For Ms. Muni, life as a part-time worker in a stockroom in Astoria can be unpredictable.

Most weeks, Ms. Muni is scheduled to work either 12 or 16 hours, but she is often asked to come in on her days off. Ms. Muni, who earns the local minimum wage of $15 an hour, never turns down work. “I have to make ends meet,” she said. “Whatever job I find, I take.”

An immigrant from Turkey, Ms. Muni, 52, takes multiple train lines to reach the store, leaving her house in Elmhurst, Queens, and her husband, who is recovering from a stroke, before 6 a.m. Hoping to save money one recent month, Ms. Muni bought a 30-day MetroCard instead of paying for single rides. But she ended up losing money on the card because the extra shifts never materialized that month.

She has no health insurance, but manages to be resourceful. She recently had a cavity filled by dental students at New York University.

Ms. Muni moved to New York eight years ago and recently joined the Retail Action Project, a worker group and job training program affiliated with the retail employees union. She has degrees in media economics and human resources management from a university in Turkey. But those skills are not needed in the cramped, windowless stockroom on the third floor of the T.J. Maxx, behind the men’s underwear rack and the bin of Christmas-themed pillows.

Ms. Muni unpacks boxes from delivery trucks and arranges last season’s pajamas and dress shirts on hangers, for display in the store. Her co-workers in the stockroom include women from Peru, Ecuador, Morocco and the Dominican Republic.

“We laugh. We talk about family,” she said. “My job is hard, but I love these friends.”

THE POSTAL EMPLOYEE