, and had an hour guaranteed for lunch whenever I wanted to take it, which usually amounted to eating in the car on the side of some lonely rural road 90% of the time.

Who would ever think this was fun or glamorous? All I can say is, back in 2012 most people I talked to were pretty excited, myself included, about getting the chance to do any work with Google, let alone this cool new project that would let you see what any place on Earth looked like at street level from the comfort of home. This was the era of Google Plus being a potentially exciting new thing, of Google Glass being the future of tech, and overall it was a different time. That’s why everyone I knew thought this was a cool gig.

9. Some days it must be nice to break shit though.

Demolition

Everyone wants to break shit with a sledgehammer. Everyone is tired of lifting that sledgehammer by 5 swings.

Nobody wants to load the broken stuff into bags or a wheelbarrow and take it to the dumpster.

8. You get sucked in by Disney.

Being a Character Performer at Disney.

Don’t get me wrong, there are some amazing perks and truly magical moments. I know I’m super lucky and tons of people would love to be in my shoes.

But the day to day work is EXHAUSTING in ways I never thought possible. Guests are ridiculously abusive…I’ve had things said and done to me I never would have imagined. The company isn’t always great – it highly depends on your leadership. And there’s so much focus on your body and face (good and BAD) that it can be incredibly depressing and difficult emotionally.

Plus, you have to accept that there’s very little upward mobility. Most people “grow out of it” and it’s rough to know that one day you’ll get “too old” or “too fat” and you will have to start all over in a new career field. So you constantly are thinking either, 1) what you’re going to do when you leave, 2) how you’re going to keep yourself there. I personally knew it would be temporary, and I now only work there seasonally while I have a “normal career”. But Disney has a way of sucking you in.

7. Science is science, no matter the subject.

Video game testing.

I’ve been working in the game industry for 6 years now, and teaching for 2.

Testing video games is thought to be just “oh you just play games all day? LOLOLOLOL” but it’s actually very specific and arduous.

First of all, there a bunch of testing metholodogies such as load/soak testing, white room testing, version testing to name a few, but the most common one is functionality testing.

Functionality testing is “so if I walk into that corner with the shotgun in my inventory, I can clip through the wall, but if I have my M16 in my inventory, I don’t clip through.”

6. It can definitely be a slog.

Being a writer. I always thought it was my absolute dream job. But the only job I could get after college was working in a content mill as a blog writer. I used to work 70-hour weeks staring at the computer in a basement of an old bank writing bullshit articles about the dangers of mold, fence cleaning, and why you need a commercial awning and the dream turned into a nightmare.

While I still write occasionally, I am now working as a communications person so it is a bit less heavy.

5. Sorry that last bit still sounds fun.

Paleontologist. You don’t get to work with full dinosaur skeletons and do all kinds of awesome expeditions. You’re mostly sitting at a desk looking at some pictures and logging stuff on your computer, maybe examining a fossil occasionally.

If you’re lucky you can go on a real dig, and OMG SPEND HOURS IN THE HOT SUN DUSTING OFF ROCKS!!!

4. Your eardrums must bleed a bit.

Working in a music store ( musical instruments )

Your days are spent listening to 50 different people play 50 different riffs poorly simultaneously, as if they’re all putting on their own concert.

3. Anything on a movie set is way more tedious than people assume.

Being an extra in a movie. Now, it can be super fun (I especially love historical and post-apocalyptic/sci-fi/fantasy type stuff), but a typical day on set wasn’t what I thought it’d be when I started doing it. Often we have to get up at 3 or 4 in the morning to get to holding, and if you’re a minute late to check in sometimes they’ll kick you out.

Then we sit around in holding with sometimes hundreds of other extras, and we’re usually sitting there for a good three or four hours before they start telling us to get ready to film. During this time we go through long wardrobe, hair and makeup lines where they reuse clothes (unless you bring them yourself), brushes and makeup without washing them.

When we finally get to film, it’s often the same mundane motions over and over (exceptions of course, and those are always fun) Then we either get shuffled around or go back to holding. Several more hours pass, we go film again. Hungry? You get lunch six hours after your call time, and a usually meager supply of snacks. In between takes it’s more standing around, often in heat or rain or we all get shuffled into cramped spaces to wait.

Days on set are often more than 12 hours, and I know someone who had to be on set for 26 hours straight. They can legally hold you there until they declared filming is done, so don’t make plans for the next day. Not to mention that you rarely see yourself in the final cut. I’m not trying to bash other background actors or the film industry because I’ve met lots of awesome people and gotten to do some pretty cool things. For example, interacting with main actors in scenes, running around in the woods with fake guns or being a zombie. But when I did my first job as a teen, I definitely thought it would be a lot different.

2. It’s still just retail at its core.

Trimming weed, Idk why people think working with weed is like working in the willy wonka factory, it’s not. You literally get to make tiny cuts with sticky scissors for 8 hours.

1. If you love it I imagine it’s still worth it, though.

Acting.

All the ones we see on TV and movies are the 0.0001% of incredibly lucky and talented people who managed to thrive in a hostile and overcrowded industry.

And even when you are working, the actual job itself is 99% sitting on apple crate in hot makeup waiting for some grips to move a lighting fixture. Then you say three lines over and over again for an hour, and then you wrap.

Some of these are surprising but maybe they shouldn’t be?

Do you have a job people assume are super fun? Tell us what it is – and why it’s not – in the comments!

The post Jobs That Are Less Fun Than You Think appeared first on UberFacts.

Jobs That Are Less Fun Than You Think

We all have ideas in our head about what jobs might be super fun and cool to have – working in film or television, for example, or maybe in professional sports.

But every job is still a job, and it still has its downsides, right?

Which is the point people are making about these 14 jobs people assume are super fun…but aren’t always.

14. They do it because they love it, not because it’s fun.

Working in an animal shelter. For sure, it’s probably less intense than zookeeping, but the amount of people who apply or volunteer expecting to come in and play with cute puppies all day is absurd. We’re basically animal maids.

You deal with animals of all sorts of behavioral and developmental stages shitting and pissing every fucking where and then you look over and this fucking dog named Chumbawumba swimming in his water bowl so you gotta fill that up six times and dry his kennel out and then you go and mop up the cat room around 10 kittens who want to eat your mop and also four children who are all yelling that there’s puke in the floor and I MUST clean it, NOW.

Not to mention all the extra behind the scenes work that the public never sees. How in the summer, during kitten and puppy season, the shelter built to house 500 max has 750 and I didn’t take a lunch or sit at all for any of my shifts for the past six days. How the courts force us to put down animals that we know can be rehabilitated, but we don’t get enough funding to fight it. How animal control just showed up with the fourth pregnant stray of the week but intake is full and even double stacked in some cases, so your coworker fosters the cats on her own.

Not even to mention the shitty fucking people who do dumb shit and end up getting bit or scratched and the animal is the one who bears those consequences. I am the proudest shelter worker in the world. I adore my job, even at its hardest. I didn’t sit for 9 and a half hours today and I found a cat turd in the cuff of my jeans but it doesn’t matter because a bonded pair of adult cats got adopted today. I took six applications this morning and the cat in bank 4 with the goopy eye is already looking better, and we sent a mama out to foster. The hard work is always worth it for these babies.

13. Working at an amusement park honestly sounds like a nightmare.

I always say the more fun it is to go somewhere the worse it is to work there like amusement parks and arcades

12. Working with people is not typically fun.

FLIGHT ATTENDANT. 1) You are on call (on reserve) forever, have a terrible schedule, have no life, and make no money for 5-10 years.

2) While you work for peanuts, you can’t afford to use your flight “benefits” in any substantial way.

3) Then, when you finally get a chance to use your benefits for a trip, you have to fly standby which means you aren’t guaranteed to get on the flight you want.

4) Then, if you do make it out of town you better have like a week off so you can make damn sure you’re back in your base city in time for your next work shift.

5) Did I mention there is an act of US legislation (Railway Labor Act) that allows airlines to exploit so you don’t get paid for certain work hours that you actually need to be working? For example, FAs don’t get paid for boarding, or any time the plane is at the gate. WORST JOB EVER.

11. You probably need to be a morning person.

Baker. Coming into work at 3/4 am so you can have a six am baked goods is miserable.

