Reply #17: In a way, it pertain less to me [View All]

[Nikia]

For example, the women that do other work in the company cannot learn how to operate the machines which pays more until they have spent time learning to palletize heavy bags. This was also true at the previous company that I worked at.
The thing that gets me is that they already make accomodations for me and any other person in the job that are not lifting related. For example, I sometimes need to check product or ingredients that has already been stacked onto the racks or get ingredients or product for a sample that I am making. I am not a fork lift driver so I have to have one of the warehouse people get the product down for me. Sometimes, I need to send out a sample of prototype to a foreign country, which requires special paperwork that is filled in on a typewriter. The company secretary does that for me since she regularly uses the typewriter and knows how to fill out the forms. There is no reason that I could not learn these jobs for myself, but the company insists that these other people do them for me. For some reason though, this does not apply to lifting even though it is a small detour, much less than the forklift driver, for the lifters to put the bag on the scale instead of directly on the pallet. The company has already picked small parts of my job which it has delegated to others who do those tasks as their primary tasks, but not that one.
Your comment about female owned and operated businesses reminded me of one company that I interviewed with. It was at a larger company, but the research and development department seemed to be dominated by women. During the interview, they asked if I could lift 25 pounds. I said that I could. Then they said that if I couldn't lift it off the higher shelves that it was perfectly fine to ask someone else for help. This company is male dominated. It does seem like they might be trying to do some female affirmative action in that the company has gone from approximately 10% female to 20% female in the past year even hiring two women, who had done lifting jobs at other companies, to do jobs that would be considered heavy labor at many other companies. I am the highest ranking, highest payed non owning family member woman there and wondering why this lifting requirement is even part of my job. It is not that I think that I am too good to do it or anything. It is just that it is hard for me and in some cases still impossible and that this might be more true of the average woman than the average man and doesn't really have anything more to do with my job than operating a fork lift or filling out typewritten forms.