The Graveyard Shift

An Account of the Worst Job I’ve Ever Had

By Alex Schlee

After a solid two hours of sleep, my alarm clock began to blare. I stumbled around my room blindly, feeling for the off-button for several minutes before I finally found it. I gazed blearily at the glowing red display on the front of the clock in my hands: 3:30 a.m. I had to be at work in half an hour. I quickly threw on a red t-shirt and a pair of khaki pants while trying not to wake Carly, my sister who slept in the room across the hall. I might have had to wake up at 3:30, but that didn’t mean she had to.

I skipped my shower. Not only did I not have time for hygiene, but it wouldn’t matter anyway. The temperature would reach 90 degrees on this summer day. Inside Target, where I worked, it could get even hotter than that, since they turned the air-conditioners off at night. At this point, shower would only be a waste of time and soap.

When I left the house, I was greeted with total silence, just as I was every morning. It was actually a bit unnerving, since I was so used to hearing the noises of the city. Now there was a light background buzz of crickets and some cars off in the distance. I put on my headphones, switched my iPod on and began my eight-block walk to The Quarry Shopping Center. The Walk seemed longer than that because of the eeriness of the dark and silent city. Every morning, I was afraid I would get mugged, although the fear was unfounded. I made it safely to work every time.

Arriving at Target usually involved waiting for someone to hear the buzzer by the back door and come to let me in. Depending on how many people arrived before me, this could take awhile. This was particularly unpleasant on nights when it was raining, which was often that summer. Once inside, I had a few extra minutes to stow my personal affects in a locker and, if necessary, dry myself off as best I could before punching in for my shift.

My job was simple enough. First, I went to the loading dock and grabbed a stack of rolling cages that would be used to keep discarded cardboard. The rest of my shift was spent unloading pallets of crates from a semi-truck, using the codes on the boxes to distribute them throughout the aisles of the store, and then unpacking every item from every box and putting them in their proper places on the shelves. Of course, the quality of the work was of less concern than how quickly it was done. I was a slow, but precise worker, which caused almost daily altercation with my taskmaster of a manager.

“Hey, you! New Guy!” snapped my manager, who still did not know my name, despite the fact I had been working here for several weeks. “I’m gonna need you to pick up the pace.”

“Mmhmm,” I replied drearily, not wanting to say anything that would put my job at stake. It may have been a crappy job, but it paid well. I also didn’t want to further annoy my manager today.

The previous night, I had been asked to come in at 2 a.m., instead of four. This normally would have entitled me to a longer break, but I was never given one. I had continuously asked co-workers about the time of their breaks, but no one was being given breaks that day. Angered by this, I slipped hints by complaining about the lack of break times every time the manager was around. Finally, she got fed up with me and we confronted each other.

“So, no one’s getting breaks tonight?” I demanded. “Not even when we’re working from two to eight? Jeez, that’s like a six-hour shift. I thought we were supposed to get a break on a shift that long...”

“Hey,” the manager said from behind me.

“Yeah?”

“Do you have any more questions about the length of your shift?” she said crossly. “Because I thought I made myself clear.”

“Nope,” I said flatly. “Everything’s just peachy.” I felt myself blush from anger as we glared at each other. The mugginess inside the building added to the effect.

That job was the dullest, most monotonous job I’ve ever had. It was good money, and even a decent workout, but it made my summer miserable. Returning home damp and sweaty, exhausted and frustrated every morning, and sleeping all day essentially killed whatever social life I had hoped for at the beginning of June. To top it off, my boss was a jerk, along with several of my co-workers. Quitting was one of the biggest reliefs I’ve ever experienced.

It was like punching out, but forever. The relief of knowing you were done with work for the day, and you were out from under the watchful eye of the boss came daily for us peons, but we always knew that we would have to come back. This time, there was no coming back, and I never had to get up at three in the morning again. A giant weight had been lifted off my shoulders. I was finally out.