If this hasn’t happened to you—yet—it probably will at some point in your life.

You jump in your car and dash off to Walmart to squeeze in a few errands between everything else on your never-ending “to-do” list, and as you walk into the store you’re greeted by the proverbial Walmart greeter in their blue vest and name badge. They stand there in what almost seems like a protective bubble. People rush by them while they simply stand there and say “hello” or perhaps engage in a few words of how nice a day it is.

And it may well be a nice day when you’re a Walmart greeter. I personally have never held that position but for one of my close friends, at a point in his life not that long ago, considered being a Walmart greeter, and actually took it a step further and applied. He was denied employment—reason being he was overqualified! But that’s not the point of this blog.

The point is, what makes one look at the job of a Walmart greeter, or in my case, a cashier at Food Lion, and think “that looks appealing”? And this is not a case of being unemployed and needing to take a job, any job, to make ends meet. The answer for me and my close friend can be summed up in one word—burnout.

So as I said at the beginning of this blog, this may have happened to you already or it may be in your future, but in today’s insane world it’s almost inevitable that you will experience burnout. That day when you say “f**k it, I’m done with this stress, this insanity, this chaos”.

Ask around and I’m sure you’ll have people tell you they’re own burnout story and what aspirational jobs they looked at. For instance, my former business partner would half joke on Monday mornings that while in Harris Teeter on the weekend,and seeing the guy in the deli department cutting cold cuts, it crossed his mind that he might just take that job. All that concerned the deli guy was how thick or thin you wanted your meat cut. Sounded pretty good compared to the pressure cooker we were working in!

A scene from the classic movie American Beauty epitomizes this feeling of “looking for the least possible amount of responsibility”. Kevin Spacey’s character, Lester, while going through the drive thru window of a fast food restaurant, sees a “Help Wanted” notice and well, I’ll let you watch the clip here.

I believe we over complicate our lives, take on too much, a lot of which is not ours to begin with, and have few or no boundaries. It leaves us feeling trapped and looking for a way out. Being a Walmart greeter may be your “out”, no judgment here. But before you make that application, think of ways you can step into your own power in your life and make choices that give you the freedom to be in control.