10. Everyone thinks it’s a cool gig.

Google Street View driver.

You’re all alone for 8+ hours a day, can almost never take a break, need to constantly be “on” and focused (lest you crash the $25,000 Subaru with $60,000+ worth of camera equipment on it), you end up becoming an amateur meteorologist to keep track of weather patterns and cloud cover, and in my experience there are a lot of people who just get insanely upset at you, at Google, and the job in general for a wide variety of reasons. I enjoyed myself when I did it, but it was nowhere near as glamorous or fun as I or my friends & family assumed.

Edit: Thanks to everyone who expressed an interest in my summer job from almost 10 years ago. I’ll just answer the most asked questions here real quick:

Pay? $15 an hour, but contingent on hours driven, which were themselves dependent on clear weather to ensure optimal image quality

Why not drive every day no matter the weather? Google got around this problem by making you re-drive routes whose pictures turned out subpar. To prevent people double billing by driving the same easy route constantly, you also had a weekly quota of unique miles driven, so no double dipping.

What could you do in the car? As long as the camera and the napping software (Edit: MAPPING software, thanks for the heads up) was running properly I was on my own. I listened to music, the news, and lots of books on tape. I could stop for short bathroom breaks whenever I felt like it, and had an hour guaranteed for lunch whenever I wanted to take it, which usually amounted to eating in the car on the side of some lonely rural road 90% of the time.

Who would ever think this was fun or glamorous? All I can say is, back in 2012 most people I talked to were pretty excited, myself included, about getting the chance to do any work with Google, let alone this cool new project that would let you see what any place on Earth looked like at street level from the comfort of home. This was the era of Google Plus being a potentially exciting new thing, of Google Glass being the future of tech, and overall it was a different time. That’s why everyone I knew thought this was a cool gig.

9. Some days it must be nice to break shit though.

Demolition

Everyone wants to break shit with a sledgehammer. Everyone is tired of lifting that sledgehammer by 5 swings.

Nobody wants to load the broken stuff into bags or a wheelbarrow and take it to the dumpster.

8. You get sucked in by Disney.

Being a Character Performer at Disney.

Don’t get me wrong, there are some amazing perks and truly magical moments. I know I’m super lucky and tons of people would love to be in my shoes.

But the day to day work is EXHAUSTING in ways I never thought possible. Guests are ridiculously abusive…I’ve had things said and done to me I never would have imagined. The company isn’t always great – it highly depends on your leadership. And there’s so much focus on your body and face (good and BAD) that it can be incredibly depressing and difficult emotionally.

Plus, you have to accept that there’s very little upward mobility. Most people “grow out of it” and it’s rough to know that one day you’ll get “too old” or “too fat” and you will have to start all over in a new career field. So you constantly are thinking either, 1) what you’re going to do when you leave, 2) how you’re going to keep yourself there. I personally knew it would be temporary, and I now only work there seasonally while I have a “normal career”. But Disney has a way of sucking you in.

7. Science is science, no matter the subject.

Video game testing.

I’ve been working in the game industry for 6 years now, and teaching for 2.

Testing video games is thought to be just “oh you just play games all day? LOLOLOLOL” but it’s actually very specific and arduous.

First of all, there a bunch of testing metholodogies such as load/soak testing, white room testing, version testing to name a few, but the most common one is functionality testing.

Functionality testing is “so if I walk into that corner with the shotgun in my inventory, I can clip through the wall, but if I have my M16 in my inventory, I don’t clip through.”

6. It can definitely be a slog.

Being a writer. I always thought it was my absolute dream job. But the only job I could get after college was working in a content mill as a blog writer. I used to work 70-hour weeks staring at the computer in a basement of an old bank writing bullshit articles about the dangers of mold, fence cleaning, and why you need a commercial awning and the dream turned into a nightmare.

While I still write occasionally, I am now working as a communications person so it is a bit less heavy.

5. Sorry that last bit still sounds fun.

Paleontologist. You don’t get to work with full dinosaur skeletons and do all kinds of awesome expeditions. You’re mostly sitting at a desk looking at some pictures and logging stuff on your computer, maybe examining a fossil occasionally.

If you’re lucky you can go on a real dig, and OMG SPEND HOURS IN THE HOT SUN DUSTING OFF ROCKS!!!

4. Your eardrums must bleed a bit.

Working in a music store ( musical instruments )

Your days are spent listening to 50 different people play 50 different riffs poorly simultaneously, as if they’re all putting on their own concert.

3. Anything on a movie set is way more tedious than people assume.

Being an extra in a movie. Now, it can be super fun (I especially love historical and post-apocalyptic/sci-fi/fantasy type stuff), but a typical day on set wasn’t what I thought it’d be when I started doing it. Often we have to get up at 3 or 4 in the morning to get to holding, and if you’re a minute late to check in sometimes they’ll kick you out.

Then we sit around in holding with sometimes hundreds of other extras, and we’re usually sitting there for a good three or four hours before they start telling us to get ready to film. During this time we go through long wardrobe, hair and makeup lines where they reuse clothes (unless you bring them yourself), brushes and makeup without washing them.

When we finally get to film, it’s often the same mundane motions over and over (exceptions of course, and those are always fun) Then we either get shuffled around or go back to holding. Several more hours pass, we go film again. Hungry? You get lunch six hours after your call time, and a usually meager supply of snacks. In between takes it’s more standing around, often in heat or rain or we all get shuffled into cramped spaces to wait.

Days on set are often more than 12 hours, and I know someone who had to be on set for 26 hours straight. They can legally hold you there until they declared filming is done, so don’t make plans for the next day. Not to mention that you rarely see yourself in the final cut. I’m not trying to bash other background actors or the film industry because I’ve met lots of awesome people and gotten to do some pretty cool things. For example, interacting with main actors in scenes, running around in the woods with fake guns or being a zombie. But when I did my first job as a teen, I definitely thought it would be a lot different.

2. It’s still just retail at its core.

Trimming weed, Idk why people think working with weed is like working in the willy wonka factory, it’s not. You literally get to make tiny cuts with sticky scissors for 8 hours.

1. If you love it I imagine it’s still worth it, though.

Acting.

All the ones we see on TV and movies are the 0.0001% of incredibly lucky and talented people who managed to thrive in a hostile and overcrowded industry.

And even when you are working, the actual job itself is 99% sitting on apple crate in hot makeup waiting for some grips to move a lighting fixture. Then you say three lines over and over again for an hour, and then you wrap.

Some of these are surprising but maybe they shouldn’t be?

Do you have a job people assume are super fun? Tell us what it is – and why it’s not – in the comments!

The post Jobs That Are Less Fun Than You Think appeared first on UberFacts.

Obscure Survival Facts That Could Save Your Life

We all want to think that we could survive if we were stuck into a survival situation, but the truth is, most of us are coddled sissies who wouldn’t have much of a clue how to find clean water, hunt food, find our way back to civilization (assuming it still exists), or stay warm/cool enough outdoors.

And those are just the basics!

These are 16 facts many people haven’t considered, but knowing them could save you life.

16. Floating will save your life.

If you somehow are in a situation where you feel like you could drown and have no energy to go on turn on your back and do the backstroke!! Saved my life while at the beach last week after getting sucked out by rip current.

15. Learn how to help yourself in the moment.

This is a tip for surviving with mental health issues. I often ignore my own advice, but when I remember to do it, it usually helps.

When you’re feeling super depressed ask yourself these questions : Am I thirsty? Am I hungry? Am I tired and in need of sleep? Have I showered today? Have I gotten up and walked around in awhile? Have I gotten out of bed and dressed?

I find that a surprising number of times something(s) on that list needs attending to. And once done, I often feel better. There’s no cure for depression. There’s just learning to manage and live with it. Hope that helps someone.

14. Never get complacent.

Short hikes are, in my experience, the most dangerous. This is because we tend to not take them as seriously. A person going on a two-hour hike will likely not pack much, may not take a map or even really consult a map, may not tell anyone where they’re going, etc. They may think that a litre of water and their cell phone is basically all that they need.

All it takes for disaster to strike is getting off the trail and getting turned around and/or for an ankle or leg to get broken. Throw in dampness and a miserable night of shivering- hypothermia can strike at temps well above freezing, especially if you’re wet – and suddenly that person is substantially weakened, less than 24 hours after setting out.

