Home and workplace security systems can be expensive, but it’s understandable that people want to spend their hard earned cash on them. After all, these fancy systems of motion sensors, lights, and alarms can be as much a deterrent as anything, making criminals think twice before breaking in, since they know that unless they’re very careful (or lucky) they’ll be detected immediately. It’s a peace of mind thing.

For most people who install these systems, they never really get to find out how they’d react if they found out their alarms were going off because they’d detected motion inside the building. But unfortunately for the guy in this story, as a key holder to the store he worked in, he was on the register to be called in the event of an intruder alert. And so, in the early hours of the morning, he found himself hauling himself out of bed and to work, understandably anxious about what he might find when he arrived.

But the reality of what he saw when he got to the store was very different to anything he could have imagined.

Read on to find out what happened.

I got woken up early for work, for that?

I work in quite a small-ish store in the UK that gets a lot of traffic, mainly from local residents.

Being a key-holder, I’m on the list of “people to call when the alarm goes off.”

Normally I miss most calls that come through to my phone due to some shady black spots where I live, but lo and behold I recently got a call at around 4:25am that my store’s alarm is going off. They needed a person there to ensure that there was nothing wrong.

So dragged myself out of bed, threw on my work uniform and I was out the door in under five minutes.

Let’s see what happened when he got to his workplace.

Whilst I was on the way there, I was on the phone to my girlfriend who was kind of worried about me.

We were both pondering what it could be and of course, you’re always thinking the worst in your mind: someone’s broken in to steal something, and you’re just trying get there fast.

I made it there after around fifteen minutes of speed-walking and had a look around from outside first. Nobody was around. There were no signs that show anyone had forced their way inside either.

Then I made my way in, phoning the security company to be my second pair of eyes in the roof.

Read on to find out what he discovered inside the store.

I made it in and had a sweep around, making sure everything valuable was where it should be. Then I saw the culprit.

A bag of cheese balls, just laying on the floor.

I gave my findings to the person over the phone with me, and he promptly closed the call out. I then just decided to stay, talk over the phone with my girlfriend off the clock with some tea, before the start of my actual shift.

I later showed the camera footage to one of my co-workers on site. When it fell off the shelf and woke up the store’s lights, and set the alarm off, we both started laughing.

This must have been the most frustrating thing, but at least he took it well.

After all, being the first person in the scene if it had been a genuine break in would not have been fun.

As annoying as it was, it’s definitely better off this way!

If you enjoyed this post, check out this story about a man who closed his bank account after being told his initial transaction didn’t qualify him for free parking.

Let’s see what folks on Reddit made of this.

This person was used to similar experiences.

While others had had some dramatic non-events like this one.

Meanwhile, this Redditor explained why motion sensor alarms can be annoying.

It’s genuinely so lucky that it was just a bag of cheese balls, because the whole situation could have been a lot worse – and he could have even ended up in danger. It’s no wonder that his girlfriend was worried about him, because in situations like this you really have no idea what you’re going to find on the other side of the door. Really, it’s a risky move from the company to have an employee go down to figure out what is going on, rather than simply sending emergency services or security folk – and even then in a team, not alone!

Sure this was a false alarm, and it led to the guy having a chill morning after the relief of finding that the only criminal was a bag of snacks, but a cup of tea and a chat with his girlfriend before his shift should be the least that this guy is enjoying for all his trouble. Let’s hope he got paid overtime at the very least!