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onemistakebigpancake
Jan 28, 2003, 12:02 AM
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the lunchroom was packed and the watercooler was empty... the men "did not notice" (or rather were too lazy) to get a new one on. So I picked one up and popped it in (18.9L~40lbs). The panick I heard from the women were... "you're going to hurt yourself" or "the guys should do it" or "I can't believe you just picked it up"...
Anyway, I think climbing has made me stronger, and more active. Question: Is changing the water that difficult???
Has anyone else got other similar reaction from using your strength?
editted for grammar.
[ This Message was edited by: onemistakebigpancake on 2003-01-27 16:10 ]
[ This Message was edited by: onemistakebigpancake on 2003-01-27 16:11 ]
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leahmeryl
Jan 28, 2003, 12:19 AM
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Not only has climbing made me stronger, but it's made me much more confident in my strength. Using my newly developed vice-like grip, I can open jars that guys can't!
My dad once told me that the only think a woman can't do that a man can is to change a tire. I proved him wrong (and did it in a mini skirt with 3 1/2 inch heels on the side of the NJ Turnpike in the pitch black of night). But then again there are things that I think a guy should do (like deal with spiders and taking out the garbage).
Boys and girls see my muscular arms and just have to comment. Usually the guys who are in shape love them, but the ones who aren't get intimidated. So sad, too bad.
[ This Message was edited by: leahmeryl on 2003-01-27 16:20 ]
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katydid
Jan 28, 2003, 12:40 AM
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Just got it today, moving a LADDER, of all things! (They should have stayed to see all the crazy things I do standing on the "do not stand on this step" step. )
I often impress the guys bringing my shipments in by helping them unload 50 or 60 20-40-pound boxes in a row, then rearranging them into my store's back room before I actually receive what's in said boxes. (I do merchandising.) And the guys at the pet store always gape when I carry two 40-pound bags of cat litter out to the car all by my little lonesome, sans shopping cart.
Personally, I think it's funny to watch the reactions from the guys, but ESPECIALLY the reactions from other women. They always seem to be more surprised than the men.
Unfortunately, my husband also knows I can do all this sort of stuff, which makes it hard to get out of carrying the big ol' amp when we're hauling music gear around.
k.
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missedyno
Jan 28, 2003, 2:00 AM
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yeah where i work sometimes i'm required to move around desktop PC's and other hardware.
funny, now i can carry a pc in one arm, and i still get the cordial "hey do you need help with that" offers every so often. i don't mind, it's a nice gesture, but i can do it myself, thanks.
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amsam
Jan 28, 2003, 4:02 AM
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Hey, Katy, I get the same thing with the ladder at work. I'm pretty little, 5'2" and the ladder is this huge old wodden thing that's 12' tall, and weighs over 50lbs. It's incredibly huge and bulky, and usually requires 2 people to carry. I always just pick it up by my self and carry it around the store to wherever I have to set it up. My manager always yells at me and says, "let one of the boys do that, it's too much for a little girl to do all by herself"
Of course, I'm the only one willing to get up on the ladder, it's so old and rickety and sways back and forth, none of the guys will even take one step up on it, they're all afraid of heights, so I'm the one who has to hang everything from the ceiling.
I also carry the boxes around without a cart and am the only one who can carry 5 (or more sometimes) cases of Coke without a cart, I thought most normal people could do that, but I guess I was wrong.
It's hilarious when I'm doing things like that, even customers offer to help me carry things, and say they didn't think it was possible for a girl my size to be able to carry that much stuff. Silly people
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enigma
Jan 28, 2003, 7:39 AM
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nice job ladies,please continue.
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nikegirl
Jan 28, 2003, 3:43 PM
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Funny to see this this week.
I always tend to change the water at the cooler, at work.But, about a year ago? no way.
Then there is the ladder you speak of.
I have a light metal one...
and two old wood ones. This weekend I had all three up on my garage rooftop. I loved the balance of this holding them, and carrying them...to the roof-line.
As well as my son, climbing a ladder that high...if he and I hadn't been climbing, together...he'd NEVER of gotten on that so freely. He's a bit of a chicken that way.
I always get teased about my bags in and outta work. Climbing bag...workout.
Computer bag, as well as paperwork hell.
all on both shoulders, and in each hand...I've got something.
Sherpa, I'm given a name. How apropriate.
~T
good strength.
happy happy happy.
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moey
Jan 28, 2003, 4:00 PM
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I was training my new staff at a juice bar and this one guy kept getting mad when I did heavy work on my own (moving 40lb bags of flour and sugar, big vats of water and carrots, taking out the garbage etc.)
I actually had to sit him down and tell him he was wasting his energy because this bar had been run by "wee" women for years and if we waited around for one guy to do all the lifting we'd never get anything done!
I also think a lot of women are trained to underestimate their strength - around my family I always get "wait for your father to do that, it's too heavy" when it comes to changing the water cooler (it's everywhere!) or anything else requiring strength. Ironically enough, I do these tasks with less effort and groaning than he does!