Here in the PNW, it happens all of the time: somebody will venture off of a well-established day-hiking trail, not respecting the fact that it’s a rugged semi-wilderness all around them, and they’ll get turned around and suddenly find that their phone lost coverage in all of those mountains. They’ll start wandering. They’ll do something stupid like “follow the river to civilization” (which in the mountains is generally horrible advice). And…cue the rescue team.

I’d consider myself a veteran hiker/backpacker, but I once got turned around on a crazy simple day hike. Ended up not getting back to my car until well after dark. After that experience, I made a simple survival kit in a Nalgene bottle – essentially, the bare minimum that I’d need to reliably survive a few days on my own – and I always throw it in my backpack on even the shortest trails.

13. I never knew.

Elevator stuff: The STAR symbol on the elevator panel indicates the floor that is the most direct route to outside.

12. Warmer isn’t always better.

During the winter, it is WAY better to be slightly cold than it is to sweat. If you start to sweat, you can go hypothermic way faster.

11. It’s good for you, too!

Every part of a dandelion, from the flower to the stem to the root, is edible.

10. Put them in your survival kit today.

When wild camping and hiking in Scotland, some Dutch Outdoor guy told us to always keep Tampons to start a fire. He was so right – in a wet environment where all the leaves and branches are moist and the wind blows like crazy, we sometimes needed 1,5 hours to start a fire and we needed the fire to at least have a warm meal in the night.

They’re the best fire starter: they’re lightweight and tiny (easy to carry), you can pull them apart and there’s a lot of easily burning material that you can use as a fire starter.

9. First rule of the water: don’t panic.

If you ever fall off a ship/ferry at sea and were lucky enough to be spotted – don’t try to swim your way to safety. The more you try to swim, the lesser the chances of survival. Just try to keep afloat and conserve energy (and body heat) while rescue team do what they’re supposed to.

Unless you are in hypothermic waters, the best bet always is to stay afloat without trying to swim to somewhere. This information about falling overboard, hypothermia and conditions, survival at sea etc are based on my own experience of 12 years sailing on merchant ships.

8. I never would have tried this!

If you are stuck with canned food but no can opener flip the can upside down and rub it back and forth on asphalt or concrete.

While a can opener cuts through the lid, the retaining ring holding the lid on is actually quite thin and can be abraded in 30 seconds or less. Don’t starve to death next to a flat of Alphagetti in your bunker.

7. And run the opposite direction.

If you are ever involved in gunfire or a shooting of any sort, a sharp cracking sound means the gunfire is aimed at you, a deep thumping noise means the gunfire is aimed away from you

6. It doesn’t have to be freezing.

You can get hypothermia in any water that’s below your body temperature, which is pretty much any body of water.

5. My heart just sped up reading this.

Anything standing it’s ground and being loud just wants you to leave. If you don’t they will attack. When they are relatively quiet they have already decided to attack.

This goes for humans too.

4. Try to stay calm.

If you’re walking and suspect someone is following you, pretend like you’re calling someone on the phone asking them their whereabouts, then face a direction your follower can’t see (Like the corner of a building ) and raise your hand and start waving it saying “Yes I see you, I’m over here”.

Your follower will think you’re meeting someone who’s around the corner and will go the other way.

3. A good rule of thumb.

Cut four times the firewood you think you’ll need.

2. Also why you should clean your lint trap regularly.

Dryer lint is super effective for starting fires.

1. On your forearms? Okay!

If you’re about to pass out from being exposed to heat, pour cold water on your forearms. Ice works even better.

This is an old farmer trick. You will feel the effects immediately. You will stop being dizzy and feel better almost immediately.

I’m feeling more prepared already!

Not for the zombies, perhaps, but for everything else.

The post Obscure Survival Facts That Could Save Your Life appeared first on UberFacts.

Obscure Survival Facts That Could Save Your Life

We all want to think that we could survive if we were stuck into a survival situation, but the truth is, most of us are coddled sissies who wouldn’t have much of a clue how to find clean water, hunt food, find our way back to civilization (assuming it still exists), or stay warm/cool enough outdoors.

And those are just the basics!

These are 16 facts many people haven’t considered, but knowing them could save you life.

16. Floating will save your life.

If you somehow are in a situation where you feel like you could drown and have no energy to go on turn on your back and do the backstroke!! Saved my life while at the beach last week after getting sucked out by rip current.

15. Learn how to help yourself in the moment.

This is a tip for surviving with mental health issues. I often ignore my own advice, but when I remember to do it, it usually helps.

When you’re feeling super depressed ask yourself these questions : Am I thirsty? Am I hungry? Am I tired and in need of sleep? Have I showered today? Have I gotten up and walked around in awhile? Have I gotten out of bed and dressed?

I find that a surprising number of times something(s) on that list needs attending to. And once done, I often feel better. There’s no cure for depression. There’s just learning to manage and live with it. Hope that helps someone.

14. Never get complacent.

Short hikes are, in my experience, the most dangerous. This is because we tend to not take them as seriously. A person going on a two-hour hike will likely not pack much, may not take a map or even really consult a map, may not tell anyone where they’re going, etc. They may think that a litre of water and their cell phone is basically all that they need.

All it takes for disaster to strike is getting off the trail and getting turned around and/or for an ankle or leg to get broken. Throw in dampness and a miserable night of shivering- hypothermia can strike at temps well above freezing, especially if you’re wet – and suddenly that person is substantially weakened, less than 24 hours after setting out.

Here in the PNW, it happens all of the time: somebody will venture off of a well-established day-hiking trail, not respecting the fact that it’s a rugged semi-wilderness all around them, and they’ll get turned around and suddenly find that their phone lost coverage in all of those mountains. They’ll start wandering. They’ll do something stupid like “follow the river to civilization” (which in the mountains is generally horrible advice). And…cue the rescue team.

I’d consider myself a veteran hiker/backpacker, but I once got turned around on a crazy simple day hike. Ended up not getting back to my car until well after dark. After that experience, I made a simple survival kit in a Nalgene bottle – essentially, the bare minimum that I’d need to reliably survive a few days on my own – and I always throw it in my backpack on even the shortest trails.

13. I never knew.

Elevator stuff: The STAR symbol on the elevator panel indicates the floor that is the most direct route to outside.

12. Warmer isn’t always better.

During the winter, it is WAY better to be slightly cold than it is to sweat. If you start to sweat, you can go hypothermic way faster.

11. It’s good for you, too!

Every part of a dandelion, from the flower to the stem to the root, is edible.

10. Put them in your survival kit today.

When wild camping and hiking in Scotland, some Dutch Outdoor guy told us to always keep Tampons to start a fire. He was so right – in a wet environment where all the leaves and branches are moist and the wind blows like crazy, we sometimes needed 1,5 hours to start a fire and we needed the fire to at least have a warm meal in the night.

They’re the best fire starter: they’re lightweight and tiny (easy to carry), you can pull them apart and there’s a lot of easily burning material that you can use as a fire starter.

9. First rule of the water: don’t panic.

If you ever fall off a ship/ferry at sea and were lucky enough to be spotted – don’t try to swim your way to safety. The more you try to swim, the lesser the chances of survival. Just try to keep afloat and conserve energy (and body heat) while rescue team do what they’re supposed to.

Unless you are in hypothermic waters, the best bet always is to stay afloat without trying to swim to somewhere. This information about falling overboard, hypothermia and conditions, survival at sea etc are based on my own experience of 12 years sailing on merchant ships.

8. I never would have tried this!

If you are stuck with canned food but no can opener flip the can upside down and rub it back and forth on asphalt or concrete.

While a can opener cuts through the lid, the retaining ring holding the lid on is actually quite thin and can be abraded in 30 seconds or less. Don’t starve to death next to a flat of Alphagetti in your bunker.

7. And run the opposite direction.

If you are ever involved in gunfire or a shooting of any sort, a sharp cracking sound means the gunfire is aimed at you, a deep thumping noise means the gunfire is aimed away from you

6. It doesn’t have to be freezing.

You can get hypothermia in any water that’s below your body temperature, which is pretty much any body of water.

