Dealing with extremely religious bosses and work place (believe, Jesus, atheist)
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Has anyone here ever had a problem at the work place especially by extremely religious bosses?
I work at a great company and was hired after being unemployed for two years. All my four bosses are extremely religious so much that they post and hang images of Jesus on desks, walls, kitchen room, as well as bibles and crucifixes everywhere. One of my boss constantly says "Jesus this and Jesus that" bla bla "Jesus", "God", "Lord" etc. which is quite annoying. During Christmas he puts Christian and gospel music even in front of Jewish and Hindu employees... Disrespectful. Forget to mention all those bible quotes everywhere! Thanksgiving dinner will take place at a church hall... Gahh
There's no one-size-fits-all answer but I'd keep as low a profile as possible. Your personal beliefs are no one's business, really, and if pressed you can say that you prefer not to discuss your religious beliefs in a work environment. However, if it's a sufficiently aggressive environment you will be badgered until the majority can pigeonhole you as unbeliever or backslider and then harassed accordingly. Non-responses may produce worst-case default assumptions.
OP - I feel your pain. I was hired at the corporate headquarters of Mary Kay to work as an executive assistant in the international relations department. I didn't realize it was a Christian faith-based company until a co-worker told me. I saw the cult-like behavior amongst the employees. This was one of the many reasons I quit.
At my current position, I'm surrounded by Christians again. They'll out of the blue say, "I'm a Christian." Why are you telling me this and what's your point? We were talking about the weather one second ago.
The lady whom I replaced had religious things all over her cubicle. All her passwords had scriptural reference. Especially appreciated her judegmental attitude towards everyone in the office. Aren't Christians supposed to be loving and accepting?!! I find anyone spewing their religious agenda like you mentioned, to be highly offensive and I would try to get out of there ASAP. Christians are illiterate in my eyes and cannot stand being around them.
At my current position, I'm surrounded by Christians again. They'll out of the blue say, "I'm a Christian." Why are you telling me this and what's your point? We were talking about the weather one second ago.
This made me laugh. I'm not sure how I would react. But I guarantee you the second time it happened I would have a response planned out that I would find extremely funny. But probably not funny to anyone else in that office.
Rural upstate NY most likely then, although I'm sure there's pockets of this craziness even in the City and even Buffalo / Rochester / Ithaca and similar. I was just curious if you were a million miles from any alternatives -- say, in the deep South; I'd like to think that in NY you would have alternatives for your workplace environment. I'd do some looking.
Hope it works out for you. This kind of thing is no fun.
Has anyone here ever had a problem at the work place especially by extremely religious bosses?
I work at a great company and was hired after being unemployed for two years. All my four bosses are extremely religious so much that they post and hang images of Jesus on desks, walls, kitchen room, as well as bibles and crucifixes everywhere. One of my boss constantly says "Jesus this and Jesus that" bla bla "Jesus", "God", "Lord" etc. which is quite annoying. During Christmas he puts Christian and gospel music even in front of Jewish and Hindu employees... Disrespectful. Forget to mention all those bible quotes everywhere! Thanksgiving dinner will take place at a church hall... Gahh
What should I do?!
Find another job if pictures, books, crosses and other peoples speech offends you.
I worked for a company like this, it was one of the largest in Portland. One of the employees was allowed to put pictures of Christ and religious quotes from the New Testament up on the wall near the elevators where everyone could see them. Women were only allowed certain jobs the management felt were gender-appropriate. The HR head had a religious painting over his desk. There was a single mom in my department who was continually harassed. We all thought it was because she was unmarried. My assistant supervisor liked to ask me personal questions as to why I wasn't married with kids. I told her to mind her own business. I think she was tried to determine if I were gay.
Eventually I followed another female employee who had enough out of there to a much better company. Years later when this first company went from a mutually owned to a corporation, I heard it finally entered the 20th century.
Location: Huntersville/Charlotte, NC and Washington, DC
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Lambados
Has anyone here ever had a problem at the work place especially by extremely religious bosses?
I work at a great company and was hired after being unemployed for two years. All my four bosses are extremely religious so much that they post and hang images of Jesus on desks, walls, kitchen room, as well as bibles and crucifixes everywhere. One of my boss constantly says "Jesus this and Jesus that" bla bla "Jesus", "God", "Lord" etc. which is quite annoying. During Christmas he puts Christian and gospel music even in front of Jewish and Hindu employees... Disrespectful. Forget to mention all those bible quotes everywhere! Thanksgiving dinner will take place at a church hall... Gahh
What should I do?!
Twice
Job #1 Alexandria, VA; a baptist minister took over as branch minister. Had a personal vendetta against me even though at that time I was a practicing Christian but not Baptist by any stretch. Corrected me every time I looked around. If I had stayed a couple more months at that job I probably would have gotten fired by her over something stupid and wrecked my career.
Job #2 Louisville, KY (you know this is going to be crazy b/c of the location); Took a job at a call center. Nearly all of the Management and supervisors were not only Christian, but came from the Southern Baptist Seminary in town. You cannot find a tighter group of Christians than Southern Baptists. I ran into my direct manager at his church he pastors at on the side when I was only trying that church out. They talked about their bible stuff all the time. I happened to sit next to a very strong atheist and it made for quite the banter among us.
My best advice for this situation as a veteran: stick to the plan, do your work, keep any talk with them business related, and update your resume.
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