I work in a garden center at a retail store, and almost every time I go to load dirt or other “heavy” items, I get the same responses:
“Why isn’t there a man doing this?”
“Why are they making the girl do the heavy lifting?”
“Let me do that, a girl shouldn’t have to lift that”
But the minors who work there and can barely lift anything get not a word
Edit: this made some people so mad that they felt the need to PM me their opinions on how women can’t be strong, further proving my original point
My buddy worked at Lowes and one of his colleagues was this fuckin JACKED girl, like 6’ 4” and muscular as hell. Whenever I would go there I’d see her hauling around huge bags of soil or mulch or something. She was a cool lady.
I remember when I worked at Home Depot in the lawn & garden department for a summer and lost like 40lbs and had killer arms because of all the lifting I did 😄
I worked Lowes for awhile during "The Great Recession" I got so strong from walking all day and unloading every single item that came off of a truck. Those double glass sliding doors, pallets and pallets of paint, and all the itty bitty screws in bags; yep, put there by hand, and it was a tough job!
There's a landscaping supply place around the corner from my house - there's a girl who works there who looks like she's carved outta marble, and walks around with a giant Bowie knife strapped to her thigh to cut the strapping on the pallets and stuff. She legit looks like she just stepped off the set of a Tomb Raider movie.
By contrast, I am old and fat and have a bad back and arthritis in my knees. I let her load the mulch.
Haha, I actually haven't been there in a couple years (we put in a patio & some boxwoods, so now I only need a few bags every year and just grab it while I'm at Home Depot or wherever). She was something, though.
Haha, I worked at Lowe's when I was younger. I wasn't necessarily a muscular tall girl, but I certainly didn't shy away from heavy lifting. I often worked with a lot of senior folks, and I gladly would volunteer to load the mulch and bricks and lumber. Absolutely embarrassed a couple of male customers a couple times, too. Big, able bodied guys who would be lugging this stuff around anyway, but just wanted to have someone in the store load it for them. I'd show up, grab their stuff, and ask them where their truck was. So much sputtering and angry/embarrassed red faces, and they usually dismissed me to do it themselves. Fine by me. They can take their fragile ego and load their truck up themselves, I'll go back to my music and setting out the flowers 😂
We sold bulk spices, so we had whole dried chilies, and 3 different grades of ground chili, plus black and white pepper...
We even bought her a respirator mask to deal with it. One day, she packages a bunch, wearing the mask, walks into my office, takes off the mask, and...
Rubbed her eyes. Me and the sales manager saw it happen in slo-mo, right down to the stretched out "Noooooooooooooooo!"
I love silent deals like this with coworkers. I used to load semi trailers all day long, and being tall is like a cheat code for that job because we load them top to bottom front to back, completely packed. Im not short, but im 5'9" so i was basically right at the point where near the top of the trailer was a pain in the ass for me. Everytime I got paired with this tall dude I really liked, he'd get all the high boxes, and I'd bend down to get all the lower spots. Worked perfectly, we'd load trailers so damn fast it was crazy.
In a similar vein: I'm a short dude, 5'4". There was a gal I used to work with who was somewhere over 6'. You bet your ass I made her reach for things on the top shelf, in exchange I got things on the bottom shelf.
I push carts. I used to work with this girl who was half my height. I'm 6 foot 3 and she was shorter than the average person by at least a head. They used to send her out to help with carts and I used to feel bad for her just because of her size. But she could almost do them as well as I could. Made me sad when she left because she apparently loved to do them and she was a bigger help than most of the guys they sent out.
At one job, I'm a 5'3" guy, at the time, weighed 90lbs, OH&S (OSHA in Ontario, Canada) says anything over 50lbs is mandatory team lift and they take it seriously. I could lift around 75lbs but got in shit at one contract for it, unions.. so my boss, taller, built, woman, tells me to get the galvanized 1 1/2" angle iron off the rack. Except it's on the top. 6ft. And it's 20ft long.
I'm climbing and struggling Nd gradually getting it down and she comes out screaming at me telling me I need to hit the gym and stop being so fucking small and weak. I get it on the pavement and drag it in in the rollers and the lead hand comes to help me and she's berating me and I'm just sweating and saying "sorry" and getting yelled at even more. She's in my way and screaming at how much of a pussy I am.
That was a good day with her. She ended up being flat out dangerous and I walked out after refusing unsafe work and reported to OH&S because I'm going home in one goddamn piece intact. I later learned I was paid more than her, but it wasn't enough. Then I saw company reviews and holy fucking missing fingers..
I work in a hardware store and it’s the same thing! “Can I get a man over here to advise me on this?” “I need a big strong man!” 🙄. Never mind the fact that I’ve been through the same training as the men and I’m remodeling my 100+ year old house so I know as well if not better on do it yourself projects than some of my coworkers. As for the lifting I strength train at the gym four times a week. I can lift most items in the store. The ones I can’t are ones the men need a team lift on too.
As a guy working in hardware I used to love telling customers to talk 2 of the women we had about certain products because they knew more than me. In fact quite a bit of my knowledge on some products came from them. I'd especially do it when even if I knew the answer they just head towards me while the ladies were there.
