Monday, March 03, 2008

back in the day

The Globe and Mail carries this online advice column which rang a personal note from my own experience way back in the day.
My workplace seems to be populated with many nosy people who seem intent on forcing their own views on the rest of the world. One of my colleagues is a fervently religious woman who is not content practising her faith on her own time, but instead interrogates her co-workers in their cubicles and preaches to them. On one occasion she followed me on my lunch break to a shoe store and chastised me for "shopping again."

In my case, it was the owners of the firm I worked for who were evangelical Christians. They saw it as their personal mission to preach to every one of their employees. At the time, I was stuck because I needed the pay cheque and the local economy had really tanked, so I learned to endure. I still remember the anger I felt coming into work every morning and discovering my chair littered with one new tract after another denouncing me unless I made Jesus my personal saviour. I seem to recall singing Patti Smith’s song Gloria a lot under my breath (Jesus died for somebody’s sins but not mine) while I was at work.

When production issues would come up the first question the boss would ask was ‘what do you think Jesus would do’ which is probably why I have very little patience for those kind of questions today. Frankly, there is nothing more off-putting about Christianity than some of its self-proclaimed representatives. The owners were not bad people per say but they had no concept of personal boundaries and a philosophical doctrine I found fatally flawed.

I use to smile blankly and bite my lip a lot. Often I would say meaningless things like “is that so”, “well now there is a thought”, and “I will take that under consideration”. Then I would spend the return trip home desperately scanning the want ads for a way out. It all worked out in the end as I found a wonderful job working in a Chinese owned sweatshop in the heart of the garment district. It turned into one of the most fantastic experiences in my working life and perhaps I will write about it one day. Although no one tried to convert me to anything - there were many attempts at finding a suitable match for me.

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