Notes From Walmart

These are just collected mental notes I've made since I've worked at Walmart. They are only based on my observations and my own internal dialogue. They may not reflect reality, just what I perceive people are thinking or doing.

As I'm coming in I see the McDonald's manager chain smoking his life away. He has a defeated look in his eyes as if to say, "Everything has lead me to this, what happened?" He lights another cigarette off of his last one and leans against the wall. I'm sure he's calculating how many he has to smoke before his life is sufficiently shortened to his satisfaction.

You can always tell those customers who have a bit of self awareness from those who don't. You can always tell who is lonely and who isn't. You have the people who have no awareness at all and walk around in their own personal world, customized just for them with McNuggets in the top of the shopping cart and throwing things into the basket as slow as possible. They also will clog up the aisles with no regard to those around them. You don't exist to them because they really don't know anyone is around them.

Usually these people are very overweight. A testament to their sloth and arrogance. "I own this space, it's mine and so is your space. My time is my time and so is your time, the time you wait on me to move from your speedy life. So here I shall stand, in your way, causing your frustration and annoyance."

Then you have the lonely, those who spend hours in the store in the evenings as if picking up the energy of those around them will ease their loneliness. Three or four times a week they need their fix of people. They will put on their best clothes and stroll the entirety of the store. Wanting nothing but to feel connected to something, something other than what they have. Spending time with their friends, the strangers around them. Perhaps holding out the hope of a short conversation with someone, anyone. Sometimes I oblige.

There are those who wish to break free and yet trapped by the job. You might throw me into that category on some level but not with that job, my real job. Those who know they can do better but the years have passed them by faster than they thought possible. What happened when they had the chance? Did they decide on security instead of the unknown. The devil you know I suppose. The ones you have at home depending on you, so you do it and do it and do it. You have fun when you can, you keep busy as if that helps fill the space where fulfillment would have fit nicely.

And that brings to a close a few of my mental notes I've collected over my working career at Walmart. They aren't bad nor good. They are just what I see and due mainly to my boredom and overactive imagination the situations I paint for them.