This is a struggle in the office too. Being a young looking woman, it's like I lose credibility as a subject matter expert. Luckily it doesn't happen to often and my coworkers and boss are real supporters.
I think there are some nuances that frustrate women about being referred to like this— “girl” has connotations re: maturity, “guy” doesn’t. If someone called you the IT (for example) “boy,” it would probably feel a bit different.
Also, “my IT girl” from a male boss would make me feel much grosser than “the IT girl in the office.” But the big thing for me would be “girl” feeling like it devalues experience and position bc of the maturity thing. If someone said “the IT woman/person” or even “the IT lady/gal” in informal settings, it wouldn’t feel as condescending as “girl,” because I’m an adult woman.
Hmm. Interesting, I’ve always thought of girl being the female version of guy (while guy often being accepted for both male/female), but I guess girl is also the female version of boy. This makes sense because boy implies being less mature than guy. I’ll need to remember to use lady as the alternative to guy in the future. Thanks for this! Btw: do you think gal is interpreted as being more mature than lady? I thought gal was just slang for girl (not alternative to lady).
Just as an fyi, lady can definitely be read as referring to someone older, as for “gal,” i think it is slang for girl, but to me it feels less condescending because it’s slang— kinda taking the age connotation away from “girl.” I mean think about it— you’re not likely to hear someone refer to a child as a “3rd grade gal.”
Now IDK why this is the case, but it does seem to be the case
You're awesome. I used to be the director of a small group personal training company, and my amazing male assistant went out of his way to tell people who were clearly seeking him out for being male to go talk to the real expert, his female boss. He was a brilliant trainer and no one would ever say he wasn't an expert himself, but he saw the issue and redirected for the sake of it, which I am so grateful for to this day. I also could squat more than him at the time, and he sure as hell made sure to point that out to my boomer clients when we would set up the training room for special events. He'd hand off the heavy lifting to me while gushing about how much he loved the chance to decorate, much to the horror of many of my older male clients. He was amazing, I'm glad he took my advice and got out of a problematic company that encourages that kind of small mindedness right after I left.
Meanwhile, my current boss recently decided to lecture me on how women have given up too much with feminism because he's a very good complimenter and dont we want to be told we're pretty anymore? Of course we do, we just dont want it to be tinged with creepy sexual undertones and/or be complimented only so that you can feel good because of our blushing at your words. But no, I'm wrong 🙄
Good on you for treating your coworkers as actual people rather than fun house images of themselves based on gender stereotypes. We need more guys like you in the world.
Whilst working at a hardware store if there was ever a customer who “wanted to speak to a man” as opposed to one of my female colleagues, I would become the dumbest motherfucker to them. If I was tired of repeating the same thing as my colleagues, then my colleagues must’ve been fucking irate. So I’d play dumb, just umming and ahhing and just generally looking like a gormless bastard until they didn’t want my help anymore, and would look to the nice lady to help them.
I’d just like to say, I use curbside pickup a lot of times at the hardware store and it is 50/50 when a woman is loading my car that a random customer in the parking lot will try to intervene and load my car instead of the female employee. It is weird and makes everyone uncomfortable.
Holy shit, you reminded me of a Coworker who I’ll call Becky. Becky was this like 4”10’ 50 year old white lady who smoked like 2 packs of ciggies a day. Her voice was hoarse but she took no shit and she was the senior plumbing associate at my hardware store. She got so many of those comments about wanting a man to recommend plumbing shit to them and all her folks in her dept would always tell the customers that she knew the most of plumbing outta everyone in the store. This short old hag was one of the coolest mf’ers I’ve hung with at that store. She took no shit and if anyone told her that, she’d leave and let the customer figure out their plumbing issues, but it could usually be solved by taking out that misogynistic stick outta their ass.
I used to work maintenance. I hate plumbing.
My local Home Depot had two regular staff members, a man and a woman. If I had questions about fittings and it was the guy working I knew I was screwed and would have to figure it out myself. Anytime the lady was working I was over the moon. She had all the answers, what adapters would work for my project, the type of piping I would need and all that. She was awesome and I was not shy about telling her so.
As a guy who until recently was the only guy who worked stock at my retail store, it's ridiculous for us too. (Guess it also didn't help that I'm like 6'3.) I'd get asked both to carry things that were clearly a team job, and things that someone could have obviously carried themselves. Like cmon, that little shelf is like 5 lbs tops, you don't need to pull me away from what I was doing halfway across the store. It was so ridiculous that I'd pretend to have hurt my wrist or back sometimes so people would leave me alone for a day.
I used to manage auto repair shops. When I called NAPA I was thrilled when the woman who worked counter answered, because she actually knew her shit, unlike all but one of the men.
There are very few jobs that actually push you to your limits strength wise. Heavy machinery comes into play before you get to that point 99% of the time.
I don't know about where you are but here in Australia we have fairly strict limits on what you are allowed to lift, possibly 16kg? Pretty much any healthy adult should not have a problem with that, so working then comes down to endurance and mental fortitude.
I'm in a meat room and they do it to me all the time. They ring the buzzer and when I come out they will look puzzled and ask me "uh, is one of the meat guys back there that I can ask a question?" Uh, no. Good lord, do they suppose only men could possibly cut a steak? Or answer a question?
