Creepy man

So, as some of you know, I work for the Evil Empire on the 3rd shift. I love my job, I love working at night when there aren't many customers around. Unfortunately, we also get the most weirdos during the 3rd shift. Yesterday, I had my first semi-stalker.

I was coming off my first break of the night at 12:15, walking down what we call the "action alley" between grocery and apparel, and I yawned and shook my head. A slightly older black man in a security guard uniform was walking toward me and he stopped in front of me and asked if I was okay. I said yeah, I was just tired and it's gonna be a long night. He asked what time I came in and I told him 10. Then he asked what time my shift ended and I told him 7. A little bit of chit chat about how rough it is working the 3rd shift... then he asked me my name. Well, I held up my name tag on my lanyard which is clearly displayed at all times and told him "Deanna". Then he holds his hand out for me to shake and says his name is St Louis (at least that is what it sounded like he said, the fella has an accent I can really place) and he kinda lingered with holding my hand.

Now, I am not wanting to be rude to a customer, so I easily pull my hand away without completely jerking it out of his hand, even though now I'm kinda creeped out by the dude. He stood too close to me, every time I'd make a move back or over, he'd move too, like almost a foot away from me, which TOTALLY violates my "personal space" rule. The whole time, he maintained eye contact and kept doing this weird look like he was trying to be sexy. It reminds me of Bela Legosi in the Dracula movies of old. Anyway, I politely excused myself saying I had to get to work because my break was over and I have lots to do and I walked away. My sister was up at the front door and saw the guy talking to me and saw me walk away from him.

So, a couple of minutes later, one of my coworkers from Electronics comes walking over to me with this man in tow, asking me if I could help him find a hat or something to keep his ears warm. I said sure, so she walked away and I showed him to the hats (they keep moving them around the men's department, so I had to actually walk over there to find them, otherwise I'd have just pointed him in the general direction). We get to the hats and he stands TOO close for my comfort, but I go on talking, saying that the hats that you can roll or fold would probably be best for what he wants, and I even made a joke about the ski mask type being good for if he wanted to knock off a bank. Then he moves in closer to me and says, "I am too good for that" and is doing that eye/face thing again like he's trying to hypnotize me or something. I'm like, "Uh, okay, I'll bet you are." Then he says, "I can show you how good I am." I said, "Um... I'm sure you could", and I started to back away. Then he grabs my arm and leans toward me again and says, "I can come in here every night". I was like, "You do that", and I pulled my arm away nice and slowly. (I don't like making sudden moves around crazy people, it sets them off.) So then he says to me, grabbing my arm again, "I can come in every night and make things hard for you". I was like, "Uh, you go right ahead and do that", and I pulled my arm away again and started to walk around him to get out of there. Then he grabs my arm again and he repeats himself about coming in and making things hard for me. I told "Good luck with that" and I started to walk off again. Then he says, "This job gives me great power." I'm assuming he means being a security officer, since he did have on a security officer coat. So I said "good luck with that" to him again and I walked away. He says to me, "Why are you walking away from me?" and I turned and said, "I have work to do". He asks again, I said I have work to do again and I walked around the kids' clothes section and then straight up to the front of the store while dialing my sister's cell and telling her to get up to the front with me. I didn't want him to go harass her since she works in the men's department.

We told the CSM at the front of the store and told all the cashiers up there. Apparently, this dude was in there a few times already that night and scared a second shift cashier so bad that she was afraid to walk to her car when she was off work that night. Anyway, he went to check out and bought one of the ski caps (not the full face one, just a regular fold down one) and he exited the store. So, we all went back to work.

Then, less than an hour later, I was putting away my freight and I noticed someone walking toward me in the kids' department. It was him again. This time, he had on a different jacket and the ski cap. I had my hands full, otherwise I'd have pulled my box cutter out of my pocket RIGHT then. He was walking toward me with one hand behind his back *which was the point I was concerned), and I asked him, "What do you want?" He said, "Oh, you recognize me?" I said yeah, then he said "I couldn't sleep". So I immediately dropped what I had in my hands into the closest buggy and started to walk off and said to him over my shoulder, "Maybe you need to take a sleeping pill" and I headed through the clothes racks and tables out of his line of sight and toward the guys over in grocery. I told the first one of them I saw that I need Velton (our assistant manager) RIGHT now. The guy, Jared, said what's wrong and i told him some creep is harassing me, so Jared walked with me up to the front of the store. I told them what happened up there and they paged our manager and one of the supervisors came over and she walked back to the fitting room where my sister and the other lady in apparel were at.

I tried to call my sister, but she was trying to call me at the time and I didn't get an answer, so I started to walk back there to her because I didn't know if she knew he was back and I didn't want him walking up on her. The people up front didn't want me to walk back there, but I went ahead. I stood back behind the counter at the fitting room with my sister and Karla (the supervisor) and the other apparel associate Chanel were standing in the aisle. They told me the guy was walking all over the apparel section looking for me. He didn't speak to any of them, or approach any of them at all. Then he spotted me over there and walked over and Karla very loudly asked him if she could help him find anything. He said he was looking for some gloves, so Karla said to him that this lady (Chanel) will show him to the gloves. Chanel is a big woman, and she don't look like the type you wanna go messing with. She took him over there then came right back. Then he picked some gloves, went to a cashier and when he was paying for them, and the cashier handed him his change, he kinda held her hand in a creepy way instead of just holding his hand out like normal people. He left the store. Thankfully, he didn't come back that night.

Unfortunately, I spent the rest of the night totally looking over my shoulder. It really sucked having to be constantly on guard like that. We in "softlines" are the biggest targets for the creeps because there are usually only 2 or 3 of us and we're spread out over the whole apparel section. The rest of the associates work in pairs or on aisles together, so they're usually never alone. I'm usually alone most of the time working in my section, and a lot of the time, I'm out of the line of sight for everyone when I'm between clothes walls and racks. The guys over in grocery are always just a holler away though, and I have my one little "puppy" who checks in with me all the time, but he wasn't there last night and from what I understand has or is quitting and won't be back. I usually put my blade in my locker if I don't have freight to process in the back room so I don't have to carry it in my pocket all night long, but from now on I think I'll be keeping it on me just in case.

I have the next 4 nights off, which I'm kinda thankful for now. If he comes back, hopefully he'll see I'm not there and maybe think I quit or something. It just bothered me even moreso that he honed in on me and nobody else. I was totally vulnerable when I showed him to the hats because it was out of the way of everyone else's view. My sister saw me hauling ass out of the men's section when he was there that time, so she knew something was up. I wasn't really afraid at that point, because I can certainly take care of myself, but it makes ya feel kinda creepy when ya think about how many times I've been alone back there and not really paying attention to what was going on for a bit.