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leahmeryl
Jan 28, 2003, 6:05 PM
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OK, so now we know how good it feels to be able to do certain things that people don't expect us to be able to do. I think I'm going to start polling my non-climbing girlfriends to find out how they feel when they NEED help because they just aren't strong enough!
Back in the day, before I started working out and climbing, I would study in a library that had REALLY heavy revolving doors at the entrance. The doors were so heavy that I would get stuck in them sometimes and have to wait for someone else to help me push. It seemed funny at the time, but it was pretty embarrassing!
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rockwomyn
Jan 28, 2003, 9:34 PM
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Ya see i had this dishwasher that was broken and sitting on my front porch for months...mind you it was making me feel like the beverly hill-billies and i had asked my boyfriend to help me take it somewhere to put it in a dumpster...well you know it keep getting pushed to the side...ya i'll do it, next week...yada, yada....well finally one day i hauled that fricking thing out of my house and loaded it in my truck and got rid of it myself, mind you it took me like 5 tries to lift that bastard into the back of my truck (yes i bent my knees and lifted with the legs). i had to chuckle when it was all done cause i did it all while my man was in the shower....so when he got done i was like, "well i finally got rid of that old dishwasher." when he realized that i wrestled that thing on my own his expression was priceless......i just said, Guess i really don't need you. Now he makes me lift the heavy stuff (flex, flex).
[ This Message was edited by: rockwomyn on 2003-01-28 13:36 ]
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missedyno
Jan 28, 2003, 11:47 PM
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i LOVE being strong.
other than playing on the campus board at the gym (and climbing of course) i like to create these little challenges for myself. mind you i aggravated my tennis elbow with the "let's see how many bags of groceries i can carry at once"
my guy is used to me wanting to lug my own stuff around. i think they're used to me at work too.
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estherator
Jan 29, 2003, 12:18 AM
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My favorite was my old boss calling me and asking what men I had working-because someone needed to climb the ladder to identify the bulb needed for a gyro (disco) light. I was like "you're kidding me, right?"
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whitenight
Jan 29, 2003, 9:32 PM
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I have always been fairly strong, you don't really have a choice when you grow up on a farm and have to haul hay bales and bags of grain around. I used to work at a hardware store and in the winter we would sell various size bags of rock salt. Women would always want help carrying it out. I usually would ask male or female if they needed help with large qualities (you never know when someone may have an injury or just be lazy). One day I guy about three inches taller than me said that he needed help with a 100lb bag, so I picked it up, threw it on my shoulder and started toward the door. The poor man was so embarrassed, that he begged me to let him do it all the way to the car. At my last retail job, guys would always yell at me when I would climb the stock shelves and drop stuff down.
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onemistakebigpancake
Jan 29, 2003, 10:05 PM
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Thanks, there are ALL very well written and have brought back some fond memories of my mother saying stuff like that.
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alpinelynx
Feb 2, 2003, 2:45 AM
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Yep. This happens all of the time.. I look puny, but little do they know, I have strong legs and back and pincer fingers. It shocks me sometimes when ladies are like, "Hey, get a man to lift this box," and I cruise over and do it, to their protest of how heavy it is and how I won't be able to do it.
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indigo_nite
Feb 3, 2003, 3:46 AM
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this is tangential but on the topic of what appears gender appropriate... today I was price-shopping for small trucks and had two salesmen try to gently convince me that I should look at a suv b/c not that many girls drive trucks. it was kind of funny.
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granite_grrl
Feb 5, 2003, 3:17 PM
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Helped my sister move last weekend. She a male friend of hers helping too. Between myself and my two sisters (none of us small girls) he was about to have a heart attack. "are you SURE about taking that box" "are you SURE you don't want my help?". Not used to girls doing any work I guess.
My mother's family is full of surprizingly strong women. Wussing out with heavy work just isn't an option. My uncle had me and his son lift a good part of an engine out of his car a couple of months ago. I could barley manage it, but he didn't think twice that it might be too heavy for me.
Stupid family of ox women. Maybe not all, but some of them are pretty intimadating (ps- my mother comes from a family with 15 kids, you should see the family reunions).
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mwbtle
Feb 5, 2003, 3:37 PM
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I'm not super strong yet, but I've always been able to lift enough to shock guys. I was helping set up drums on stage for someone once, picked up the bass drum which was as big as me, lifted it over my head and handed it to someone on stage. Someone tried to help me with it about halfway there, but I plowed through him so I wouldn't drop the darn thing due to clumsiness.
I also do the carrying of just 1 (I'm no Katydid ) 40 pound bag of dog food. Always amuses the cashier when I just lug it out the door.
Oh, and I always get my luggage from my car in one trip.
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otter
Feb 6, 2003, 12:17 AM
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I used to work in a landscape nursery and it was partly my job to dig out large trees and load them. I was not supposed to allow customers to do so due to liability.