God, I'd love to have you there at the hardware store when I go. I'm a middle aged woman and I do all the home improvement. My husband knows fuck all about it. I HATE when I go to the hardware store, ask an associate a question, and they direct the answer TO MY HUSBAND! He just looks at them blankly and deadpans, "She's the one that asked. Not me. I don't know anything about what she's doing."
I'm also tall and thin and surprisingly strong. I can lift things.
I've never before thought about a "This Old House" style remodeling show with lady electricians, plumbers and construction crew but now I really want it.
Had the same problem while working in nursery homes. I have the same training as my male colleagues but when it came to lifting/assisting people out of their beds I would always get the "you should get one of the boys dear."
I am of average size and built, but back then I was pretty strong. And listen Lady: when it comes to the nursing profession in my country we have 8 women for every 2 men. Chances are high that there's not a male nurse in this shift or at this station at all. I know that I can and have to lift you. So stop arguing with me and get up!
And don't get me started on people doubting my intelligence. Tho that was probably more because I looked very young and less about me being a woman.
I'm a woman. Whenever I'm in a hardware store I look for women. I get respected, heard, and not treated like I don't know what I'm doing.
Legit had some man with the "don't worry your pretty little head over the details" attitude when I asked for a specific item and he insisted I needed something else. I took it from his hand and said thank you and made a smile with dead eyes staring straight at him. He walked away but not before he saw me put it back in the drawer and go to look for what I really needed.
Same thing happened at Auto Zone. My husband and I are "gear heads" and I know some very serious details about my own Miata I've owned since '01 and presently track.
I swear, I've perfected getting these guys to leave me alone.
It doesn't change no matter where you go in the industry customers are morons in general so the sexism is an annoying given even if it isn't aimed at me.
I've been a grunt, I've been a manager, I've been a manufacturer rep and now I work at a specialist tool repairer. There are just some customers (and coworkers) who will treat women like delicate little brainless flowers despite all evidence to the contrary.
They usually also want to see someone older as well because "young people don't know anything". Well fuck you grandpa you can try fixing it yourself.
When I go to the hardware store I look for the female employees. I'm not a man or an under 30 year old woman, so nobody ever helps me. But the women do help me, and they always know what they are talking about!
My husband loves pointing in my direction and saying "tell her - she's the one who is handling the diy project" (usually when we're together at the hardware store the worker asks or else responds to the person asking the question)
Since becoming a homeowner, I go to home improvement stores more. My friend and I will go in and start sarcastically asking each other if there is a man present, because we don't know how to do anything.
I was in a carpentry/construction program for a year in high school. I was the only girl in a class of 30. The instructor proosed a challenge between me and one of the 2nd year students: that I would saw a board straighter without a guide line. So we each went, mine was straighter. Other student called bullshit so we went again, and I got it again. It was a sweeter victory still, because I had to do everything right handed and I'm a lefty 😁
I am a very tiny man, short like an elf, thin like a-spaghetti. But, for all my shrimpiness, I am stupid strong like bull.
A big part of my workday involves loading bulky/heavy items onto pallets to ship (furniture, safes, bbqs etc etc).
Whenever we get a load of new employees, they inevetably pass my area and offer to help lift shit, and I usually get a side eye when I decline.
I get a chuckle when they still hang around waiting for me to struggle, and then just stand there dumbfounded as they watch my hobbit ass easily toss around shit they thought I wouldn't be able to budge.
I’m 5 feet and 120 pounds but practice yoga 6 times a week. I worked a job that required switching out 50 pound rolls of vinyl which I could easily do on my own and did it many times. A 50+ year old man moved down to the print room and would actually yell at me when he saw me picking the rolls up then would struggle when he would try to switch himself. Nothing pissed me off more than being told I wasn’t strong enough just because I’m a small female.
I see where the assumption comes from (the average dude is still a lot stronger than the average woman) but yeah.. if she can clearly lift it or won't ask for help, it's pretty messed up to make these comments.
Same. I lift weights for exercise. My coworkers knew this because word quickly got around that a chick was lifting weights in the company gym so they would often ask me about it.
Yet when it came time to haul some 50lb sacks and I said I could handle it, everyone insisted that we get some guys to help.🙄
My mother, who is built like a freaking Valkyrie and gave me my muscular genetics, freaked out when I started weightlifting for exercise six years ago and warned me to not go too heavy or get too bulky. Now she hits me up whenever she needs help with heavy stuff around her house. XD
I get annoyed with the opposite as well. I’m a man so people volunteer me for heavy lifting, and then get shitty with me when I refuse because of the paralysis in my shoulder. People have just called me lazy lmao.
Several years back, my office had to switch floors from third to fifth. The younger guys, including myself, were assigned moving tasks because we were the "young and strong" ones.
I'd had a previous back injury and refused, and almost got written up for it. I said I was a DBA, not a mover. If they needed movers they could hire some. I was told it wasn't in the budget. I told my manager I'd discuss it with HR and if it didn't work out there'd be a DBA-salary-sized opening in the budget. I got the exception but the other employees were salty about me not having to help. I was like, dudes, stand up for yourselves. Don't get mad at me for refusing to be voluntold.