5. My heart just sped up reading this.

Anything standing it’s ground and being loud just wants you to leave. If you don’t they will attack. When they are relatively quiet they have already decided to attack.

This goes for humans too.

4. Try to stay calm.

If you’re walking and suspect someone is following you, pretend like you’re calling someone on the phone asking them their whereabouts, then face a direction your follower can’t see (Like the corner of a building ) and raise your hand and start waving it saying “Yes I see you, I’m over here”.

Your follower will think you’re meeting someone who’s around the corner and will go the other way.

3. A good rule of thumb.

Cut four times the firewood you think you’ll need.

2. Also why you should clean your lint trap regularly.

Dryer lint is super effective for starting fires.

1. On your forearms? Okay!

If you’re about to pass out from being exposed to heat, pour cold water on your forearms. Ice works even better.

This is an old farmer trick. You will feel the effects immediately. You will stop being dizzy and feel better almost immediately.

I’m feeling more prepared already!

Not for the zombies, perhaps, but for everything else.

The post Obscure Survival Facts That Could Save Your Life appeared first on UberFacts.

Survival Tips Every Person Should Know

No one wants to think that they’ll be trapped in a situation that turns out to be life or death, but the truth is, some of us will – and we won’t be prepared.

It’s definitely better to have your ducks in a row, or to have thought through how to handle something, and never need it than get caught unawares, though, and these 14 tips could help you survive to tell the story.

14. Stay in one place.

If you are lost in the wilderness – if you have shelter and a source of water, and if you have reason to believe people will be looking for you, you are usually better to stay put than to try to find your way out. Wandering around lost you expend a lot of energy, you could easily get into a far worse situation and anyone looking for you will likely start at your last known or expected location – which, if you are lost, you might be wandering farther from.

This is not always the case. It depends on if you are injured or not, and the nature of the injuries, on your relative safety where you are at, how far you are relative to your expected or last known location, how visible you are and a number of other situational factors. It is often worth a low risk climb to a better vantage point if possible. People have died a few hundred metres from a road which could have led them to safety.

13. Put it in your emergency kit.

Pack a whistle. There’s no chance your voice will hold out yelling at the top of your lungs, and whistles carry long distances. Especially handy if you’ve injured yourself, and need to rely on others finding you.

SOS in Morse code is … – – – …

So three short blasts, three longer ones, three short, pause….and repeat.

This is an especially handy and harmless device to give kids that are along for a hike (along with, “if you get separated, stop walking and blow the whistle lots, and we’ll come to you”).

12. Definitely good knowledge for your bank.

You can squeeze relatively safe water out of moss.

Obviously you should still boil it and and it’s going to have some dirt but it way better than drinking out of a steam or puddle.

11. Stay in your car.

if you get stuck in your car in the snow, STAY WITH YOUR VEHICLE!!! Hypothermia makes you delirious and you can wander the wrong direction and freeze to death. Your vehicle is also a LOT easier to locate than YOU are.

10. This sh*t is terrifying as a parent.

If you or your child almost drowns, go see a doctor even though you feel/seem fine. If water has been able to enter your lungs, you can be secondary drowning.

9. Make sure you eat salt.

Just because you’re drinking water doesn’t mean you’re safe. You need to take in salt as well. I’ve seen this kick people’s asses big time. They drink and drink and drink water but still overheat/throw up/pass out because they didn’t take in any salt or electrolytes.

8. Just like Lieutenant Dan said.

Exposure and dehydration will fuck you up much faster than hunger.

Bring spare socks, your feet will rot if you don’t

7. Listen to your subconscious.

If you want to prevent being the victim of a crime it is your subconscious that is going to tell you that you are in danger. You will think “something isn’t quite right”. If you ever have a FEELING that something is wrong get out of there immediately

6. Listen up, city folks.

Most subway platforms have a space for a person to crawl under in case they fall on the subways tracks. So if you fall off the edge of the platform and onto the tracks.

Instead of trying to climb back up, if you see a train coming there’s a crawl area underneath. It might be tight, and you’ll certainly get dirty, but better than dying

5. Know the difference.

Barrel cactus in the Sonoran desert are not full of water as is commonly portrayed. Instead they are full of acidic solutions that induce vomiting and diarrhea if consumed. These can easily be fatal for a dehydrated person in the desert.

The Barrel cactus fruit by contrast, is one of the most agreeable edibles in the cactus world. They are easy to pick, thornless, and tasty.

4. Learn a new skill!

The ability to weave. Looked at as more of a craft than a survival skill. But my grandma taught me that if you can weave you can make clothing, shoes, traps, shelter, etc. with nothing more than the vegatation on hand.

This was hammered home later when watching that show with naked survival people. The guy harassed the girl because she spent most of the first 2 days weaving but in the end he had to be taken out because he was sick yet there she was having crab for dinner.

3. Any tips?

Very rarely are people mentally prepared to fight a naked man.

2. This is my worst nightmare.

If you accidentally disturb a bee hive or wasp nest and are being swarmed, DO NOT run for water. It seems intuitive that jumping in water will keep the bees off you, but actually they will wait for you to resurface and resume stinging you.

Instead, run as fast and as far away as you can. Bees/wasps are territorial and will not easily leave their home range. So once you leave their comfort zone, you’re pretty much safe.

1. My toddler has this move down pat.

Biting is an underrated technique in a life or death fight. How many times in an apocalyptic style world does a character get pushed on the ground and literally just submits to being punched out? Seriously, when someone means to kill you or advance on your sexuality, BITE THEM.

Definitely putting these in my back pocket but hoping to never use them!

What survival tip would you share? If it’s not on the list, please leave it in the comments!

The post Survival Tips Every Person Should Know appeared first on UberFacts.

Survival Tips Every Person Should Know

No one wants to think that they’ll be trapped in a situation that turns out to be life or death, but the truth is, some of us will – and we won’t be prepared.

It’s definitely better to have your ducks in a row, or to have thought through how to handle something, and never need it than get caught unawares, though, and these 14 tips could help you survive to tell the story.

14. Stay in one place.

If you are lost in the wilderness – if you have shelter and a source of water, and if you have reason to believe people will be looking for you, you are usually better to stay put than to try to find your way out. Wandering around lost you expend a lot of energy, you could easily get into a far worse situation and anyone looking for you will likely start at your last known or expected location – which, if you are lost, you might be wandering farther from.

This is not always the case. It depends on if you are injured or not, and the nature of the injuries, on your relative safety where you are at, how far you are relative to your expected or last known location, how visible you are and a number of other situational factors. It is often worth a low risk climb to a better vantage point if possible. People have died a few hundred metres from a road which could have led them to safety.

13. Put it in your emergency kit.

Pack a whistle. There’s no chance your voice will hold out yelling at the top of your lungs, and whistles carry long distances. Especially handy if you’ve injured yourself, and need to rely on others finding you.

SOS in Morse code is … – – – …

So three short blasts, three longer ones, three short, pause….and repeat.

This is an especially handy and harmless device to give kids that are along for a hike (along with, “if you get separated, stop walking and blow the whistle lots, and we’ll come to you”).

12. Definitely good knowledge for your bank.

You can squeeze relatively safe water out of moss.

Obviously you should still boil it and and it’s going to have some dirt but it way better than drinking out of a steam or puddle.

11. Stay in your car.

if you get stuck in your car in the snow, STAY WITH YOUR VEHICLE!!! Hypothermia makes you delirious and you can wander the wrong direction and freeze to death. Your vehicle is also a LOT easier to locate than YOU are.

10. This sh*t is terrifying as a parent.

If you or your child almost drowns, go see a doctor even though you feel/seem fine. If water has been able to enter your lungs, you can be secondary drowning.

9. Make sure you eat salt.

Just because you’re drinking water doesn’t mean you’re safe. You need to take in salt as well. I’ve seen this kick people’s asses big time. They drink and drink and drink water but still overheat/throw up/pass out because they didn’t take in any salt or electrolytes.

8. Just like Lieutenant Dan said.

Exposure and dehydration will fuck you up much faster than hunger.

