But you're a girl

[AFpheonix]

I get that occasionally, although there's not really a whole lot of heavy lifting associated with my job.
Typically it's boxes of prescription labels, and new AMs will protest, until I grab 2 at a time with ease to move out of the road.
I also get it occasionally with male pharmacists if we're having an issue with a printer, and I have to switch the top parts off the duplexes to get a functional printer where it's most convenient.
Seriously people, it's lighter than a bale of hay, no big deal.

[Ree]

Oh, man...I wish some of you strong ladies who aren't afraid of work could come work for me.

Last week, I came in on Thursday morning to find that my pricing crew of 4 ladies had left about an hour early the night before, leaving part of the load unfinished.

I didn't realize they had left early, but was very surprised at the amount of work left to do.

Between my assistant and I, we spent most of the morning catching up.

There I was, with one good arm, lifting cabinets and assorted other heavy boxes and articles off a skid and pricing them.

Then, one of the guys who had worked the previous evening came in for his shift, and in the course of conversation, it came up that the crew had left early.

When they came in this week, I started to read the riot act to them about leaving early last week, when there was still unfinished freight.
I got all these excuses about how they had done all that they could, but couldn't get to the rest because there were no guys around to lift the stuff for them.

I said, "Excuse me? I was able to get to it and move a good portion of it with only one good arm, so don't give me excuses that you couldn't move it."

[iradney]

Ree, I'd come work for you in a heartbeat if I were on your continent. You're a brilliant manager! Plus, I can lift my Pops (who weighs like 250 pounds) and I know that heavy lifting is done with your legs, not your back. And my legs are strong. I have NO upper body strength, but my legs make up for it!
I've never had a problem with people telling me "this is a MAN'S job", because if they even try it, I give them my Mom's trademarked Look which lowers the room temperature considerably!

[Estil]

Please edit quotes ~Ree

In service, there are no mens or womens jobs.

Indeed, it really irates me to hear the term "checker girls" because well, I happen to be a checker. And I'm not a girl. This is the 21st century people.

[Hemily]

i've enjoyed some sowing, apearantly, that's a woman's job....

*shrugs* who cares?

[Ackee]

Men's muscles

I think even though guys are naturally stronger than a woman the same height as them, in the workplace you will rarely be asked to carry something THAT heavy.

You just need to work hard to remove any justification for being treated unequally. Its just a chain reaction thing. Somebody guy carries something for you -> You are not strong enough to do your job properly-> you don't work as hard

Look at wimbledon tennis matches, the men play more sets than the women and so this is justification for the women getting paid less than the men.

[reformedwaitress]

I don't have this problem at work.....however i do have this problem with my own damn mother! Every single time i help that woman bring in groceries, it's always "here take this bag, it's light."

Lord, my mom used to try to do that too until I was finally like "Mother! I'm 24, you're almost 60. I can carry heavier things that you can and if one of us IS going to get hurt carrying something, I want it to be me not you!"

She stopped giving me that crap.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

"I don't have this problem at work.....however i do have this problem with my own damn mother!"

OMG!!! Ya'll, too? My mother is a bigwig at a big company. She makes the lion's share of money in our family. She works, my retired father does a lot of the cooking and cleaning. It's pretty progressive over there. Yet, she is the worst sexist I know when it comes to this stuff. It doesnt' even have to be heavy lifting, I'll be hanging some window treatments and she'll say something like "Why dont' you get your father to do that for you?"

She got mad at me one afternoon because I finally said "Mom, I'm pretty sure the body part Dad holds the hammer with is his HAND. Therefore, I think I'm qualified to do this job as I also have a HAND."

Don't get me wrong, I don't particularly enjoy lifting heavy loads when I dont' have to. I'm not 18 anymore, and if there are strong young men around to help, sure, I'll let them. I may let them just DO it, and go find something less backbreaking to do. They are usually stronger than me, and that's just a fact. But I'm not going to let my gender turn me into a helpless weakling. If I can lift it, I wil lift it.