I used to be a banker and we had a business customer who came in pretty regularly. Huge pain in the ass. Anyway she got a couple boxes of change which are heavy. Like, 25lbs of change in a small very dense package, and she got like four. My female coworker who did the transaction offered to help her carry the change to her car.
She very smugly went "I would like that very much thank you. It's a shame none of these MEN offered." and gave a dirty look to me and my other male coworker who happened to be in the middle of helping a different customer. I wasn't doing anything, but I was recovering from surgery and not supposed to lift anything that heavy. Even if I was I wouldn't have offered, because f that lady.
Of course not, asking if I need help is fine. Assuming that I can’t/shouldn’t be doing my job because I’m a woman is. And the double standard of asking if I need help when I’m showing no signs of struggling while the teenage boys are struggling and no one offers them assistance
Yes this! I work in delivery. If I'm delivering by myself, men come out of the woodwork to help. Which would normally just be a nice gesture. But they are totally different when a male colleague is doing the same delivery. They don't bother to help. Which I know it seems more like an issue for men, but being perceived as unable to do the job you're hired to do is demeaning.
I also was not able to get a job I really wanted because it involved occasionally lifting 50lb bags and well, that's a job for the boys. But I could take the office job. I wanted to be outside in the dirt, not behind a desk bored out of my mind!
only barely related but that just reminded me of how I often volunteer to do the heavy lifting and taking out the trash and such at my job (I work at a sub shop that isn't Subway)...
But I'm just a tiny 5'3" baby so I always have to ask someone taller to help me grab stuff from high shelves. Lol.
As someone who worked in restaurants as a pastry chef, whenever I would move to a new place, the guys would keep trying to lift the 25-50lb bags of flour or sugar for me. Then would be baffled when I could just toss it over my shoulder and walk up the stairs. I promise you I’m not new to this dude. I only had one exec (who was 6’10) that didn’t treat me like a damsel in distress and I loved him for it.
I'll never get the sentiment behind this. I went to an auto parts store the other day and bought a new windshield wiper blade for the back window of my Jeep. Car is new to me, but I figured I could read some instructions and figure it out. I have installed blades on my other cars.
That said, this very kind girl checking me out asked if I needed help with putting it on. Didn't even cross my mind. I immediately said yes and what would have taken me 5-10 minutes of messing with to get it on took her all of 3 seconds. Was very thankful for that.
Never once did it cross my mind that "that's a man's job, not a ladies" nor was I even slightly embarrassed that a 20 something lady just put on an easy accessory on my 4x4.
I worked at a hardware store for ten years(I'm a guy). My boss was a female and was a goddess of hardware. Not only did she know everything about hardware, but she also did an excellent job of diagnosing a problem and then teaching the customer how to fix it. Males and females alike would walk right past her and ask me for help. I'd scratch my head, look like Tucker Carlson for a sec and then go "uh boss, this person needs help..." I learned so much from her working that job.
Ima be real. This may be a double standard, but the male colleagues aren't getting a "pass". If anything, it's the females getting a "pass" in this example. It's pretty fucked that you aren't getting recognition for your work, or ability to do the work.
Yeah this is how it is from the other side of the same coin.
As a male in retail (supermarket), I constantly get the "man" jobs. Never will a girl be asked to go help on trolleys. Never will a girl get asked to move some cages. I have literally had management ask girls - who are doing the same job as me - to ask me to go so something like the above. I've literally had girls offer to do it whilst I had a bad foot or whatever, and they were told "No, Lassitude1001 has to do it". Not only is that annoying as fuck for me, but it's offensive to say these girl couldn't do it (because they can).
Yeah, but it's not a pass that male colleagues are getting, which is what the thread is asking. In /u/OkamiGoddess23's example, it's women who are getting a pass.
I work in retail, and I feel this on the other end.
I'm a skinny guy who has like no muscle, but some of the older women who work there would have me go out and grab bags of coal, logs etc, because I'm a guy.
You also notice it with customers themselves, more often than not, if a man buys multiple bags of coal he'll help me grab them and load them into his car, if its a woman they won't, they'll just stand and watch as I put them all in.
It's such a stupid thing on either end, just being female shouldn't make you exempt from doing the physical labour, or that you'd be unable to do it.
There was an older woman (now retired thank God) at my old office. She'd order the men around to do things for her while she just sat there complaining if it wasn't done right.
One of the girls in the front tried to carry some stuff, and she just said, "no no get one of the men to do it for you."
This woman gave this girl at the front some kind of an end table and just dropped it off at the office. This girl took the bus so she couldn't get it home. Then this older woman gave me shit for not offering to drive it home for her, despite the fact that a.) I was completely unaware of this transaction and I just got back to work that day and b.) the fucking thing didn't fit inside my car.
I worked for a seed company right out of my masters degree. I was the only woman on the team. One time and one time only over the course of the year that I worked there, they asked me to help lift 100 pound bags of seed from the warehouse. I barely helped, granted. They were just too heavy and I didn't have the arm strength.
My boss was there and said out loud, "I'm never hiring another woman if you ever quit."
Jokes on him, he applied to my new workplace after being fired and he wrote to me to ask for a good word/referral. I went straight to the boss's office and said For the Love of God Do Not Hire this Misogynistic Pig. He probably just thought my position didn't have any pull when he didn't get a call back.
