Kids and adults powering through a mid-life crisis celebrate it once a year, and that’s the only reason Halloween is truly fun! But anyone with a job knows #spookyszn is actually year-round. 

Anyone with an office e-mail ID has faced everything from jump scares to an all-encompassing sense of doom. We’ve had absolutely no shortage of office horror stories to pick from here at DeadAnt, and we’re sure you can share in our panic before our editor takes this piece down. 

Scroll through for some of the scariest stories we’ve crowdsourced from DeadAnt’s most terrified (and valuable) assets: interns. 

SPOTTING A TYPO IN A POST

“You’ve put your heart and soul into this piece about Rahul Subramanian’s new crowd work special. Slipped a couple jokes in there, too. Checked it thrice and now it’s ready to go. Woah, look at the numbers this one’s doing! Dopamine dopamine dopamine. You’re sitting there admiring your own work, reading it line for line. And then you find the typo. Subramaniam? M?! Ohh god, look at the numbers this one’s doing. Everyone’s going to see it. The boss is going to share it on her IG stories any minute now. The typo is highlighted in DeadAnt-orange. She’s only going to find out when a fan, or friend, or Rahul himself responds to said story to point it out. And now you’re just sitting there waiting for this tiny little typo to be found out.” True story, ask Rahul, he has this one’s skull.

TAGGING THE WRONG COMIC

You’d think this was run-of-the-mill social media work but many interns have sent themselves to an early grave for this one. We put the question to the survivors: How many comics share their names with others? Here’s the exhaustive (in every sense of the word) list. We’ve got the Kunals, the Rahuls, the Sumits and the Gauravs, Akaash and Aakashs, Naveen and Navins. There are Varuns of course but multiple Nevilles? COME ON, YAAR! 

SOMEONE CHANGING THE ZOOM MEETING TO VIDEO-ON WITHOUT WARNING

“Noooo! Whatever you do, don’t press that button. Literally everyone knows that’s how you die. Where is your basic human survival instinct, man?! Please, we’re begging you, don’t. Don’t! DON’T! AHHHHHH!”

– Aditya, who was caught wearing a Batman onesie at a cafe in Malana. 

GETTING AN ALL-CAPS MESSAGE FROM THE BOSS

“I had a really long day at work, like the sun had properly properly gone down by the time I was done! So I was in a rush to join my friends who were already out partying. I may have had one too many, like crashing in my jeans too many, and then I got the message from [redacted]. I hadn’t realised that I was still logged into the company account—so all those bathroom selfies that were meant for MY Instagram stories? Yup, you guessed it. * cringe When I turned my phone on I saw [redacted]’s message. Slept with the light on that night.”

– RIP, Nisha.

BEING ADDED TO A NEW WHATSAPP GROUP (WE ALREADY HAVE 17, NO JOKES)

“Every new group is like a room in a haunted house—everything is chill until your boss turns up.” 

– Rohan the Cruel, Intern’s Bane 

GOING FOR 3 OPEN MICS IN 1 DAY TO DISCOVER THE “NEXT BIG THING”

“In the early days, before the pandemic hit, I was a beat reporter for DeadAnt, covering gigs in Mumbai and Andheri East. We are always trying to find young new voices, and hitting up open mics is the best place to discover fresh talent, or those with potential. I was really enthusiastic about this idea, so I lined up 3 open mics in one evening. It was a really rewarding experience. And then the fourth open micer hit the stage. I had around 25 acts left. I spent the next few days in escape rooms to feel better.” 

– At this point Kartik visibly shuddered. We offered him some water and a blanket, but Kartik said he just wanted to leave.

EXECUTING AN IDEA ON MONDAY THAT YOU PITCHED VERY ENTHUSIASTICALLY ON FRIDAY

“Planning is fun dude, par execution toh mera hi kara do bro hahahaha.”

– Raghav’s head 

SITTING IN THE FRONT ROW AT A CROWD WORK SHOW AND THEN LETTING THE COMIC KNOW YOU WORK FOR DEADANT

This one’s a DeadAnt initiation classic. A week into the internship the cheeky little buggers are told they’re going for a crowd work show the next week. Two big comics are performing in Delhi.  Imagine the intern’s delight when they hear that one of them is Anubhav Singh Bassi? One day before the set we tell them Bassi is going to be accompanied by Harsh Gujral and it’s all crowd work. “I ghosted you guys because I’d rather deal with that than have to tell Bassi and Harsh that I’m there to cover the show for DeadAnt.” – Parul, who took sick leave one day and was never seen again.

LIVE TWEETING ‘LOCK UPP’

“Maine tab hi join kiya tha theek hai, aur achanak se on Saturday night they made me live tweet the Lock Upp finale! I knew that Munawar (Faruqui) didn’t get along with Kangana (Ranaut) so I was expecting…less hugging? Bro, chalta raha—beech mein United ka game bhi dekh raha hoon—They were being damn nice to each other. End mein woh jeet bhi gaya! Psychological horror sa vibe aa raha tha bro. I was literally feeling numb after it.” – Rijul wakes up from sweaty fever dreams of the Lock Upp’s finale even today.

BEING ASSIGNED THE CAPTIONING FOR A YOUTUBE VIDEO (EDITOR’S CHOICE)

“I still remember it like it was just yesterday (it was last month). Sumukhi Suresh’s ChatRoom episode needed subtitles and it was “randomly” assigned to me. Sumukhi speaks at 322 WPM (…words per minute?), so I had to keep rewinding to capture everything she said. After 5 hours of work I had transcribed 7 minutes of the episode. *Cries in laughter* It was two days later that I was done and now I can see subtitles when I meet people IRL. I was practically a zombie for those two days. – Undead Urmila

TRANSCRIBING YOUR OWN INTERVIEW WITH A COMEDIAN AND REALISING YOU GAVE TMI

“It was like walking into a crime scene. From a distance, nothing seems wrong in the house, but then you notice a door has been left open, and every next step you take is a step into something…tragic. Yeah, that’s how I’d describe an interview with me. Point is, it starts off normal enough, and I begin to overshare. And that’s an understatement. I also laugh at EVERYTHING. Just so try-hard, it’s painfully embarrassing to play back.” – #Dahmer fan Hansika  

LOOKING FOR THINGS THAT COULD MAKE COMEDY HEADLINES WHEN YOU WAKE UP AND SEEING A CERTAIN POLITICAL PARTY’S NAME

“I made it a ritual to play the ‘Jaws’ theme music while I searched for the latest updates because I always suspected that during my internship I would work on one story that included THAT political party. There was a weird thrill to it. Then one such story popped up and I begged the editor to not name me as the author. Even worse? It happened on a Saturday! This is plea to all comics. If you’re going to be banned from flying in a plane on the weekend, we don’t get one!

– This intern chose to stay anonymous