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I Worked Third Shift for a Week at Walmart, and Here’s How It Went
The graveyard shift is not for everyone
If you have (or haven’t) been reading my stories over the past few months, I lost my job in Tech in June of 2024. I joined the thousands of other Tech workers who have suffered from layoffs this year. Luckily, however, I got a contract job in my field of User Experience Design just a week later, but it’s barely enough to cover my expenses.
With my freelance contract ending on January 31st, I experienced a day of desperation where I suddenly felt I needed to get a job ASAP. To date, I have applied to 194 jobs in my field and garnered two interviews that went nowhere.
Leveraging a process called rage applying, I started to apply to every Big Box store in my area. These included Walmart, Best Buy, Target, Home Depot, and Lowe’s. I applied for third-shift stocker positions so that I could still work during the day.
The only callback I got was from Walmart, and I immediately scheduled an interview for 9 pm the next day. I met with a nice young man named Anthony, and he told me what the job entailed. I would be zoning and stocking throughout the store. Zoning refers to arranging the existing products on the shelf so they are all pulled forward, and there are no gaps between the merchandise…