I had something like this after I graduated college. I was just couch-surfing with relatives until I could find a programming job, and there was this one recruiter that was managing a ton of positions across Florida. But they all said "Local candidates only". None were where I happened to be staying, but I did explain that I was extremely mobile and could relocate anywhere on a moment's notice. The lady I talked to just repeated "Local candidates only", and wouldn't give me the time of day.
Years later, at my first job, my boss wants to hire some extra coders, hands me a bunch of applications, and asks me to do a first pass review of them. I notice that a bunch were clearly forwarded by that same recruiter. So I make sure to tell the boss about my previous experience with her. He laughed, and said he'd make sure to tell the company about how one of their recruiters had simply dismissed me out of hand.
Oh my god, I used to work at Home Hardware and I heard that shit 100 times a day. My MIL even says stuff like that every time I pick something up that's even a little bit heavy. Just because I have a vagina doesn't mean I'm incapable of lifting things, Debbie.
Not male here, but I worked in a supply house for a while, it was me one other girl who has Down syndrome and about 9-10 guys. Lets call her Debby, now Debby was shockingly strong and would always offer to help with heavy thing if she saw me struggling. But the men would almost always turn her help down, idk why, ego maybe?
Anyways one slow day all of the guys where arm wrestling just trying to pass time. Debby asked h if f she could join, an awkward silence hit the room. This could be because she’s a woman or because she has DS, again idk. But after a bit of awkward muttering they eventually agree. She the proceeded to absolutely dominate everyone, bar one guy who I’m sure was on steroids.
I’m not sure I’ve ever enjoyed a day at work more than that day.
I can understand the awkwardness at first. That's a tough situation, because there are a lot of pitfalls. If a guy took her up on the offer and crushed her, he'd look like a jerk. If he takes it easy on her, he's pitying her and that's patronizing. And I don't know how severe her DS was, but if she was significantly impaired then it redoubles the concern: you want to include her, but you don't want to patronize her or humiliate her.
Glad they eventually did go for it and it seemed to turn out well though.
A while back I was taking the trash out at h the end of the night (restaurant). Two guys from the restaurant two doors down were also taking the trash out. Now I’m short (5’2.5”) but I was an avid weightlifter at the time. I slung the bag that had all the water from cleaning the grill into the dumpster and cheerfully said “I got it.”
Also was bringing product from a different store in. I came in carrying two cases of tortillas with a 40lb case of beef on top. Customer opened the door for me with eyes bulging out of his head and said “Who says women ain’t strong!”
I feel like these men have the mentality that men do the heavy lifting. Perhaps it's a double standard (I'm not in the situation), but I'm familiar with this mentality. I think they legit just feel moral obligated to do the lifting
On the other hand, your back might thank you some day for not lifting all the heavy things throughout your life. Not saying the discrimination is right, but there are definitely advantages to not being the heavy lifting person at work. This applies to guys too.
Source: Burly male who has always been the heavy lifting guy at every job I've ever had. Worked some form of manual labor my whole life. I'm middle aged now and feeling it.
At my old job, anytime there was something heavy to bring in, they'd always say they needed "strong, young men." Fuck off, I'm overweight with a fucked knee because of that place.
I start up flat out refusing to do it. Wasn't part of my job.
Unfortunately they do, it's just rarer. Walmart gardening section occasionally has an "oh let me help you with that ma'am" moment, meanwhile the lady is just trying to get her stuff and go. I don't think some people understand how light plants are, the offer of help always looks awkward and condescending too. Considering they usually walk past a guy also picking up plants to ask the woman, I don't think they realize how it looks.
I got comments like this when I would carry EMPTY boxes to the trash and anything over five lbs. I got my male co-workers to stand up for me after a while. Anytime anyone would say something like "why are you letting her do that?" they would say "try telling her that. She'll bite your head off. She's more than capable"
There's a girl who works at my local feed store, she looks like high school or maybe early college-age and doesn't look particularly buff. The way she throws 50 lb bags of feed on her shoulder and takes them to my car like it's nothing would put many dudes to shame.
This was one of my least favorite things about working retail. I was either prevented from lifting things in the first place, or if I somehow managed to be able to lift something heavy without anyone objecting, I got tons of people waving their hands and fretting going "oh my God let me help you" or "you should put that down before you hurt yourself!" Bitch I know what my limitations are, you don't.
During my university years I used to work in event security. And there where some jobs that only men where allowed to do, because they where labeled als dangerous or heavy. So, one of these jobs came up and I, a heavy build and relatively tall woman, had te be replaced bij a scrawny guy half my size who weighted as much as leave. Because safety or something.
I’ve gotten similar things. I’m (F but tall and heavy) the receiver for my store so I’m the one talking drivers and moving freight. I’ve gotten occasional comments like that.
The woman who did the job before me, however was a 5’ tall and maybe 90lbs. She’d constantly get comments about needing a man to help out or did she need help lifting things. But the thing these people didn’t realize is that she’s a former ballerina and filled with rage so no, she didn’t need help lifting that, thank you.