Bring spare socks, your feet will rot if you don’t

7. Listen to your subconscious.

If you want to prevent being the victim of a crime it is your subconscious that is going to tell you that you are in danger. You will think “something isn’t quite right”. If you ever have a FEELING that something is wrong get out of there immediately

6. Listen up, city folks.

Most subway platforms have a space for a person to crawl under in case they fall on the subways tracks. So if you fall off the edge of the platform and onto the tracks.

Instead of trying to climb back up, if you see a train coming there’s a crawl area underneath. It might be tight, and you’ll certainly get dirty, but better than dying

5. Know the difference.

Barrel cactus in the Sonoran desert are not full of water as is commonly portrayed. Instead they are full of acidic solutions that induce vomiting and diarrhea if consumed. These can easily be fatal for a dehydrated person in the desert.

The Barrel cactus fruit by contrast, is one of the most agreeable edibles in the cactus world. They are easy to pick, thornless, and tasty.

4. Learn a new skill!

The ability to weave. Looked at as more of a craft than a survival skill. But my grandma taught me that if you can weave you can make clothing, shoes, traps, shelter, etc. with nothing more than the vegatation on hand.

This was hammered home later when watching that show with naked survival people. The guy harassed the girl because she spent most of the first 2 days weaving but in the end he had to be taken out because he was sick yet there she was having crab for dinner.

3. Any tips?

Very rarely are people mentally prepared to fight a naked man.

2. This is my worst nightmare.

If you accidentally disturb a bee hive or wasp nest and are being swarmed, DO NOT run for water. It seems intuitive that jumping in water will keep the bees off you, but actually they will wait for you to resurface and resume stinging you.

Instead, run as fast and as far away as you can. Bees/wasps are territorial and will not easily leave their home range. So once you leave their comfort zone, you’re pretty much safe.

1. My toddler has this move down pat.

Biting is an underrated technique in a life or death fight. How many times in an apocalyptic style world does a character get pushed on the ground and literally just submits to being punched out? Seriously, when someone means to kill you or advance on your sexuality, BITE THEM.

Definitely putting these in my back pocket but hoping to never use them!

What survival tip would you share? If it’s not on the list, please leave it in the comments!

The post Survival Tips Every Person Should Know appeared first on UberFacts.

People Talk About the Creepiest Thing That’s Happened To ThemAfter Midnight

My grandfather used to say two things: you can get twice as much done before noon as after, and nothing good ever happens past ten p.m.

The older I get, the more certain I am that he was right – and these 17 people, who have had some pretty creepy experiences, might agree with him, too.

17. Everyone has this first sleepover experience maybe.

When I was around 12 we had one of our first sleepovers where we dared to watch a pretty scary movie. I believe it was the “sixth sense” or something. We had one of those radio-controlled clocks that would start to adjust every night.

During the scene where the boy starts crying all of the sudden the clock starts to go nuts. Thats when we changed to Toy Story. But boy, I still remember that vividly.

16. I think I would have crapped my pants.

It was just after midnight one Friday night/Saturday morning and my wife and I were talking downstairs just about ready to turn in when the landline phone started ringing. My first thought was ‘oh god, something bad has happened for somebody to be calling at this time’.

I picked up the phone and saw on the display that it was showing my wife’s cell/mobile number. I turned to her and asked where her phone was thinking that she’d left it somewhere and somebody had found it and was calling us using it to say they’d found it (hadn’t quite thought in that second that they would need to unlock it). She said it was upstairs. A gave her a sought of withering Sheldon look and answered the phone.

I said hello but nobody answered so handed the phone to my wife and went upstairs looking for the phone. It was resting face down on the side of the bed. When I picked it up it was all lit up and showing that it was calling our landline!

So how did a smartphone unlock itself (with the correct security code), navigate to contacts, find our home number and call it on it’s own?

15. Probably just animals getting it on.

So, the other night I was watching tv with my cat around 2am, and I hear a sound that sounds like a woman being murdered. I’m looking around the house and stick my head out the door and can faintly hear it coming from a park/lake near my house. I was freaking out, but wanted to look on google and see if maybe it was an animal sound.

14. Definitely a ghost.

I studied in my research lab as an undergrad and sometimes very late at night (especially during finals week)

The research building itself was older and not renovated: more dimly lit, wooden surfaces and cabinets, dust, empty rooms from labs that moved out etc,l. We knew there was a mice/rat problem because there would be these weird scratching sounds or movement in the vents when it was quiet enough

Anyways, it must have been 3-4ish AM, I was the only one in the research building and inside the individual lab rooms when I was studying and suddenly some closed, packaged plastic (culture) flasks fell onto the ground from the shelves. It made a huge ass noise and it scared the shit out of me. I just logically attributed it to the rodents to try and focus on the final coming up. There was a weird uneasy feeling in the back of my mind, like something was wrong and I felt like I was alone in the back of a dark movie theater watching things from afar

I became paranoid because it was perfectly flat and not on the edge of the shelf. So I set them flat on the center of the table and looked around, went back to studying etc

Couple of moments later, the same exact noise happened. I for sure now figured it was the fucking mice near the original shelf but when I went into the attached research lab, it was the same exact flasks I purposely put on the middle of the table. I was so freaked out that I didn’t put the culture flasks back up and when I was getting my study materials, I couldn’t move as fast as I wanted to because I was so damn terrified.

Anyways I ended up trying to casually sprint to the 24 hour on campus library that night and the rest of finals week

13. This is so much nope.

Well the other night I was reading creepypastas on my phone and the front door handle started jiggling and the porch light came and i heard someone say shit and ran.

12. Or just a really intense cat lover.

More funny than creepy, but definitely odd. I was sitting on my apartment balcony about 2:30 AM last week, and one of my cats was chilling with me at the other end on the balcony railing. We’re on the 2nd floor, across from a very dark park, and the cats love sitting to watch the world go by.

Anyway, I’m sitting browsing Reddit and having a dart when I hear some little voice go “Mew!” At first, I thought it was the cat – but then I hear it again, this little “Mew! Mew mew! Psst!” and notice my cat is staring intently down at the road.

I lean forward to look down through my balcony slats, and some woman has stopped her car in the middle of the street, leaned out the window, and is meowing up at my cat on the railing.

I didn’t want to stand up and startle her so I just waited, and she sat there for five minutes mewing and trying to get his attention before speeding off. Very strange. Assume drugs were involved.

11. Put the ol’ ticker to the test.

It was around 5am when I watched a Video and the Knock Knock sound was playing in the back(its was really looud). I had my headphones on (on PC) and my window open (I live in the first floor). At first i thought my dad knocked on my door and was about to catch me at 5am at my PC, then the sound came from the other side and I thought some drunk people were trying to break into my room.

That was probably the scariest thing.

My pulse went nuts at that moment.

10. I would not have been able to sleep that night.

I was just chilling, lying in bed. The house is utterly silent. And then I hear a sharp, meaningful bang, as if someone just took their stick and tapped it on the ground. Not with incredible force, but enough to be heard. I froze up, but wrote it off. It sounded like it was coming from way downstairs, houses make noises, whatever.

Then I hear it again, this time closer in the kitchen. It sounded to me like a blind person tapping around, but only ever one tap. It happened a few times, sounding like it came from random rooms.

Then, tap. Directly outside my door. I was in high alert at this point, and my stairs up creak like a mother fucker. But I didn’t hear anyone come up. Just that tap. I nearly shit myself.

First and last time that’s happened.

9. It’s like he’s the neighborhood superhero.

I’m typically up to 0200 or 0300. My dog and my routine is to lap the neighborhood sometime between those hours so she can have a pee break.

I’ve seen teenagers making out.

Lovers sneaking out of neighbors houses when the other partner is away.

Drunk drivers hitting all sorts of things. Telephone poles seem to be a favorite.

Bears.

Drunks walking home from their night out. Who are awesome people be that type of person!

And the weirdest thing was coming around the corner and hearing a smoke detector going off. Narrowed it down to a house didn’t see anyone but smelled some smoke. I banged on the door no one answered. Called the fire department. They rolled in with one truck agreed smoke from that house. Banged on the door. No answer. Knocked down the door found the oven on smoking away and no one in the house. Turned out they left in a hurry forgot they had bread in the oven. Bought me a nice bottle of Scotch and the dog a new collar/some toys.

