Thursday, June 23, 2005

Me and the lads

As it turns out, I am not free. I (luckily?) get to keep this job until Friday.
This job is at a distribution center in the middle of nowhere. As primarily there are truckers, loaders, pickers, etc, I am one of the few girls here.
Incidentally, the workers here are described as such:
Lads (the manual laborers)
Girls (the female office workers)
Guys (the male office workers.
There are probably around 250 people that work here. 90% are lads. 5% girls, and 5% guys.
In any case, twice today a 'lad' has introduced himself to me and mentioned that he's 'heard' of me. And on Tuesday, a 'guy' asked me where I was from and said that he and the lads were talking about me and couldn't decide on my accent (apparently, the consensus was not American). This isn't too surprising, though, as most Irish seem to travel to New York, Boston, and the rest of the Eastern Seaboard quite frequently to visit their kinfolk. Thus, my steadfast insistence on the pronunciation of Rs is probably quite confusing (though I acquired this skill in years of speech therapy to punish me for being taught to speak in New Jersey) to Irish ears polluted by our countrymates in the Northeast.
On one hand, I realize that as probably the only female under the age of 30, I am quite a novelty at work. It is understandable that they wish to converse about me. On the other hand, I am disturbed and slightly intimidated by myself as an object of conversation. Yet, on still another hand, I find myself wanting to wear short skirts and display copious amounts of cleavage, in hopes that someone will give me a candy bar. Perhaps I should do this tomorrow. I feel quite sure Bill would not notice my wardrobe change (even though I am writing about it), and it's not like I'm after anything more than a couple Kit-Kats.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

One of my classes this quarter in on HR Managment. In the US you would already have enough juice to file! The Irish probably think they are being nice though.
~Jess

ruth said...

Oh, man. Let me tell you. Europe is a totally different world of sexual harassment laws. It boggles my mind.
Also, you are allowed to swear in the workplace at will.

Anonymous said...

I think Bill would think you were very pretty if you wore a burka to work from now on. Yes, very pretty indeed.

ruth said...

Well, I am certainly going to have to soon to cover all the bruises he gives me! Although it won't cover the black eye...