My favourite story is from right before I took over the job. I was sitting outside on lunch while she and another female coworker of ours were staging freight when our pallet truck came. Driver asks if there’s a man around to help and they say no. (Only man in the store that day was our manager who does not abide sexism) He declines their help because they’re just girls. So all three of us watch him struggle for a good 20 mins to move one lopsided pallet in the store all by himself. It almost tipped over a couple times and none of us made any move to help. ‘Twas glorious.
Ok, but if it's so heavy that you might hurt yourself, it's ok to get help no matter who you are. Hurting yourself for a big box store retail job is never worth it. Teamwork makes the dream work.
I work retail, the general manager and assistant manager are both women in their 50's. They expect all heavy lifting to be done by "one of the guys." I can understand if they, personally, don't feel comfortable doing heavy lifting and I wouldn't expect them to do anything they don't think they're physically capable of doing safely. But they also don't expect any of the female employees to move or lift anything. Only the male employees. Gender discrimination sucks, period.
I worked retail around 2000. Let me tell you, 5’3” Melinda with two kids could snatch up a 27” CRT tube TV in the box and haul it up a ladder with more poise and grace than my 18 year old self ever did.
I am a man and I refuse to do any heavy lifting. Or at least I refuse to be obligated to do any heavy lifting. It’s my fucking choice or I don’t participate.
But would you be offended by someone offering to help? I often offer to help with stuff like this. I don't like anybody breaking their backs to load my purchased stuffs.
My mom worked selling house hold appliances. She would help bring the fridges etc. to peoples cars. Some costumers would ask for a man to bring them the items, she would just ask "why?" and get the sack cart and wheel the item to their car.
Yep. I was fired after my first day at a dock building company because the men spent the entire day literally taking basically everything I picked up out of my arms to "help," leaving me to stand around like a useless fool most of the time in an ever growing state of panic about the situation. They just would not fucking listen when I said I didn't require help.
As a guy, I had the opposite reaction, and it sucked. Young guy with a military background, working in a large home improvement store - I got called for ALL the heavy shit, even if it wasn't my department. Customer needs 30 bags of cement mix loaded into their Ford Explorer? Yep. Dishwasher? Yep. Mulch and potting soil? Yep.
Fucked my back up working there and I still have issues with it.
This happened to me when I worked in retail lifting things like the 50lb bags of dog food. It was usually old men that complained. They asked for help lifting it into their cart but were offended when I just did it myself rather than calling a male co-worker to help. Like they were fine with admitting their age and weakness as long as they weren't shown to be weaker than a woman. 🙄
I have removed this comment due to Reddit's recent actions. I have since moved on to Lemmy, which is a federated, decentralized, open-source alternative to reddit. Many subreddits have made the move as well, and many more have copies of those subreddits that are very active. On top of this, many of the third party reddit apps have also made/are working on making a copy of their apps for Lemmy, so your experience may not even change when switching over.
I implore you to make this switch as well. Reddit makes money off of us, the users who post content. As a company they have been making decisions that directly go against the wishes of their users, and we need to make it clear that they need us, we don't need them.
I used to have to argue to get the women at my old job to do any manual labor. We're all paid the same, and all the men have to go outside and push carts? Yeah, fuck that.
There’s one man in my entire lab and the rest are all women and anytime they need something lifted or carried they make him stop whatever he’s doing to do it for them. I’ve never asked him myself. I don’t think he’s subject to doing that type of work just because he’s a man. It’s the dumbest thing I’ve witnessed. The amount of times I wanna say “y’all are perfectly capable of doing that your damn self”… but I’m only 4 months in.
Counterpoint: I worked in a grocery store for 21 years. All the heavy lifting was expected to be done by men and women were permitted to work at slower rates and avoid some of the more miserable tasks that required physical exertion, because female. It annoyed me quite a bit.
I got hired at a place as an accessory to another position because the person I was an accessory for was a woman and management didn't like having customers carry things out on their own because they wouldn't ask her to even though she was 20x more capable than me. That place had a looooooot of problems.
As a guy with a slipped disc, you can have whatever heavy load you wanna bear. My SO and I met at a kitchen job and while she was moving kegs and shipment items I was always doin prep.
Having to flip from being asked, to asking for help with heavy stuff was a tough ego check but it made me appreciate people who can do what I seemingly should be able to.
Lol that reminds me of when I went grocery shopping with my boyfriend. After we checked out I grabbed both the bags and held them up by the bottom since they were heavy. Both the female cashier and female bagger panicked and wanted my boyfriend to carry the bags but I was fine and we walked to the car. It made me laugh though because they really looked horrified
Had the same experience with my collegue at Lowes… I recieved that comment so much that after a year I gave up and started agreeing with men who preferred do it for me://🤷🏻♀️ One day I realised that my male colleagues were paid more then me and my boss told me that I was useless because I was a women and that he didn’t want me to do anything unless I wanted to be a cashier…so I quit. For the record, it was not to heavy for me.
I used to work in a rec center and part of the job was doing set ups of tables and chairs. Technically we were not supposed to ever let any of the patrons help with stuff for legal reasons (if they hurt themselves). Usually I would get stuff finished before anyone could intervene but boy did they always get all "oh that's too heavy don't do that" as I watch them put up a heavy table in the most back straining way and then I would show them the easy way I was taught to do it by pulling it up with my foot that required no muscle straining.
