Do you want to read some scary stuff? Not those campfire stories about ghosts and hexes, they are for children. Something really scary.

Now that Halloween is just around the corner, we decided to learn what frightens people most and asked our colleagues, friends, and relatives what fills them with dread and anxiety. So where do you think the scariest things happen? We found out: at work, where grown people spend eight (or sometimes more) hours a day. And that’s not a surprise: a missed deadline is a much more terrible thing than a spider jiggling in the web!

And, these nightmares are not a product of a vivid imagination, they happen in real life and make everyone shiver even at the very thought of them. Boo!

Of course, we have more of those office nightmares than we could put on one picture. So here are other short stories that inspire dismay, panic, awkwardness, and many other terrible feelings:

‘I accidentally’ nightmares

• Saying ‘Bye, love you’ on the phone to a customer
• Sending a client’s documents to another client
• Calling your boss ‘mom’ or ‘dad’

‘I should have thought of that’ nightmares

• The entire website being down because someone has forgotten to renew the domain license
• Pushing an update of a product or a website to live and finding a severe bug afterward
• When a client calls you and you share a screen with them, only to show them a WC bowl (if not worse) you just found in an Internet shop
• Having an incoming call on an important meeting with your boss and your ringtone is ‘I want to break free’

‘This can happen to everyone (but happened to me again)’ nightmares

• When your server crashed and you didn’t back up the database that day
• Forgetting it’s a public holiday and turning up for work
• When a fire drill starts right before an important call with a client, and you haven’t charged your phone battery
• Leaving early, but getting stuck in an elevator and getting ‘rescued’ by the end of the workday

‘First World problems’ nightmares

• Being the only ‘non-vegetarian/non-vegan’ on your team
• Having missed the free cake in the lunchroom because of a meeting

‘Just bad luck’ nightmares

• Having to eat food that someone made at home for you to try and it’s terrible
• Having to do a presentation in front of everyone when you’re an introvert