I had to argue with so many men it was nuts! Finally, I would have to just be pretty darn blunt...as in ...I wouldn't have this job if I couldn't do it and please move to the side this is far more difficult with somone in my way!
Same thing loading hay and shearing sheep... all tasks that seem to require brute stregth...tehe...but there are tricks!
I could understand their worries...I mean a 5 foot 4" women doesn't look like she can handle a twenty foot tree and root ball...but I knew the tricks of the trade... and anything is possible with the right tools!
Just gotta make sure you know how to lift in a manner you won't hurt yourself with!
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swohletz
Feb 15, 2003, 8:09 AM
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I used to set up sound equipment and was often not allowed to carry the heavy stuff, even though most of it wasn't that heavy, and if it was it was made to be carried by two people, which I did not argue with. However, I did some work projects where the guys looked for the high profile jobs and left the women to do the grunt work (lifting buckets of cement up to the roof of a building where the guys were pouring cement--who was working harder here huh???? ). I think it goes both ways.
I don't mind guys offering to carry stuff or lighten my load as long as they are okay with a respectable "no" if I'm okay. I have the choice to take their help or "carry on."
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arak42
Feb 15, 2003, 8:43 PM
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I am not that strong (yet) but I can lift heavy stuff well, as long as I lift the right way (my legs are a lot stronger than my arms!) I worked as a "higher up" in a concert sound and lingting company for 4 years. It is amazing how much respect I would finally get from guys when I lifted the speaker boxes and light bars or moved stage pieces by myself. Although it was funny to see their attutudes towards me change, it could be the same person that I just have a 15 minute highly technical conversation with about the latest in lighting board technology. He didn't care that I had a brain, he was only concerned that I could put my body where my mouth was. Sometimes it was kind of irratating actually, even though my title did say "manager" I had to continously prove myself to these guys!
(Lighting and sound is one of the worst fields for sexism, and I can say that after working in construction for 2 years and being a woman scientist!--> In fact, a funny side story is that the very first show I work as a lacky I had a crew guy tell me to "move this little wire over there and put it in that little box. Be sure not to mess up your pretty little hands." in a very consecending voice!!! CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT!! So, defiantly I snatched the coiled up cable from his hands along with the pile of others that were sitting on the ground next to him, and said, "Sure, I'll move these XLR cables into the road case although I would recommend putting the snake in first to prolong the life of your equipment.oh, and don't worry about my hands, I'll be sure to schedule a nail appoitment tomorrow" I Stomped over to the case and throw the cables down, much to this guys surprise.)
uh, boys, when will they ever learn?
K
[ This Message was edited by: arak42 on 2003-02-15 12:45 ]
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bagotricks
Feb 18, 2003, 4:25 AM
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Lots of snow here today, and I commented to my roomate about how odd it is that you mostly only see men outside shoveling the walks, shoveling out cars, etc. She said something to the effect of how it's not always necessary to be such a strident feminist, and there are times when it's better to let men be men. I just thought...what the hell kind of reasoning is that?? Gimme a shovel and get out of my way. (easy to say when the super has a snowblower)
Then I talked to my mom, who unhappily told me that she had to go help my dad shovel because there's no one else to do it. Ummmm, yea, that, and also it's GOOD for you, lady!
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wideguy
Feb 20, 2003, 6:30 PM
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Can't help but laugh. I work in the entertainment lighting field, rock concerts, dance shows that kind of stuff. A large number of the poeple who work as high riggers etc. are women, hanging in harnesses for hours hauling 30-40 15lb. units up on a rope to their hanging position. I guess I didn't realize how uncommon that was in other areas, because in my business you never hear a guy ask a woman if they need help. If they want or need it they know thay have to ask. Seems like such a common sense system. I'd get smacked if I offered unsolicited help. :lol:
And as a laz man, I'm more that happy to let someone else, man or woman, do the heavy lifting. :wink:
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gekko
Mar 12, 2003, 8:08 PM
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I worked in an all female office for about four years. When I started I found it had been taking THREE women to change the water cooler (it was a plastic surgeon's office, there was a great importance on waify supermodel good looks, so daintiness was par for the course). The next time we ran out of water at lunch and I (115 lb and 5'3" - smallest one there) got up and grabbed a new bottle. Two others jumped up to help but didn't have time, I was done. After that they began to bring jars to my office when they had trouble opening them and asking me for help moving office furniture.
My nephew is two years old and a little confused. He calls his uncles "aunt" and his aunts "uncle." One day I went to my brother's home and noticed a box on the doorstep. My sister in law said it was a desk (not assembled) and she was waiting for my brother to come home and bring it in. I was raining so I brought it in for her, she gawked and said "Thank you Uncle Julie" imitating a childlike voice.
My boyfriend loves having a strong woman at his side, and I enjoy being a girl!!
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jumpingrock
Mar 13, 2003, 4:26 PM
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Tee hee all you big strong women (well small strong women) won't be laughing when you need a 6'4" wimpy man to change a light bulb for you. :P
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