8. I might never put my back to a window again.

I’m a 911 dispatcher for a particularly rural area, and it’s not unusual to have a night with no real calls, and I work by myself. The room I sit in is relatively small with glass windows all around the front of it allowing me to speak to anyone who may come into the front doors. Most nights I’ll make myself a couch out of two office chairs so I can sit with my legs stretched, which causes me to be unable to see out those windows.

One night I hadn’t had a single call in the first half of the shift, but right around 2:30 a random call came in that I just told the guy the phone number he needed and shrugged it off. Something in me couldn’t seem to settle back down comfortably in my spot, so I instinctively checked behind me out those windows and nearly shit myself when I saw a man with a medical face mask on standing as close to our outside door as possible… Just looking inside… I gasped and stared at him a solid minute before coming to my senses. I picked up the phone and waved it at him, because there’s a massive sign outside that says dial 911 for assistance. He just looked at me funny, and then turned to leave. I waved and held up a hand to tell him to wait and called one of the medics that stays in the building and asked him to go and see. Turns out the guy was super high on who knows what, but absolutely convinced he had covid-19, his temp was completely normal.

I stay pretty on edge now and check behind me A LOT more often now.

7. That awkward moment when no one speaks.

I live in a second floor apartment. My bedroom is actually supposed to be the living room and my bed is against the wall opposite the front door. Usually I keep the door locked but this particular night, about two weeks ago, I forgot to lock up after a friend left. Anyway, I’m in bed reading a news article at around 2 in the morning and I hear my doorknob turning and some guy I’ve never seen before opens the door and sees me there looking at him.

He just stands there for a couple of seconds looking just as surprised as I was when I finally loudly and assertively, to the best of my ability anyway, ask “Can I fucking help you?” The guy says “Shit, sorry. I didn’t know anyone was home.” As if that makes any difference. He just closes the door and I hear him walking down the stairs and the front door open and close. I look out the window and he’s just walking down the street like nothing happened.

6. Welp there goes that friend.

Was making some noodles at 3 in the morning when the house phone rang. I let it go to the machine and it was actually a text from a friend. The text read “I can see you lol” but when the text to voice read it out in its robotic voice over the message machine it went “I CAN..SEE.EE YOU..HAHAHAHAHAHA!” in a witchy tone. Fucked up my whole operation.

5. This is stinking TERRIFYING.

I was about 12 years old and was spending the night at my friend’s house. The two of us and her younger brother were all sleeping in the game room and I couldn’t fall asleep because my friend wouldn’t stop snoring. So I grabbed my blanket and pillow and went to the living room at the front of the house to sleep on the couch. I’m dozing off when all of a sudden the front window is fully illuminated by the headlights of a car.

Now, her house is set far back from the road, so the only way this could happen is if someone purposefully drove up the driveway, and I knew that both of her parents were at home and in bed. Then I hear the crunch of footsteps on the gravel outside and people whispering. By this point I’m fully alert. I go with my instinct and run into the game room to wake up my friend and her brother, and then we run to her parents’ bedroom to tell them what’s happening. Her mom starts running through the house turning on all of the lights and then we hear the screech of tires peeling out of the driveway.

The scariest part is that the next morning, when I go to use their phone to call my mom to come get me, there’s no dial tone. The burglars had cut the line. (This was the ’90s, and cell phones weren’t common yet.) I later find out that this isn’t the first time that they had almost been burgalized. A few months before something similar had happened. Needless to say, I never spent the night at my friend’s house again.

4. Let’s go ahead and blame the video games.

I used to play videogames in my basement when I was younger, with the lights off of course.

Well I started hallucinating things because of a lack of sleep and staring at the tv all day long, crazy stuff. Anyways, the handle of old wooden door we had in the far back of the basement started to rattle and shake on its own, and then slowly opened and made that creepy creaking sound. It was completely pitch black in there. I then saw a long black arm with thin, foggy fingers start to slowly reach out and climb along the wall, and then I saw two eyes peep put from behind the door. I immediately forgot about whatever game I was playing and ran as fast as I could up the stairs and locked the door, that thing scared the hell out of me.

Learned my lesson not to play video games for too long, especially late in the night in a creepy basement.

3. Everyone loves messing with the younger kids.

Here in south Texas theres an urban legend of a thing called La Lechusa. It’s supposedly a witch that transforms into an owl with the head of an ugly old lady.

We’ll never knew about this until I spent the night at my cousins. We were up around 2 in the morning watching tv and the tv turned off. My cousin and I yelled at his older brother wondering why he turned the tv off. He said “Y’all don’t hear that!?” We listened but didn’t hear anything. He says “Listen! Y’all don’t hear that whistling!”

We listened very quietly and heard whistling coming from the backyard. It was a long whistle. Then another, then another over and over. We asked what that was and he told us it was La Lechusa. He explained what it was and that it comes for kids who are up throughout the night. I was laying on the floor next to their bunk bed. But in front of me was a window that faced the backyard. I held my head down in fear that I would look up and see her. He said “Just stay quiet. I’ll turn the tv back on when she goes away.” We lie there and eventually fell asleep.

I woke up minutes later and woke them up because fuck that lol. It’s a tale Ive heard from others since then. Could’ve been something else but as a kid, it’s scared the shit out of me.

2. Maybe a possum? On stilts?

I usually have a rule that i don’t leave my room for whatever reason after 3 am because one night when i was getting water from the fridge i had felt eyes directly on me, giving me goosebumps and making my heart beat faster.

I turned to look towards my front door that has glass panes on either side of it only to see two white orbs staring back at me.

I have felt so much fear in my life.

1. I need a rational explanation immediately.

I’m an ICU nurse.

One night I was looking after a ventilated patient who was brain dead. We were waiting on family to arrive the next day so we could extubate the patient and let them pass. I was waiting for the 3am cares round when I looked at the clock – it was turning backward rapidly.

Freaked me out completely. For the rest of the night I stayed close to the door and within sight of the exit.

Guys I love creepy stories but some of these would have really gotten to me!

Do you have a scary post-midnight tale to tell? We’d love to hear it in the comments!

The post People Talk About the Creepiest Thing That’s Happened To ThemAfter Midnight appeared first on UberFacts.

People Talk About the Creepiest Thing That’s Happened To ThemAfter Midnight

My grandfather used to say two things: you can get twice as much done before noon as after, and nothing good ever happens past ten p.m.

The older I get, the more certain I am that he was right – and these 17 people, who have had some pretty creepy experiences, might agree with him, too.

17. Everyone has this first sleepover experience maybe.

When I was around 12 we had one of our first sleepovers where we dared to watch a pretty scary movie. I believe it was the “sixth sense” or something. We had one of those radio-controlled clocks that would start to adjust every night.

During the scene where the boy starts crying all of the sudden the clock starts to go nuts. Thats when we changed to Toy Story. But boy, I still remember that vividly.

16. I think I would have crapped my pants.

It was just after midnight one Friday night/Saturday morning and my wife and I were talking downstairs just about ready to turn in when the landline phone started ringing. My first thought was ‘oh god, something bad has happened for somebody to be calling at this time’.

I picked up the phone and saw on the display that it was showing my wife’s cell/mobile number. I turned to her and asked where her phone was thinking that she’d left it somewhere and somebody had found it and was calling us using it to say they’d found it (hadn’t quite thought in that second that they would need to unlock it). She said it was upstairs. A gave her a sought of withering Sheldon look and answered the phone.

I said hello but nobody answered so handed the phone to my wife and went upstairs looking for the phone. It was resting face down on the side of the bed. When I picked it up it was all lit up and showing that it was calling our landline!

So how did a smartphone unlock itself (with the correct security code), navigate to contacts, find our home number and call it on it’s own?

15. Probably just animals getting it on.

So, the other night I was watching tv with my cat around 2am, and I hear a sound that sounds like a woman being murdered. I’m looking around the house and stick my head out the door and can faintly hear it coming from a park/lake near my house. I was freaking out, but wanted to look on google and see if maybe it was an animal sound.

