Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Aery, I have to agree with what you're saying about not thinking about the job later.
I really enjoyed all my manual labor type jobs because eventually (and very quickly in), you can turn off a lot of your brain and it becomes very zen in a way. I mean, you have to be aware of your surroundings and dangers, but overall, it's not the same level of stress or point-counterpoint as there is in other endeavors I have had.
There's something to be said about not being mentally taxed all day at your job.
And I am the kind of person who has always enjoyed working with my hands and moving my body all day. Physical exertion feels very good.
Very good point, Stan4 .. yes, the 'zen' element when doing repetitive physical work was definitely was a bonus for me too. I wrote a lot of poetry in my head and figured out how I would deal with all the rest of life's problems back in those days, when I wasn't deliberately enjoying the relaxing 'blankness' I could let my brain sink into.
Seems as if for the vast majority of women they never have had to work any physically demanding jobs. But are there any women here that have? I am talking working 90+ degree heat while also having to do something physically demanding?
Yep. Military here. Had lots of outside type projects. For some reason we'd end up in the southwest during the summer and North Dakota in the winter. I prefer the heat to the snow and ice, but you get used to both.
In our career field you were supposed to be able to lift 75 lbs.
90 degrees is nothing compared to 100+ in Kuwait. That is when I decided I was too old for that and retired!
Aery, I have to agree with what you're saying about not thinking about the job later.
I really enjoyed all my manual labor type jobs because eventually (and very quickly in), you can turn off a lot of your brain and it becomes very zen in a way. I mean, you have to be aware of your surroundings and dangers, but overall, it's not the same level of stress or point-counterpoint as there is in other endeavors I have had.
There's something to be said about not being mentally taxed all day at your job.
And I am the kind of person who has always enjoyed working with my hands and moving my body all day. Physical exertion feels very good.
I've always said its better than going to the gym. Get a shovel and just start digging. Very relaxing.
My first couple of years out of college I worked at a paint company. My duties included unloading trucks and carrying 4-gallon cases of paint and 5-gallon cans of paint. The warehouse was not air-conditioned and in summertime we worked in extreme heat and humidity. At age 22-24, I was able to carry two 5-gallon containers of paint at a time. I don't recall how much they weighed, but it was a lot! I did a better job than all but one of the men I worked with. I also moved wood and aluminum step and extension ladders as well as boxes of tools and coatings-related equipment.
.
A 5 gallon can of paint weighs between 40 and 45 lbs., depending on the formulation. You were walking around with over 80 lbs. hanging from your shoulders.
Here's another farm/ranch woman. Fencing, haying, roofing, plumbing, ditch/flood irrigating, shoeing horses... what do you need done?
And I can see my 60th birthday from where I'm sitting.
Oh, my daughters have done all that and you can add welding, landscaping in the SE US, vineyard work...
I know women in my area that teach in the school year and get on fire crews in the summer. Or they run cows in their spare time and put up their own hay. Several in health care have dual careers, too.
My favorite physical job was being a trail guide and riding horses for up to 8 hours a day. I could carry full tack for two horses at a time. You had to. We had to saddle them and unsaddle them.
The worst physical job I had was dismantling an old ware house. We had to crouch and pull nails and boards by the hour. We weren't allowed to sit to do it. It was torture. That job only lasted a month and the owners couldn't pay anyone when the second pay check was due. There was a riot and I remember an RV being ripped to shreds. My ex and I went back under the cover of darkness, which was incredibly dangerous with all the holes in the floors, and we found enough fixtures to salvage to get paid. It was my one and only experience with being a cat burglar, and as thrilling as it was at the time, I would never want to do that again. It was too dangerous on so many levels.
I see female construction workers and landscapers on an occasional basis, it's not as rare as one would think. A friend of mine is a union ironworker that primarily works for NYC construction projects and his crew has several females.
My sister is a volunteer firefighter/paramedic. The fire department in our community has 2 other female firefighters and most of the EMTs and paramedics are female as well. All volunteers except for a few paid staff during the daytime hours when the vollies are at work or school.
My sister rides horses, most of the work at her barn is done by the woman who owns the place. Those bales of hay and such are pretty heavy.
At the gym I go to there are many women who lift weights. It's not 1955 anymore people.
I bailed Straw in 100+ degree weather, The machine would throw out the bails my brother handed them to me and then I stacked them they were maybe 65 pounds but boy after a couple hundred of them your back and hands hurt. I did a lot of manual things feed cows, clean up muck, carry heavy pales of water to the pigs and chickens, fix tractors, cut firewood and stack it. My hands are pretty rough, I hit them a few times with a hammer fixing fence, lifting those huge fence poles got me a bunch of nice ol' splinters. I know lots of girls who did manual labor jobs on the farm just like me, but it was expected of them no matter how hot or cold I- we, were required to do it and not complain. In high school I got a job and part of it was moving huge 100 to 200 pounds of feed for my elderly costumers. By the end of high school I was the strongest girl and could squat 350lbs.
I hate to correct any posters misuse of a word, but this retired farmer notices when someone wrongly uses "bails" instead of "bales"
Location: Stuck on the East Coast, hoping to head West
4,641 posts, read 11,952,998 times
Reputation: 9887
I've done alot of physical labor, but probably the hardest (at least for me), was the summer I spent working at a crab house in the midAtlantic region. I worked in the steam room cooking MD blues. Carrying bushel baskets, sorting the crabs, loading up the enormous crab pots, cleaning them, ugghhh. The sweat would just our off of you. I wore jeans and a long sleeve shirt to protect myself b/c it was so hot that it's not like it mattered what I wore. This was the height of the season so 6 days, 12 hour days were the norm. I smelled of unique mixture of sweat, crabs, and JO Spice (fun fact: that's the spice we use in MD, no Old Bay).
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