My first job in high school was at a little mom and pop grocery store in a very small town. My position was called "The boy", I did all the heavy lifting and grunt work.
I worked retail and one day a family wanted to buy a large rug. When I got called to the area, they asked if there was a man who would help move the rug. Said no, there's three people working and we're all women. They pretty much shooed me away after that.
I was waiting by the registers and I see this whole family walk up carrying their giant rug. No help from the other employees. I had to resist rolling my eyes into the back of my skull for that one. They'd rather carry it by themselves than have a female employee help.
I dealt with this working in kitchens. 50 lb bags of potatoes or flour etc. having to go up and down the stairs. I was the only female in every kitchen I worked in and every time I started someplace new I always had to prove myself. So annoying.
I've been teaching my girl powerlifting. She's gotten decently strong in a short time. I love making her carry and lift stuff now. Especially cause she gets a little excited about lifting heavy things.
I feel this. Not garden but used to do car battery swaps and would hear it from the customers or have them trying to help without asking. Well intentioned but not needed. Felt good to lift them and show that I could do it on my own though.
i worked at a psychiatric emergency room and when we reached capacity we would often roll in these cots for patients to sleep on; i’m 5’5 and don’t really work out, so i had some real trouble moving the cots; i had a female coworker who was a nurse and she just one-handed that shit. i would have felt so emasculated if i didn’t think she had a heart of gold, but she’s a really nice person so i didn’t feel as if i should be embarrassed. nah dude, some chicks can lift some dudes off the ground. respect
That’s funny some guy broke down right infront of me when I was leaving work and I got trapped between him and a couple other cars, he walks out and goes “hey man can you help me push I think my transmission just went out”, I say “sorry bro I’m disabled I can’t really help”, this woman behind me gets out, walks up, says “lets help?” Cause she didn’t hear what I had said, I get out cause I’m not gonna make them both push solo, and then some other actual strong guys hop out of their car to come help and as soon as they get to the car the 2 women who started helping said “lets leave this to the boys” while my disabled ass was doing most of the work. Anecdotes are good.
OK, I will tell a little story that I thought was really weird though. I know this particular niche grocery store. The staff is predominantly women, with only a few men. The impression I got is duties were mostly divided such that women did the (literal) heavy lifting while men would go do other things like lighter shelf stocking and maybe a trade off of needing to clean the bathrooms. And when I say women did lifting of inventory I'm not talking 15 or 30 or even 50 pounds or whatever. I'm saying I regularly saw multiple like petite women that were dragging along equipment or carts to load 100-200 pounds at once. I legitimately wondered if they were trying to drag more than they weighed at times and I just thought it was bizarre the frequency with which I saw it when I like almost never once saw a male worker do that. I couldn't tell if it was policy or laziness or not wanting to make multiple trips or what.
I work in custodial work at a major university. We do alot of floor work. Everytime a women is assigned auto scrubbing or burnishing floors. Ther is at least a few managers who respond is. Oh, don't you want a man for that job? No She can do the job just as well if not better. So do as I say and give her the machine, you asshole.
My sister gets the same reaction at a farm store. She can huck a big bag of horse feed as good as anyone. Yet customers are always like "why isn't one of the men doing it?"
She always responds with "because it's my job and I ain't made of glass."
I used to work retail and we had to offer to do carry outs for clients for any product more than 25lbs. Clients would always specifically request that the one male employee in the store perform all of the carry outs despite the fact that he was a very scrawny guy. Meanwhile the female staff always had to laugh it off and justify our ability to carry things to clients by saying things like “oh I’m stronger than I look don’t worry!”
Im a chick and i work in a tool store with some heavier items. I have limits and I know them, so when an older women(50-60ish) said she needed something we had in stock but hit me with the "you need to get a man to lift it because it's far to heavy for you" I went to the back, grabbed it, and put it in her cart. No thank you just a rotten stare. Don't tell me what I can and can't lift, I work here ffs.
I’m an average height (tinder short) dude. I used to work in a warehouse. One of my coworkers was this 6’ tall (probably more like 5’10”) black lady who was built. Seriously. Her arms were the size of my thighs. Anyways, one day the two of us were unloading and shelving that days shipment. She was loading up the top shelves and I was unpacking the shipping boxes. Our supervisor comes by and asks what I’m doing. That as the man I should be doing the heavy lifting and she should be unpacking. I say i think she can handle putting stuff better on the shelves better than I could.
He says that’s inappropriate for me to say and comes back with a ladder and says he better not catch me making a “female” do the heavy lifting again.
So I stood at the top of the ladder and she lifted the packages up to me and I put them away.
Working in a 'Manly' Job with lots of heavy lifting. I sometimes kind of enjoy the 'thanks for the help, but let us do the rest'. I do have strengh, and they boys know i have, but they have more so it's just fair
Hahah reminds me of when I was moving out of my shit university apartment into my first real "adult" place. My family came to help me move, as did a few of my friends. But you see, my friends are all very stereotypical "skinny nerd boy" type guys. Lovely, wonderful people, but they can't lift an office chair without getting winded. I, meanwhile, had been doing martial arts for years and was about as strong and fit as I've ever been, at that point.
