Something super weird about my job just occured to me.

I have seen and handled hundreds of bras and panties in the past year and it's highly probable that a few dozen of them have been worn at least once.

I can't wait to find a less gross job.

 

Well, don't do hospitality. You may be cleaning toilets and washing the backwash out of peoples coffee cups.
...I need a job...

 

Or much, much worse says my nurse sis.
I' ve worked with plumbers for a couple weeks, it had its nasty moments. I' ll spare you the details.

 

...Why are bras considered gross? They cover more than some swimsuits.

 

Because they touch the human body and the human body is disgusting.

 

So are a lot of things that people don't like to talk/think about, because of this I tend to just not care about stuff like that. Germs are all around us, trying to tactically "avoid" them like it is the plague is downright silly.

 

Unless the person who tried it on was actively lactating there's nothing to fear from touching a bra. It's just skin. Underwear obviously is a different story but most stores instruct you to try it on over your actual underwear... which of course some won't do, but I've never actually tried on a pair of underwear either.

The clothes you buy have also probably been worn by several other people, and yet most people will wear new clothes out without washing them. I'm a bit too obsessed with hygiene myself but I don't tend to get squicked out by clothing.

 

To add onto what has already been said, we as people tend to filter out what is "gross" in exchange for convienience or peace of mind.

A common example is a girl's (or dude's, idc man) purse/handbag. Studies have been done that say there is more bacteria on a person's purse/handbag than there is on your average toilet. Granted I domt know the validity of these studies, but that is gross as hell yet you see purses/handbags all the time.

 

That' s probably correct. In my experience they put all the stuff they should just throw away in there, so they' re half filled with useless/gross junk. And of course what you' re looking for is usually right in the middle of said garbage. Besides, our hands are our tools, we do everything with them so they' re easily the most germ-infested part of our anatomy. Not that it' s that bad, being exposed to very few germs is just as bad as being exposed to too many, our immune systems need something to grind their teeth on.

What you said about the way we filter the gross stuff for peace of mind reminds me of a short story by Isaac Asimov. I' m not sure what its English title would be. It' s about this dude in space who stumbles upon a bunch of people in a pinch. They won' t deal with their trash themselves, even though it' s putting their lives in jeopardy. He does it for them, but as soon as he' s done they all flee without a thank you : he' s now just as taboo as the trash to them.

 

I actually don't have a problem cleaning restrooms, though a recent experience has left me with a major aversion to even stepping inside of a women's restroom.


Warning: I may have recently listened to the audiobook of a long winded novel with an exceedingly pretentious and unreliable narrator whose narration style may have slightly seeped into my own. If you decide you still want to read my story, it would do you well to know that my internal voice is currently that of Jeremy Irons, so conditioning your internal voice to be the same way might provide the best experience.

I would like you to picture the layout of my work's break room. It is a large cafeteria sized room whose primary seating arrangement consists of long rectangular tables like you might see in a school cafeteria. Entering from the main entrance, facing eastward, you are greeted by some lounging chairs and coffee tables that graced the building's lobby until about a year ago. An eighth of the way in are the aforementioned rectangular tables for about three quarters of the room. The remaining three eighths are occupied by several round tables, some microwaves, and a series of refrigerators for people's lunches.
Extending from the eastmost end of the room are minor exits (but only from your perspective, as you are inside the room) that are closer to the work areas. Immediately west of the southern exit, lining the wall, are four computers and a printer, there to help us apply for health care benefits and the like.

On the northern wall near the exit is a fair sized vestibule containing several vending machines and two more microwaves. Further west on the northern wall is the Men's Room and even further west, near the main exit, is the Ladies' Room. Both restrooms are split into two further rooms, which serves the dual purpose of allowing them to be cleaned withing having to close entirely and, more to the point of the story, ensuring that in the event that one restroom does need to be closed entirely, one side of the other restroom can be temporarily redesignated for either gender. This was the case a couple of weeks ago when there was a bit of vandalism by a disgruntled male employee who was laid off.

So, the eastern side of the Ladies' Room was made into a temporary Men's Room which I happened to have to the great misfortune of entering many hours after its last scheduled cleaning. I had heard horror stories about how Ladies' Rooms are foul smelling dens of bacterial infection and misery and so I hesitated, but in the end the gender stereotypes with which I had been indoctrinated during the better part of my life prevailed and I thought something to the effect of, "Women are cleaner than men. There's no way the stories I've read are true. If anything, I should feel privileged to use the Ladies' Room instead of the disgusting Men's Room." I will spare you the details, dear reader, but I was completely taken aback, as the most disgusting thing I'd ever seen in a Mens' Room was a little bit of misaimed urine on the floor. That day, I questioned and lamented my unchangeable condition known as heterosexuality.

Maybe I should have worded that better. It's not so much that the articles themselves are gross, but more more that I feel gross handling them. I work BORIS for Victoria's Secret Direct (that is, when people Buy things Online and Return them In the Store, I'm the next employee after the people in the store to handle the item) and often the reasons provided for the return are things like "Do Not Like" or "Too Big/Small" where the only reasonable way to know to return the product for that reason is to use it or try it on. The point I've slightly digressed from here is that having this knowledge and thinking about it as much as I have since I realized it makes me feel like a creep, even though I'm just doing my job and hating it.

I don't know about most brands, but for VS and its sister brand, Pink, most panties have a plastic adhesive thing on it so that the customer can ensure the product looks and feels good against her skin rather than over her normal underwear.

This is why I only ever buy clothes for myself online, and even then quite rarely. When I receive clothing as a gift (which is how I get most of my clothes), I wash it before wearing it.