So, this morning I went to Job #1, as I always do. Phone rang.

I answered "Thank you for calling *my company name here* this is Lisa, how may I help you?"
I heard "Lisa? It didn't sound like you for a second. How's it going?"
"Fine...."
"Do you know who this is?" Now, at this point, it sounded like one of my customers who I know very well, so I said "Charlie?"
"Yeah! How'd you know?"
"Just lucky I guess. What's up?"
"Well are you busy? I really need to talk." Well, Charlie is due Saturday to pay his loan off, so I figured that's what he wanted to talk about.
"Not busy at all Charlie! What's up?"
"Well, is anyone else there? Cuz I REALLY need to talk to you."
"No, Charlie, no one's here, no one will overhear, what's going on?"
"Well, I really need to TALK talk."
"I don't understand what you mean, Charlie?"
*SIGH* click.

Well, I *69'd the # and it was blocked, so I called Charlie. It wasn't Charlie who called me. It was someone who let me believe he was someone I knew, and got me to tell him that I was working alone. When I called Charlie, he freaked out, giving me all the police #'s and phone company #'s and everything. Whoever it was TOTALLY duped me. Our Moline, IL store got robbed yesterday, our Davenport, IA store got robbed last Friday.....another loan company got robbed in Galesburg, IL in the last week, and a jewelry store got robbed just down the street from me, last week. I don't have cash in my store, but still, I don't want to have to tell Mr. Thief that when he's waving a gun in my face!

I didn't get robbed! Boy was I scared though. My mom sent my dad in to sit in the store with me (he had his police scanner, of course) and so he sat for a few hours, just reading a magazine and watching the cars in the lot. What a scary situation! For any of you who work alone, don't let anyone do that to you! I was totally duped! What a MORON!

Wow! What a scary story! Thanks for sharing that. I work in my office alone a lot too so I'm very thankful that you shared that. I have a few male clients that scare me too. I'm really glad nothing happened to you!

Oh, Lisa! That is terribly frightening. I'm so glad you're alright.

Very scary! I am glad you are OK. It's a good thing you called Charlie to verify.

Lisa, I can completely understand you being freaked out by that guy. I work alone every single day. I see patients all morning, but from around lunch to closing, I rarely see more than a couple of patients.

Not long after I started at that lab, a patient (who had a needle in his arm) started coming on to me. Asking questions like was I married? Did I work alone? Did I close for lunch?

It's obvious to anyone in there that I'm IT...all alone...but it wasn't til he said he might stop by later on that I freaked out. I told him my dh was coming by to take me to lunch and that I had patients coming by all day. When he left, I called my dh, the doctor next door and my boss. Told the doc that Mr. Sleazeball was never to come into my office again.

I'm really glad that nothing worse happened to you. In your kind of situation, there really should be two people there. You never know with all the creeps running around loose. ((((hugs))))

Mamacita

Wow glad nothing happened but how smart of you to think to call Charlie. Take care.

Very scary. Glad you are safe.

Scary stuff. Thank goodness you are ok!

Glad you are okay and I would be scared too.

Weezle!!!

How terrifying! I'm so sorry that you had such a bad experience...and I'm sure I would have fallen for the same thing. Oy! I hate that bad people are out there that make it necessary to have our guard up!

I hope that you will be safe and that they can put in security cameras or an alarm or something if you have to continue to work alone.