I quit my job after experiencing daily sexism

There is no question that we live in a man’s world. Across the board, women are not treated with the same respect granted to men, especially when it comes to the workplace. Women continually face gender-based discrimination in the form of jokes, harassment, and unequal pay.

A close friend of mine, Rachel, recently quit her job due to an overwhelming sexism in the workplace. She worked a warehouse in East Massachusetts. Unfortunately, Rachel is not unfamiliar with blatant sexism but her experiences in the warehouse went far beyond anything she had every experienced before.

She has chosen to share her story as a way of speaking out again these acts and limiting the tolerance for them in any and all workplaces.

What were the details of your job? What tasks were you required to perform on a daily basis?

My title was Merchandise Processor. Essentially, I received samples ordered by buyers to preview the item before they decide to purchase it for the stores. This involved unloading trucks, delivering samples to their sections, and unpacking them. The samples I was handling could be anything from a shot glass to a sectional so physical labor was a large part of my day-to-day responsibilities.

How did your coworkers react to you entering this male dominated space?

At first, I felt welcome. The team was small, with only two other people on it (both men) plus the team leader (a man). I am more than capable of performing the physical aspects of the job, and those that I worked closely with on a daily basis realized that as I was quick to prove myself. The funny thing is, the corporation I worked for has won awards for being one of the best workplaces for women in the country.

Women at this company are treated with the utmost respect – upstairs. Downstairs, in the warehouse, men drive the trucks that deliver our packages. Men from outside contractors take away the processed samples. It was always men that I did not work with every day that were shocked and offended by my presence in their field of work.

Did you every feel that your gender had any impact on your job performance?

Absolutely not. I am physically capable of doing all aspects of the job. I often did the work of the entire team when there were excessive call-outs.

In what ways was the environment your warehouse made to be inhospitable to you, as a woman?

It was not my coworkers under the same company, but men outside the company that I interacted with on a daily or weekly basis who made the environment in hospitable. For example, I dreaded the first delivery of the day. A truck driver named Craig* patronized and insulted me on a daily basis. In the first week, he outright refused to hand me packages weighing more than 10 pounds.

When I tried to receive a slightly heavier package, he told me, “wait about six months for your body to get used to handling this much weight. Let the guys take care of it.” He wanted me to wait six months to do my job! My job which had the same title, hours, pay, and responsibilities as the men next to me. I told him I was hired to do this job now, not in half a year. Let me decide for myself how much I can lift. Every day for the three months I worked this job, I heard Craig say “Careful, Rachel! That’s a heavy one!” as he handed me any package weighing about as much as a half-full laundry basket.

I actually hated the patronizing more than the sexual harassment, but there was plenty of that too. It was hard for me to get out of bed Tuesday mornings, not knowing what fresh hell charity day would bring me. Once a week, men are hired from outside contractors to pack up and take away the samples the buyers have already viewed to be sold by local charities. These men would stare, wink, and pester me throughout their work day, asking me what I was doing there and if I had a boyfriend.

Did anyone ever explicitly tell you that this was a “man’s job”? 

Hell yes! In the first couple of weeks, my team was doing a big move. The headquarters of this company consist of two large buildings connected by a glass encased bridge. We were loading furniture and transporting it from one building to another. I was following my coworker with a large couch on a flatbed cart through the office building when a security guard opens the door for us.

My coworker pushes his cart through, ad when I advance with my cart, the security guard stepped in front of me and took it from me. I said “Thank you, I have this,” but he insisted on doing my job for me. It was condescending and absurd, as he was at least 60 years old and far less physically capable than me. Later that day, I was back in my warehouse assembling a piece of furniture on the dock when that same security guard walked in to cover the regular guard’s break. He saw me, hands and knees on the concrete floor ducked under a chair leg with my screwdriver and asked me what I was doing there (I got that question a lot).

I said I work here. He said, “why was I doing your job for you before?” I said “I didn’t ask you to!”. And then he actually said, in the year 2016, “you know this is a man’s job, right?”

What finally drove you to quit?

Blue collar work was a temporary gig for me. It was easy and I was paid well. I wanted to pursue other opportunities. I was going on job interviews while I worked full time at the warehouse, but I wasn’t planning on quitting without having secured a new position until the team hired a new addition. I figured I would help train the new guy before I quit so I’m not leaving the team hanging when I leave.

It was a nice thought, except the new man could not accept that he had been hired to do the same job a woman was capable of doing. As I tried to train him, he would ignore or second-guess every instruction I gave. This man had no prior warehouse experience, and he had been on the job one day before he started giving me suggestions and instruction. He would insist on taking work from me- refusing team lifts, taking packages from my hands. I was silently enraged until one incident- the 500 lb bar.

The rest of the team was on a planned division team building meeting in the other building so it was just me and the new guy… all. damn. day. We had assembled an enormous home bar ordered by one of the more ambitious buyers. To assemble the legs, we had tipped the bar on its side. To assemble the rest, we had to pick it back up. That means a team lift. I told him to get on one side. I said, “Ready?” before we lifted the five hundred pounds of solid wood and marble back upright.

Later, when our coworkers returned, we gathered around the bar. My coworker asked, “how much did this thing weigh?” We told him. He said “Damn, did you guys lift it?”. The new guy said under his breath, “Yeah, we’ll let her think she helped, right?” I decided in that moment that I could not work there anymore. All day every day I was doubted, patronized, or harassed. I quit that day. It was not worth just not worth the paycheck.

What advice would you give to someone who is facing this kind of gender-based discrimination in the work place?

Don’t let anyone take your work from you.

*names have been changed