I have a story from many long years ago. I am honestly surprised that no Kiwi who ever worked retail has told a similar tale yet, so I guess I will be the first to tell of the night my job nearly got me shot and killed.
In my mid-late teens, the calls of the 8 and 16 bit computers ment that I needed to get a job if I wanted to fill my off-time with vidya and BBS trolling, so I got a job at one of a small chain of 24-hour convenience stores that no longer exist. Think of a 7/11 with an actual deli and bakery instead of pizza ovens and rolling hot-dog heaters.
Anyway, I was hired for weekend graveyard shift. All kinds of fun antics would happen out front, as there was also a pub attached to the same plaza that our store was at so between midnight and last call at 2pm I would get all kinds of drunken fuckers in. Most were harmless enough and just wanted something in their bellies after a night of pounding down brews and liquor. A few were drunk enough to cause hassle, so under the counter we kept an 8" axehandle with thick metal nuts masking-taped to the top 2" we called 'The Peacemaker'.
There were only a few times I had to pull it out, once to force an arguing couple of drunken fucks about to throw down to take it outside of the store and not bust up my workplace. (they went outside, and it was an ugly one-sided beatdown. The victor came back in to brag like I gave a damn.) The second time a drunk tried to grab and make off with the entire lottery scratch and win ticket case. For whatever reason (i guess to make it easier to replace) this was not bolted or even glued to the countertop, so while I was making a sammitch for this guy, he nonchalantly tucked it under his arm and slowly drifted towards the front door. I dropped the sammy, picked up The Peacemaker and had a brief tug of war with this asshole. After having the club waved in his face he let go of the case, and kept on slowly sauntering out the door. He never did pick up his sandwich, which he had paid for.
Now the instance I am going to talk about, there was never any thought of pulling The Peacemaker, as it likely would have resulted in me not being here to tell the tale.
Since I was working Graveyard alone (pretty sure no 24/7 store any longer lets single people run the Graveyard shift, but this was the 80's) friends would come and hang out sometimes, grab some snacks, play some vidya (every corner store back then had at least 2 arcade machines in, we had 4) and bullshit with me. We also had a number of regular late night customers, along with the odd cop or security guard cadging free coffee. So one night, some friends are hanging, and a drunken regular came in for smokes, and started to tell a sad tale of why he was broke and needed money bad, could I loan him $100, he was good for it, etc etc, yes he actually asked a 16 year old kid at the counter of a corner store for money. He surely had money for smokes and beer anyway.
So a couple of hours pass, friends leave, store is empty as it usually is between 3 and 6am. Drunken buddy comes back in lugging what looked like an oversize gym bag. I think he's going to try and sell me something. Newp, he opens the bag and pulls out a fucking assault rifle. I don't know what kind I am no gun nut, except it was not an AK-47 or M-16, the only kind I could recognize. I couldn't fucking believe it. There was a short fat clip in the bottom of it so I assumed it was loaded when he pointed it at me. I couldn't think of a fucking thing else except seeing that black tunnel pointed at me, and realizing I could actually die, right here and now in this fucking corner store, there was only a drunken fucknut between me and eternity.
I ain't gonna lie, I begged for my life. He demanded all the money in the cash register. As I quickly started putting the money together, he started apologizing, telling his tale all over again, then demanding that I open the dropsafe too, I explain I can't it's key-locked and only the manager has that key, he points the fucking gun at me the whole time telling me I better fucking open it if I want to see the morning come. I am teary at this point and he finally gives up on the safe and instead makes me fill up his big gun-bag with all the smokes that will fit.
At this time I look up at the door, and see one of my friends looking in, jaw dropped and white faced. The asshole is looking away and still talking (I was so scared I can't remember most of what the fuck he was saying) so I mouth 'call the cops!' at him shaking my head to the side. He disappears. Buddy turns back to me and casually says 'You realize I could blow you away right now, right?' I think if i had to pee then, I would have filled my pants. He then says for me to make him a sandwich and it better be the best fucking sandwich ever or he'll kill me. So much for the apologizing and he didn't want to do this bullshit. I make him a super-stacked sandwich while glancing at the door, praying to see cops come busting in, but there's nothing. He points his gun at me one last time, as he shoulders his bag and grabs his sandwich (in hindsight he probably couldn't have shot very well 1-handed and grabbing his sammy, but I sure as fuck wasn't about to try to jump him!) and tells me if I report this and ID him to the police, he'll kill me. Even if he's in jail, his brother will kill me. He then walks backwards out the door.
The second he is out the door he's hit high and low by two massive troopers, there was one on each side of the door, waiting for him to come out. They had moved into position so carefully and silently neither of us heard or saw it. His gun goes flying, and he's under a mountain of Mounties screaming at him and pointing big-ass revolvers at his head. I cheered, running up to the door and screaming at the fucker myself 'how do you like that, eh? how you like guns pointed at you, asshole!' (I was too relieved to be creative) while one of the other Mounties pushes me back inside.
During the very long follow-up interview with the police (who I made fresh pots of coffee and busted out tomorrow's donuts for, fuck yeah!) I found out that for over 10 mins while filling the bag with cigs and making a sandwich, there had been a police sniper at the far back window with asshole's head in his crosshairs. If he had looked at any point like he was actually going to shoot me, he would have been painting my shirt with his brains instead.
There was a very long couple of days with me giving statements, then meeting with corporate for my store, and then finally I heard he had pled guilty during his arraignment so I was not required to testify, my statements and afadavits (or whatever, I don't remember the names now) to the RCMP was good enough. He got 10 years for armed robbery.
It turned out the brother threat was not real, he didn't have a brother, but I still quit before the next weekend shift anyway. There was no goddamn way I was going back into that store, even if logic told me it wouldn't likely happen again. Sure enough, I found out that it HAD been robbed again 6 months later, successfully this time. I didn't have any nightmares or anything, but I will never EVER forget what it's like to look up the barrel of a rifle pointed at your face, and knowing that your death or life depends on the whim of the drunken asshole on the other end of it.
After that I got a job in market research, aka sitting in a smoke-filled death chamber calling complete strangers up to waste their time. There's stories from there too, but none so fucking terrifying as this.