I used to work at a bakery. All the bakers were male. I had difficult tasks assigned to me such as icing danishes and slicing bagels. I also waited on the customers and had to tie up the boxes with string, which I failed at miserably. An older lady there always gave me the eye because I couldn’t break the string with my bare hands and had to use scissors. They let me go after Easter. I am sure it was due to my string short-comings.

As for male cashiers: in my experience they are always faster. I always pick them if possible; feminine products in the carriage and all. They’re usually not chatty and just want to get the business over with.

Erin

To make this about libraries, I did have one male (Middle Eastern) patron who wouldn’t tell me what he wanted BECAUSE I’m female. I don’t think my (male) boss was on the desk at the time so this guy didn’t have any choice but to ask me. If I remember right it was something innocuous, like the cookbooks, but he wouldn’t be any more specific than that (and we had a whole aisle of cookbooks or whatever it was – I could have gotten him to a more particular shelf). I hope this guy got over his reluctance to deal with women, because in America he’s going to have to interact with us quite often.

Recently driving a friend home from dinner, she asked if I minded stopping at the grocery store on the way to save her a trip in the morning. I said I didn’t mind at all as I needed a few things myself.

We both had less than 20 items or so, and when finished, I got in what looked to be the fastest checkout line. My friend, also female, rather than getting in right behind me, scanned the open aisles and chose one in the middle with a longer line. I was perplexed, but didn’t say anything.

The gentleman checked me out quickly and I waited for my friend to get through her line hoping my frozen veggies would stay frozen. When she finally checked out and we walked to the car, I asked her why she didn’t just get in line with me. Her response?

“Your line had a guy at the checkout. There was only one with a woman.”

She must have noticed my puzzled look, because she said, “Don’t you feel like the guys are always, like, paying attention to what you buy and judging you on it?” I should point out that she was not buying feminine products but a fair amount of junk food. My very svelte friend ended by saying, “I didn’t want him to think I was a fatty.”

So, you see, the female mind works in complex and myserious (and occasionally delirious) ways my friend.

We get borrowers who stand at the only part of the desk where no library assistants are, who jump the cue by collaring you as you are walking away from the desk in the middle of helping someone else and who stand at the counter staring into the middle space until you say, “Hello,” first.

Ah, people are funny!

I definitely get skipped over sometimes because I am young, despite the fact that I am a LOT better at reference than half of my coworkers.

Sometimes they get it very, very wrong – like asking the oldest person on staff about a hip hop artist with a difficult to spell name. Or asking me about government documents (which I’ve been asked for about five times in four years, so I don’t really know very much about them).

Unfortunately, all the patrons have figured out I’m the only staff member who is good at computers, so all the tech questions come to me. Joy.