Those Stupid Teenagers, Being Helpful And Doing Their Jobs!

(I am sixteen, working in a hardware store in a small town. Most of the customers are regulars but we get a lot of tourists in the winter. I am a cashier and part of my job description is helping customers carry things to their cars if they need help. A local buys three bags of fifty-pound ice melt and carries two, while I get the third. As I am coming back into the store, an older man, I’d say about seventy or eighty years old, confronts me.)

Older Man: “You shouldn’t have helped him!”

Me: “It’s my job.”

Older Man: “It’s unladylike to carry heavy objects, and you shouldn’t even work in a hardware store to begin with!”

(My manager comes up to us to see what the problem is.)

Older Man: *complaining to the manager* “She carried a bag of ice melt for another customer and she shouldn’t even work here!”

(My manager — who is my dad — says it is part of my job and that he asked me to work there and that I am good at my job. Another local overhears and defends me, too, saying that I have always offered to help her with anything she needs.)

Older Man: *as he’s leaving* “She should act like a real lady! She’ll never find a husband if she keeps acting like a man.”