This story is long asf so be prepared to read. In September of 2018, me and my step sister got offered a job at Phobia haunted house because my aunt knew the manager there. (Not sure if he was the owner also but for sure a manager). We decided to do it to earn some extra money and I thought it was gonna be really fun. The manager told us to get there at 7 so he could talk to us, we get there a little early and we waited outside for almost 2 hours without anyone coming to talk to us.
Around 8:30 a guy comes up and tells us he’s about to take us to the office with another dude, then 2 skinny girls wearing booty shorts and crop tops come up to the guy. They tell him they want to get hired and the guy immediately takes them to the office. Me and my sister were pissed off because we had been waiting for so long, and these girls are taken there instead of us because of the way they’re dressed and wearing a full face of makeup. We were dressed casually not showing any skin and we’re a little fat, to us it felt very discriminatory.
We finally get called to the office to sign this contract and in the contract it stated a few questionable things. Firstly, we were not getting any money until November, we had to work a total of 24 hours to get hired and it wasn’t guaranteed we’d even be paid if we did 24 hours. I think in total we would only make a little under $175. We couldn’t take off more than 3 days, even if an emergency happens and we couldn’t skip working the last 3 days leading up to Halloween. It also said on the contract we shouldn’t be working at phobia if we’re just looking for a paycheck, if we were there just for money we would be told to go home. Second, we were told to buy our own costumes and makeup, which didn’t make sense because we were told Phobia would provide that for us. And how tf am I supposed to pay for that when I don’t get paid until November? I had seen a lot of girls in the asylum haunted house wear nothing but underwear and a hospital gown as a costume.
We sign the contracts but before we could go to a haunted house we had to change in the “wardrobe room”. We go in this dirty storage container with another manager and the same guy that got hired with us, both them and my sister were over 18, I’m the only minor. This room had no door, meaning anyone could come in and take stuff if they wanted. It was like a locker room with a really dirty mirror, a small makeup box, and chairs. We weren’t allowed to bring anything with us once we started working. The manager told me to take my shirt off and wear it inside out bc it had a huge logo on it. It was a Steven Rhodes shirt, and I didn’t want to take it off because it’s a cool shirt and these dudes were there but they didn’t leave to let me change. My sister had to stand in front of me and block their view while I changed. I WAS 15 AT THE TIME AND THESE DUDES STARED AT ME WHILE I TOOK MY SHIRT OFF. (Another thing, a few of my other cousins were working here and they were ok with letting my girl cousin wear this nurse outfit with a really short skirt with red heels. She was 14 at the time.)
As a temporary costume they poured about 2 pints of fake blood all over me and my hair, and had me take it out of a pony tail. I also got told to take off my glasses bc it wouldn’t look scary (I saw other workers wear their glasses so idk why I got told that). We got put in the haunted house and placed near the exit, the manager gave us 1 water bottle and rocks from outside. He told us we needed to bang the wall and the floor as much as possible even if no one was inside and we weren’t supposed to stop. I got put in a little corner by a window, I was supposed to jump out and scream at people at the window and jump out at the side by their feet when they were exiting.
After an hour we ran out of water (drank more bc we screamed so much our throats were hurting) and 2 hours after that we were very dehydrated and sweaty. There weren’t any fans inside so we were really hot, and we needed to go to the bathroom. Because I wasn’t allowed to stop banging the stupid rock a small chunk of it came off and flew into my eye. My hands were dirty from sitting on the ground so rubbing them made it worse. The manager never came back to check on us at any point or give us another bottle of water. Luckily a girl that worked with us went outside and got someone else to escort us to the other side of the field to the only bathroom.
We were taken into this graffiti room, wasn’t a haunted house it looked like a lounge for the workers. There was rock music playing, speakers, a tv, and in the middle of room was a dude sitting in a stool and a lady sitting next to him laying back in a tattoo chair. Can’t remember if the dude was giving her a tattoo. They both look at us and me and my sister were paranoid so we both go into the restroom together. This restroom was so fucking DISGUSTING.
Water (probably piss) on the floor, no toilet seat, rim of the toilet was wet, no toilet paper, and no soap. There was only one little light and it flickered on and off and the walls had graffiti and gum on it. Me and my sister looked at each other like “fuck this” and we both planned to leave. We get out of the building and we go to the wardrobe/locker room. Call our parents to come pick us up and pack our shit, thank god no one took any of our stuff. We didn’t even tell a manager or anyone that we left, the minute we got home we both took showers and my mom called Phobia to let them know that we quit. The park was about to close and they had no idea we were even gone. Meaning the manager still never came back to check on us at all, it was already past 12:30 at night.