Women resent compliments about communality at work

One of my first jobs ever as a teen, I was skinny and no muscle anywhere on my body. I could do my job but furniture was next to my department. It was store policy that female employees may not lift anything heavier than 20 lbs. Full time furniture employee was female.

I generally complied, why not. Clearly illegal and sexist policy that was only true for our store but more than happy to help. Mind you... soon as it was over 20lbs... women no longer helped at all. We had to lift whatever it was on our own. Even if I struggled quite significantly and they could have easily helped by grabbing a corner. They wouldn't touch it.

One day I was accused of being a bad team player blah blah. Basically came down to furniture lady not wanting to lift something heavy but I wasn't available to help because I was already helping a customer in my department. She never actually said anything to me. But I was getting written up because I refused to help. I refused something I didn't know about?

I got a page to write my response. I wrote something along the lines of, "store policy that female furniture employees dont have to lift more than 20lbs came into conflict with top policy that we must help customers. I was not asked to help lift the heavy products in this case because I was working with customers. Managers were also unable to help the furniture employee because they too are female and unable to help lift due to store policy. Unbeknownst to me the furniture department customer was poorly treated while quite a few employees stood around waiting for me to help my department's customers. I was overloaded in my department with customers because I was the only person on duty whereas 2 people are normal for the department. If I had helped with furniture I would have violated a different policy in that I cannot abandon my department to no employees. I need further instruction about which of these policies takes priority."

They said they cant file that. They said they could reprint the page, not let me respond and sign the page themselves. I replied with go for it, lets see what happens. As far as I know I never got written up that day.

As a man, I can tell you assertiveness is not rewarded if you're not C level. Shut up, take the check, and help me lay out this red tape is the norm. Doesn't matter that we're not designing for scalability or testability or predictability or basic successful operation. Being a "team player" is seen as more important than customer value.