[mgkimsal]

Not in an IT dept, but when I was going to school, I worked in a restaurant where I was the only male most of the time. Well, I was a shift manager, and all the shift managers and store manager were females except me (4-5 others). I got the crap shifts, had my schedule changed on a whim by others, and was often given crap tasks - moving/unloading stuff "because you're the man - I can't lift that!" It was funny for about a week, but never got any better. Regional manager gave me no support - he didn't want to be seen as disciplining any of the female staff for fear of some sexism/discrimination lawsuit. Eventually I left, but not soon enough.

[numo16]

Funny you mention this, as I was told by the hiring manager at a wendy's that I worked at that she was hiring me to "do the man work", which meant unloading and putting away truck, working grill,taking out the trash, etc... Never really thought about that until now...

[mgkimsal]

Things never change, do they. :)

IIRC, the issue started because one of the shift managers was pregnant, and couldn't do some things - fair enough - it doesn't last forever, and I'm fine with helping out now and then, but not being taken advantage of. And really, most of this stuff really wasn't heavy - boxes of up to 25 pounds on occasion, but rarely ever more than that, and there was trollies and carts and stuff to move heavy stuff around (and usually delivery drivers would unload stuff to a fridge or freezer for you anyway. Give them a nice cup of coffee and they'd handle some of the shifting in the freezer too :)