[technical.angel]

Until lately, I was the same way. I'd kill myself trying to lug something that might be a smidge to heavy just to prove that I could.

Then my arm started going. (Stupid Chiari) and I became not so loath to let someone else carry the big stuff for me. Now, post surgery, I've settled into the happy medium. When possible, I only lift what's comfortable and not dangerous for me to lift... cause, ya know, the idea of brains popping out of the back of my skull, not so fun.

[Becks]

Don't get me wrong, I don't particularly enjoy lifting heavy loads when I dont' have to. I'm not 18 anymore, and if there are strong young men around to help, sure, I'll let them. I may let them just DO it, and go find something less backbreaking to do. They are usually stronger than me, and that's just a fact. But I'm not going to let my gender turn me into a helpless weakling. If I can lift it, I wil lift it.

Same here.

I'm not especially fond of lifting the boxes I get on Mondays, but I do it anyway. (Unless my back hurts. Then I go man hunting.)

[TwoScoopsSciath]

Actually, it used to be the reverse. When dishes needed to be washed, the boys at work would go, "but that's the girl's job." Finally, I told him, "Keep it up, you'll qualify!"

[MystyGlyttyr]

Sometimes, being not so muscle bound is a better thing, though...hence the time in Little Rock when part of the wrestling ring I hung around with got a bit twiggy. The guys come in and I'm hanging upside-down in the guts of the thing, knees hooked around the corner post, one hand on the ground for balance, and adjusting the connection of the frame with the other. None of them could have even gotten their fat heads in that space, let alone found a position to get a wrench into that corner.

Even when a skinnier guy than me showed up to hang around the group, it was still my job to adjust the corners when they started getting skewed, because guys with that much muscle just aren't very flexible, heh.

[ominousoat]

When I worked at a grocery store there was this perverted, inbred (honest to God, he'd pretty much traced out his family line to us, he's the result of an Uncle/Niece combo), mongoloid, chauvanist, sleazebag, and he frequented often. Not only did he frequent, he took a liking to me, and the first time I met him he told me about the good news of Jesus Christ *AND* a dirty joke he told to a waitress at a Chinese restaurant, which he was apparently very proud of. That's neither here, nor there though. Everytime he ever saw me vacuuming, sweeping, or cleaning, inevitably he would say "That's Wimmin Wurk! Where ya' balls?"

I would sigh, roll my eyes, and inform him that this really wasn't that easy of work, and I had been told to do so.

He'd giggle and punch me in the arm and run out the door with his hideous swarm of larva children...

[Bacter]

it's never directed towards me, but there is definately tech-support sexism. Apparently the female brain is not capable of understanding computers. Diane, who I work with, keeps a tally for number of times she hears "I wish my girlfriend could hang out with ME at work! Can I talk to a representative?" or some derivative of that. It's mostly funny because she's a true comp-sci major, MCDST, A+, the whole 9 yards, could run circles around most anybody else there.

[Tanasi]

At my house we have a very clear division of labor: Everything in the house and within 500 feet of the house is women's work.

When it comes to the real heavy lifting I have the boys do the lifting I'm old and give-out. Now when I was a young man and worked at a grocery store the stock truck came on Tuesdays. The men folk unloaded it and we seperated the stock into little-girl stock (health-beauty aids, spices) and everything else. About a year before I quit the hired a girl (C) that was fairly stout and generally could hang with any of the men folk when it came to stocking. Back then sugar, flour, and corn-meal came in 60 pound bales and the area where they were stored was across the room and around the corner from the loading dock. So we would setup the rollers to get the bales as close as possible but we still have 20 feet to go. To speed up things several of us would setup a fire line for the last 20 feet. No big deal just pass it along C could do that no problem. Some days we didn't have as many folks as needed so it was either carry or toss and most of the time we'd toss them from one to the other, that's where C couldn't hang, for some reason she objected to getting her boobs smashed flat with every bale. I figured she had the advantage as she had some padding before the bale hit bone oh and the bale was right around half her body weight and they would knock her on her butt.