"I need a MALE associate for customer carry out"

[Professional Serf]

When I used to order for the plumbing department where I work, there were two highly knowledgeable female associates who would go out of their way to help anyone, but nine times out of ten the customers would outright ignore them and bee-line it to me...both men AND women. I don't know jack about plumbing! I used to love refering them back to one of the women they'd just dismissed, especially the old codgers who absolutely couldn't handle the fact that a woman knew more about plumbing than they did.

[Rocko]

I myself asked the female pets associate to help me move a couple of beds from a pallet jack to the display area. With no other male associates around, I figured the girl who regularly lifts 50 lb bags of dog food could do it.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

Gentlemen do not open doors for or take large burdens from ladies because they think the ladies are unfit. They do it because it's a sign of respect. And ladies receiving such respect should be gracious about it.

I am reminded of something that happened when I was in college, back when rocks were soft and I worked as a file clerk at Blue Cross Blue Shield on second shift. We were supposed to call maintenence when we needed heavy boxes or furniture lifted. Well, there really no maintenence to be found on second shift. Being a sturdy young college kid, and the file clerk, I wore jeans and sneakers and took care of my own heavy lifting (and in my job, there was a bit of it.) Most of my co-workers were middle aged ladies, so I did their lifting as well.

And then some idiot higher up decided we on second shift had to wear business attire. Now, keep in mind we saw no customers at all, ever. So I didn't complain one bit. I wore my nice heels and my hose and my skirts.

First time my supervisor asked me to move something heavy, I just smiled and said, "Oh, I don't do that in heels, and I don't want to mess up my nice clothes. We're supposed to call maintenence anyway for that." I shrugged helplessly and flounced off like a fragile little girl in a pretty dress.

I think I got my point across.

[DesignFox]

I love theater too, I8DaCookie.

I used to be doing all the heavy lifting and set building with the guys. In college, I tried to help my ex's drama club out with their tech stuff (he was always complaining they were short handed, and we had done tech together in high school). Their lead tech guy didn't believe me that first day when I said I could build and had me standing around doing basically nothing. I finally looked at him and said, "You know, I I really DO know what I'm doing...so you gonna make me stand here and waste my time, or you gonna hand me some tools and let me work?" After he saw that I wasn't full of shit- I got a LOT of respect..and needless to say, their set went up a lot faster