Reply #33: Amen! [View All]

[Marnieworld]

Recently, I had an odd situation with my boss. He is more of a new-age person rather than Christian, but I experienced a similiar dynamic. He was all excited about this new "movie" he watched called "The Secret" and wanted me to check out the website. It seemed very new-agey, touchy feely, and more like psycho-babble self-help stuff. Go to any New Age section of a bookstore for the general vibe. So then he calls my desk to see if I went to the site and if I wanted to borrow a copy of the movie. I gave him a lukewarm response, yet the next day or so there he was handing me a copy. After a few days he called to see why I haven't mentioned it or if I watched it. He had also given it to other co-workers who I know were just as uninterested as I was.

So I watched it and I thought it was ridiculous. I thought it was a philosophy that was illogical, arrogant and infantile. I also knew that he identified with the material tremendously so if I gave it an honest review I would be calling him those things. Luckily, I found a way to talk about it without saying I agreed or disagreed with it. I said that it really wasn't a "secret" because Shirley Maclaine wrote about the same concepts 20 years ago which satisfied him.

My point is, it could be Christianity, or Scientology, or New Age Philosophy. When the pressure comes from your boss, you do not have any power in the relationship to deal with it equally. Sure, if I said my actual thoughts on it I doubt that he would fire me but perhaps it would have an affect on our relationship or any future raises etc.

If there were prayer meetings and bible studies at my job and everyone attended I would feel genuine pressure to attend. I would not want to attend as I am not Christian. Yet there would be pressure because I need to work and do well to continue working. My philosophies should have no relation to this and I fear a day when they would.

When you work for someone there is a limit to what you can do or say. It is a relationship without balanced power. For an employer in the OP it seems very inappropriate to me because it clearly favors one group of people over another and impacts someone's job. There is no way to have this be fair so therefore it is inappropriate in a work place setting.

I have bills. I can't just leave. If someone worked at a place which was otherwise good I can imagine how much that would suck. I am tolerant of everyone. I truly believe that there should be religious neutral areas of life to avoid conflicts like these.