14. Definitely a ghost.

I studied in my research lab as an undergrad and sometimes very late at night (especially during finals week)

The research building itself was older and not renovated: more dimly lit, wooden surfaces and cabinets, dust, empty rooms from labs that moved out etc,l. We knew there was a mice/rat problem because there would be these weird scratching sounds or movement in the vents when it was quiet enough

Anyways, it must have been 3-4ish AM, I was the only one in the research building and inside the individual lab rooms when I was studying and suddenly some closed, packaged plastic (culture) flasks fell onto the ground from the shelves. It made a huge ass noise and it scared the shit out of me. I just logically attributed it to the rodents to try and focus on the final coming up. There was a weird uneasy feeling in the back of my mind, like something was wrong and I felt like I was alone in the back of a dark movie theater watching things from afar

I became paranoid because it was perfectly flat and not on the edge of the shelf. So I set them flat on the center of the table and looked around, went back to studying etc

Couple of moments later, the same exact noise happened. I for sure now figured it was the fucking mice near the original shelf but when I went into the attached research lab, it was the same exact flasks I purposely put on the middle of the table. I was so freaked out that I didn’t put the culture flasks back up and when I was getting my study materials, I couldn’t move as fast as I wanted to because I was so damn terrified.

Anyways I ended up trying to casually sprint to the 24 hour on campus library that night and the rest of finals week

13. This is so much nope.

Well the other night I was reading creepypastas on my phone and the front door handle started jiggling and the porch light came and i heard someone say shit and ran.

12. Or just a really intense cat lover.

More funny than creepy, but definitely odd. I was sitting on my apartment balcony about 2:30 AM last week, and one of my cats was chilling with me at the other end on the balcony railing. We’re on the 2nd floor, across from a very dark park, and the cats love sitting to watch the world go by.

Anyway, I’m sitting browsing Reddit and having a dart when I hear some little voice go “Mew!” At first, I thought it was the cat – but then I hear it again, this little “Mew! Mew mew! Psst!” and notice my cat is staring intently down at the road.

I lean forward to look down through my balcony slats, and some woman has stopped her car in the middle of the street, leaned out the window, and is meowing up at my cat on the railing.

I didn’t want to stand up and startle her so I just waited, and she sat there for five minutes mewing and trying to get his attention before speeding off. Very strange. Assume drugs were involved.

11. Put the ol’ ticker to the test.

It was around 5am when I watched a Video and the Knock Knock sound was playing in the back(its was really looud). I had my headphones on (on PC) and my window open (I live in the first floor). At first i thought my dad knocked on my door and was about to catch me at 5am at my PC, then the sound came from the other side and I thought some drunk people were trying to break into my room.

That was probably the scariest thing.

My pulse went nuts at that moment.

10. I would not have been able to sleep that night.

I was just chilling, lying in bed. The house is utterly silent. And then I hear a sharp, meaningful bang, as if someone just took their stick and tapped it on the ground. Not with incredible force, but enough to be heard. I froze up, but wrote it off. It sounded like it was coming from way downstairs, houses make noises, whatever.

Then I hear it again, this time closer in the kitchen. It sounded to me like a blind person tapping around, but only ever one tap. It happened a few times, sounding like it came from random rooms.

Then, tap. Directly outside my door. I was in high alert at this point, and my stairs up creak like a mother fucker. But I didn’t hear anyone come up. Just that tap. I nearly shit myself.

First and last time that’s happened.

9. It’s like he’s the neighborhood superhero.

I’m typically up to 0200 or 0300. My dog and my routine is to lap the neighborhood sometime between those hours so she can have a pee break.

I’ve seen teenagers making out.

Lovers sneaking out of neighbors houses when the other partner is away.

Drunk drivers hitting all sorts of things. Telephone poles seem to be a favorite.

Bears.

Drunks walking home from their night out. Who are awesome people be that type of person!

And the weirdest thing was coming around the corner and hearing a smoke detector going off. Narrowed it down to a house didn’t see anyone but smelled some smoke. I banged on the door no one answered. Called the fire department. They rolled in with one truck agreed smoke from that house. Banged on the door. No answer. Knocked down the door found the oven on smoking away and no one in the house. Turned out they left in a hurry forgot they had bread in the oven. Bought me a nice bottle of Scotch and the dog a new collar/some toys.

8. I might never put my back to a window again.

I’m a 911 dispatcher for a particularly rural area, and it’s not unusual to have a night with no real calls, and I work by myself. The room I sit in is relatively small with glass windows all around the front of it allowing me to speak to anyone who may come into the front doors. Most nights I’ll make myself a couch out of two office chairs so I can sit with my legs stretched, which causes me to be unable to see out those windows.

One night I hadn’t had a single call in the first half of the shift, but right around 2:30 a random call came in that I just told the guy the phone number he needed and shrugged it off. Something in me couldn’t seem to settle back down comfortably in my spot, so I instinctively checked behind me out those windows and nearly shit myself when I saw a man with a medical face mask on standing as close to our outside door as possible… Just looking inside… I gasped and stared at him a solid minute before coming to my senses. I picked up the phone and waved it at him, because there’s a massive sign outside that says dial 911 for assistance. He just looked at me funny, and then turned to leave. I waved and held up a hand to tell him to wait and called one of the medics that stays in the building and asked him to go and see. Turns out the guy was super high on who knows what, but absolutely convinced he had covid-19, his temp was completely normal.

I stay pretty on edge now and check behind me A LOT more often now.

7. That awkward moment when no one speaks.

I live in a second floor apartment. My bedroom is actually supposed to be the living room and my bed is against the wall opposite the front door. Usually I keep the door locked but this particular night, about two weeks ago, I forgot to lock up after a friend left. Anyway, I’m in bed reading a news article at around 2 in the morning and I hear my doorknob turning and some guy I’ve never seen before opens the door and sees me there looking at him.

He just stands there for a couple of seconds looking just as surprised as I was when I finally loudly and assertively, to the best of my ability anyway, ask “Can I fucking help you?” The guy says “Shit, sorry. I didn’t know anyone was home.” As if that makes any difference. He just closes the door and I hear him walking down the stairs and the front door open and close. I look out the window and he’s just walking down the street like nothing happened.

6. Welp there goes that friend.

Was making some noodles at 3 in the morning when the house phone rang. I let it go to the machine and it was actually a text from a friend. The text read “I can see you lol” but when the text to voice read it out in its robotic voice over the message machine it went “I CAN..SEE.EE YOU..HAHAHAHAHAHA!” in a witchy tone. Fucked up my whole operation.

5. This is stinking TERRIFYING.

I was about 12 years old and was spending the night at my friend’s house. The two of us and her younger brother were all sleeping in the game room and I couldn’t fall asleep because my friend wouldn’t stop snoring. So I grabbed my blanket and pillow and went to the living room at the front of the house to sleep on the couch. I’m dozing off when all of a sudden the front window is fully illuminated by the headlights of a car.

Now, her house is set far back from the road, so the only way this could happen is if someone purposefully drove up the driveway, and I knew that both of her parents were at home and in bed. Then I hear the crunch of footsteps on the gravel outside and people whispering. By this point I’m fully alert. I go with my instinct and run into the game room to wake up my friend and her brother, and then we run to her parents’ bedroom to tell them what’s happening. Her mom starts running through the house turning on all of the lights and then we hear the screech of tires peeling out of the driveway.

The scariest part is that the next morning, when I go to use their phone to call my mom to come get me, there’s no dial tone. The burglars had cut the line. (This was the ’90s, and cell phones weren’t common yet.) I later find out that this isn’t the first time that they had almost been burgalized. A few months before something similar had happened. Needless to say, I never spent the night at my friend’s house again.

4. Let’s go ahead and blame the video games.

I used to play videogames in my basement when I was younger, with the lights off of course.

Well I started hallucinating things because of a lack of sleep and staring at the tv all day long, crazy stuff. Anyways, the handle of old wooden door we had in the far back of the basement started to rattle and shake on its own, and then slowly opened and made that creepy creaking sound. It was completely pitch black in there. I then saw a long black arm with thin, foggy fingers start to slowly reach out and climb along the wall, and then I saw two eyes peep put from behind the door. I immediately forgot about whatever game I was playing and ran as fast as I could up the stairs and locked the door, that thing scared the hell out of me.

Learned my lesson not to play video games for too long, especially late in the night in a creepy basement.

