I don’t plan to ask them about it. If it comes up in conversation, fine.
When I started here, they told me that they prayed at the morning meeting, and asked me if I was okay with it. I assume they’ve had the same conversation with everyone else.
If I were the boss, we wouldn’t do the prayer, simply because I don’t want to deal with it. To those who say, “We are a Christian business”, I would say, “There is no such thing as a Christian business. You are a Christian person, and you have the right to pray in your office. But the business does not promote any religion.”
This is the first business I’ve ever been to where there is a company-wide prayer. It’s definitely outside the norm, even for Texas. But then again, everybody is (or was) of like faith, too.
The office manager is crazy. Like I said, she’s not exactly Fred Phelps, but she’s not far away. She thinks we should not allow gay marriage, we should reinstate anti-sodomy laws, we should eliminate the lottery (because it’s gambling), everybody should carry a gun (she says she has 17 of them strategically positioned in her house so she’s never more than a few steps away from one), and she regularly spews racial and homophobic epithets.
Praying at work! haha!! Why is this even a dilemma?
We have prayer rooms for that sort of thing. No need to stick your pray mat on the floor and start doing it in front of everybody. There is a time and place for your little beliefs and it’s not at work, during a meeting.
I think it is probably hard to make a hard and fast ruling…But it feels more like a human capital issue to me.
If the prayer and/or leaving the room makes the new employees feel ostracized, less a part of the team, or less valuable – then it probbaly doesn’t make sense to keep it going. If it is important enough to keep it going regardless, then folks should probably be made aware of that on their way into the job.
If I were one of the atheists that worked for her I would get a copy of the Quran, whip out a prayer rug, face east, and say some Alahu Akbar Dirka Dirkas. Then say that the rest of them can step out if they don’t want to participate. How would she feel about that?
I’m amazed that religion is still a thing. Don’t even get me started on Creationism in the south US…just insane.
But, given that it is a thing, everyone has the right to practice a religion but no one should have religion forced upon them. By praying at the end of the meeting (“Jesus, help me get that positive return, Amen”) when there are non-practicing Christians at the table, it is against some so called liberties.
On a side note, if religion were 100% a private thing that did not affect politics or corporations, these issues would never arise. As a private (I’m assuming small) company, you have a lot more leeway as to what you can or cannot do at work, but for large companies or public sector firms, this is a big no no. Prayer rooms are a thing, use them in your workplace or find a way to get rid of the non-believers based on work performance.
IMO, the prayers should stop. Work and religion should be kept separate. Not because I don’t believe in free speech but because it leads to personal attacks and things can get heated.
I work at a large company and this just happened last week. We recently switched to an open office concept and there are huge white boards for people to write on. People were writing things like “Jesus is our only salvation” and bible quotes. We also have a social media site (think Facebook but just for the people in the company). This led to one guy posting a picture of the religious quotes and asking people to stop writing it, which then led to people going back and forth about freedom of speech and whatnot. The SVP of HR got involved and now the boards are wiped clean.
^ cool. BTDUBz I know that you and the rest of the office bible thumpers only do your prayer after the morning meeting but since i’m now (in this scenario) a muslim, I need to remind you that I have to pray 5 times a day…so we need to reschedule some of those afternoon meetings. Hope this doesn’t get in the way of anything. I mean- I respected your religion so you should respect mine too right?
Short answer- leave religion for outside work. Do work at work. Problems solved.
I feel that the problem is that people let their religious beliefs take the place of rational thought. Kind of the same thing, but stupidity is subjective.