My Arms Hurt...

I don't know about you other guys out there, but I've landed a job where it is common practice for the administrators (who almost all happen to be women) to ask the gentlemen of the company--myself included--to handle the majority of the "heavy lifting." By "heavy lifting" I literally mean lifting heavy stuff that needs to go from one place in the library to the other. New furniture, old tables, boxes of who knows what, carts of books, and most recently, 47 big boxes of brand new arm chairs, which consequently had to be un-boxed and hand carried to the basement level of the building. Heavy lifting. And lots of it, too. The joke that is going around is that it's part of my "job description." That little comment always seems to raise laughs with the women here. I don't recall anything about heavy lifting in my job description. In fact, it wasn't even discussed in my interview (not that it would've affected my desire to work here anyway). Like I said, it's common practice, and I guess you could say I am getting used to it.

Now, I'm not necessarily against the exploitation of my genderical (is that even a word?!?) qualities if it means that the nice ladies on the 3rd floor don't have to carry lots of heavy crap. In fact, I'm usually the first to offer my assistance when it comes to things of that nature. It's what I as a child learned to call "chivalry." Also, it pays to be on the boss' good side, and they remember things like this when it comes down to evaluation time. Moreover, I really like my female coworkers. They're great people who genuinely appreciate the "heavy lifting" that we do for them. They even give us guys cookies for helping them. All in all, it's the right thing to do, and I shouldn't complain.

With all that said, however, the fact still remains...My arms hurt.