3. Everyone loves messing with the younger kids.

Here in south Texas theres an urban legend of a thing called La Lechusa. It’s supposedly a witch that transforms into an owl with the head of an ugly old lady.

We’ll never knew about this until I spent the night at my cousins. We were up around 2 in the morning watching tv and the tv turned off. My cousin and I yelled at his older brother wondering why he turned the tv off. He said “Y’all don’t hear that!?” We listened but didn’t hear anything. He says “Listen! Y’all don’t hear that whistling!”

We listened very quietly and heard whistling coming from the backyard. It was a long whistle. Then another, then another over and over. We asked what that was and he told us it was La Lechusa. He explained what it was and that it comes for kids who are up throughout the night. I was laying on the floor next to their bunk bed. But in front of me was a window that faced the backyard. I held my head down in fear that I would look up and see her. He said “Just stay quiet. I’ll turn the tv back on when she goes away.” We lie there and eventually fell asleep.

I woke up minutes later and woke them up because fuck that lol. It’s a tale Ive heard from others since then. Could’ve been something else but as a kid, it’s scared the shit out of me.

2. Maybe a possum? On stilts?

I usually have a rule that i don’t leave my room for whatever reason after 3 am because one night when i was getting water from the fridge i had felt eyes directly on me, giving me goosebumps and making my heart beat faster.

I turned to look towards my front door that has glass panes on either side of it only to see two white orbs staring back at me.

I have felt so much fear in my life.

1. I need a rational explanation immediately.

I’m an ICU nurse.

One night I was looking after a ventilated patient who was brain dead. We were waiting on family to arrive the next day so we could extubate the patient and let them pass. I was waiting for the 3am cares round when I looked at the clock – it was turning backward rapidly.

Freaked me out completely. For the rest of the night I stayed close to the door and within sight of the exit.

Guys I love creepy stories but some of these would have really gotten to me!

Do you have a scary post-midnight tale to tell? We’d love to hear it in the comments!

The post People Talk About the Creepiest Thing That’s Happened To ThemAfter Midnight appeared first on UberFacts.

Small Decisions That Changed Someone’s Life Forever

You never know how your life will turn out. Whether your decision to go out with friends on a Friday night will be something you forget or something that alters the course of your life, for better or for worse.

If you want to believe in fate, or something like it, these 11 accounts of how lives were changed by the smallest of choices will surely give you some food for thought.

11. How bad does the foster system have to be that a kid would rather be beaten at home?

I lied to CPS when I was 13, I finished growing up with my dad instead of being taken away. I knew what I was doing and looking back I wouldn’t change it. I’ve met some wonderful people and I don’t think I would’ve met them if I had told the truth that day

10. We all choose wrong sometimes when we’re young.

There was an incident where a good friend of mine got kicked out of where we were living. The owner called me and told me the whole thing and said I was welcome to stay because I had not created any of the problems. My friend came to tell me about it and told me “we have to move out”. I told her I was told something different and she snapped at me that I couldn’t stay there if she wasn’t there. I was too much of a coward to stand up to her and deal with the consequences of losing that friendship. So I left that house and struggled for years. School would have been easier, I could have saved, gotten a car. That was such a defining moment and I’m so sorry I chose wrong. I was 18.

9. Oh, AOL. How we miss you.

I met a guy online on AOL in 1994. Fell in love. Moved 2300 miles away from home to be with him. Could have been a disaster. But 26 years later, we are happily married and are still very much in love. Best decision I’ve ever made!

8. Who would have thought a math textbook could do good?

When I moved and switched middle schools wayyy back I threw out all my stuff except for my math textbook. When I went to my new school the math class I was in was a little bit behind from where I was and I told them but they didn’t believe me. But then I showed my old math textbook to show that I was way ahead of that class. Two of my classes were changed, and in both of my new classes we’re a bunch of friends I made. If i threw away that math textbook I wouldn’t have any good friends right now.

7. Betrayal by pizza. Nooooo!

Ordered a pizza from Dominos. Wound up with the worst case of food poisoning I’ve ever had, I was essentially bedridden for 3 months and I’ve since developed severe post-infectious IBS that I’ve been struggling with for the past 3 years. I’m basically not functional probably 50% of the time, it’s essentially destroyed my quality of life, and I’m terrified that I may never have a normal life again. It’s taken everything I enjoyed or was passionate about away from me.

Fuck killing Hitler. If I had a time machine, I’d go back in time and stop myself from eating that fucking pizza.

6. He’s some kind of guardian angel!

When I was 27 i missed my usual train to work and had to wait another 30 minutes. So I got to talking to a random guy who turned out to be a doctor, he noticed dark patch under my nail and recommended i go get it checked out. It urned out to be subungual melanoma (Skin Cancer). I thought it was a bruise and probably wouldn’t of went the doctors over it. I never saw him again.

5. I imagine enlisting in the military changes most people.

I enlisted in the US Army in 1966.

I was on a college-prep track in high school, honors and AP classes, took all the PSATs and SATs. I had been admitted to a couple of universities. I was on-track for Law School and a legal career.

I was kind of sick of it. So I broke out. I had no idea what I had just put myself in for. Did NOT come out of that maelstrom as the same person I was when I went in.

I’ve written a few meditations on that adventure on reddit.

4. Usually people have a good feeling that doesn’t work out.

I moved in with my then boyfriend after only knowing him for three months. I had a bad feeling about it like we’d crash and burn.

That was in 2001. We’re still together and married now.

3. Every high school kid should read this!

Going to trade school.

For some background, I am a young woman. After being moved out for several years and accumulating some meager savings, it was time to begin looking at post-secondary options.

The course that piqued my interest was in a separate province, but my parents offered to both pay for my tuition and let me move back home if I chose a course closer to home.

This was a trap.

After selecting a course with transferable skills to the course I had planned to take (welding and machining), my father drove me to the office at the school to pay for the course. In front of the entire office staff, he laughed in my face, telling me he was never planning to pay for anything except a music degree.

Horrified, I decided then and there to use my line of credit and savings to pay for the course. Unfortunately, my father took the opportunity to max out my line of credit and bank account to leave me with no additional funds after paying for the school. Now, I could not just move out again.

The year that followed was grueling and harsh, my sister committed suicide and I contracted mono as an adult. In the process, I booted my father from my account and moved back out, having to expand the line of credit in the process.

I finished the course with the program excellence award, as the only woman present, and 5 years later I have successfully passed my Red Seal exam as a millwright.

My debts are paid, my job is incredible, and I moved cities. Life has never been better, despite the rough path that it took to arrive here.

2. They hide a disturbing number of veteran services pretty well.

Freshman year I asked some kid in the college dorms cafeteria if we could sit as his table because all the others are full.

Start small talking and he mentions his tuition is free because his dad is military. I’m like wait… my dad is military and I’m paying?

He says that it’s because his dad is now disabled. Well it turns out some of my dads ailments from military service qualify him as disabled and guess who got free college after that. And my sister too.

They hide the website pretty well and they DEFINITELY don’t tell vets about the program for their dependents so my family never would have known if I hadn’t sat down with some random guy. Thanks guy!

1. This just gave me chills.

Wanted to see the Eiffel tower.

Me and my girlfriend at the time were traveling from New Zealand to my family back home in Sweden. We both decided to spend a bit more money to fly back through Paris instead of Amsterdam, just because we wanted to see the tower. It cost us maybe an extra $50 and we got to see it on the landing and then take off, but never actually set foot in Paris proper because we were poor students.

When we landed in Auckland, New Zealand, jetlagged to shit, we turn on our phones and notice that we have about 50 missed calls from our travel agent, which was odd. When we call her, she sounds super relieved and out of breath. She tells us the flight she originally suggested to us, the one from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, was shot down over Ukraine. My brain couldn’t process that information at the time, but once I woke up the next day it hit me like a ton of bricks. $50 made the difference between seeing the big steel thingy that has so many photos of it and bring sent to Sweden in body bags piece by piece.

Sometimes the absurdity of my existence comes over me, and this story always gives me goosebumps. One hell of a story to tell over beers, though.

You can’t think about stuff like this every day, other wise each decision you make would become agonizing, right?

Do you have a story like this? Tell us what small choice you made changed everything!

The post Small Decisions That Changed Someone’s Life Forever appeared first on UberFacts.