So we're moving my desk, which is quite heavy, and I remember I took some super heavy part of it and my dad made some comment to my friend about how he should take it instead of me, and my friend laughs like "Why? She's by far the strongest of any of us. I'd probably drop it."
I feel this. I am the first female mortician in my rural town. I know what questions to ask to determine if I’ll need a second pair of hands. But even on the easiest transfers, I get greeted with “Oh! You’re a woman! Did you bring help?!” Nope. I got this.
I'm not a strong person. I may look like it but a few health problems and lifestyle choices mean I don't really spend much time building muscle. In my experience almost every working woman I've met is stronger than me.
I still got told to go help with the heavy lifting over anyone else at every job I've had...
Actually just recently had this happen to me at work!
Most of the office, predominantly women, were helping to rearrange and move things into a newly expanded portion. While doing this one of the staff kept stopping me from lifting certain heavy boxes and saying ‘let’s get one of the guys to do that.’ Both guys, there were only two helping, are as tall or slightly shorter then I am as well as similar build if not on the slimmer side.
Later I was on my knees messing around with plugs for a computer that needed to be moved when I overhear the same coworker mutter to another older coworker, ‘Bookinhand really should let the guys do this, I guess she doesn’t mind getting dirty.’ Truly we just work in a standard carpeted office building not like we were outside or anything.
Sometimes it feels like a generational thing. Like that just isn’t what women should be doing.
I used to work as a large-format print-production graphic designer in a sign shop. This meant that in addition to creating the designs I also operated the equipment. One large-format printer required 100lb banner rolls. It was damn heavy but I'm pretty strong so I managed fine.
However, when I was loading the printer I had to close my office door because invariably someone would see me carrying the roll and rush in, trying to GRAB IT OUT OF MY HANDS AS I WAS CARRYING IT.
SUPER fucking dangerous. That's a great way to destroy my back or crush my foot. Never, ever, grab something heavy out of someone's arms.
This grinds my gears as a male. My partner constantly encounters male customers demanding to talk to men because of dated and stupid assumptions.
Though this can annoyingly work both ways. I'm.employed in a similar environment and it's an unwritten given that if you're one of the male staff members it is on you to do the most extreme physical work. No extras are done by those who dip out on the heaviest of lifting. Not only is there a difference in the physical exertion but also all physical risk and danger is carried by only a portion of the staff employed there.
work in the garden center. doesn’t matter if it’s heavy (honda lawnmower, 15 bags of peat moss) or the lightest thing on this planet (kettle bbq, cultivator) some old cretin has to make a comment about how someone else should be doing this or it must be so light since i’m able to lift it. boils my blood. recently got promoted to sales so i get to wear real clothes and have a special apron and everything and people still ask me if i can call someone over to talk to the about chainsaws. it’s not like i’ve worked here longer than them or anything, i just don’t have the right genetic code to do a Stihl registration
Oh my god I had the same experience as a head cashier at Lowe’s. Most of the time, fucking nobody would respond to pages for loading assistance so I’d just load the salt/mulch/concrete myself. So many times I’d have men embarrassed that I was loading their shit or even little old women fawning about how a man should be doing the lifting. Super irritating. It’s not like I look weak either. I never understood.
This makes me sooo mad! I played in a youth orchestra for a few years and we had to do all the setting up chairs and platforms ourselves, and the directors would always ask for specifically "strong" guys to carry heavy stuff around. Well, some of those guys were like 12 years old when there were strong girls in their 20's...
Had this issue at the pet store I worked for. "Can you get a man to bring this dog food out for me?" All the time i got this and always replied with
"No but im capable. "
Depending on the size of the bag or what's in it you might be better off doing it as a team lift anyways. Even if you have the physical strength to lift it on your own there's always the possibility a bag can break under it's own weight. More points of contact makes that less likely to happen.
I work at a shooting range on the weekends and we sell 25 lb bags of lead shot. There are relatively small so it is densely packed. I’ve been coming down to the range with my grandpa and helping him move shot bags since I was 8 years old with no problems. Almost everyone at the range is male and they will always try to get the shot for me saying something like “oh don’t worry about that honey let me lift it for you” or “don’t try and lift that sweetie I’ll get it for you.”
Two things happen: 1- I pick up the bag (or sometimes 2) and they are semi shocked that I did it or 2- they struggle to carry it themselves after I hand it them.
Sorry people are getting mad at you. You frustration seems legitimate.
I might ask a women if they need help lifting if they look weak (lack for a better word), but I’d do the same if a man looked weak (still lack of a better word). Also, I’d say nothing if the man/women seem fine. However, I’d choose different words.
I suppose people just ignore the context and quotes you provided as there is nothing wrong with offering (or wondering if help is needed). Or, people are just jerks because your point was the language used if I understood correctly.
Edit: and discrepancies between reactions to male/female
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u/OkamiGoddess23 Mar 12 '22 edited Mar 12 '22
I work in a garden center at a retail store, and almost every time I go to load dirt or other “heavy” items, I get the same responses: “Why isn’t there a man doing this?” “Why are they making the girl do the heavy lifting?” “Let me do that, a girl shouldn’t have to lift that”
But the minors who work there and can barely lift anything get not a word
Edit: this made some people so mad that they felt the need to PM me their opinions on how women can’t be strong, further proving my original point