Approached On The Job

The other day, while at work, I was approached by a Jehovah’s Witness. Personally, I love when they come to my door to tell be about their ridiculous beliefs. We can have an actual conversation and I can explain to them that their beliefs don’t match up with reality, but at work while on the job, I can’t have that conversation. I am in affect a captive audience.

I bring this up because in most places of business, religious believers of various strips have no problem pushing their ridiculous beliefs in the work place or as customers pushing their beliefs on employees. Atheists are restricted from pushing and/or even being out of the closet about our lack of belief in most workplaces out of fear of losing our jobs.

I was lucky in that the last job I worked at I was able to be completely open about my lack of belief and was able to discuss religion openly with the religious when they brought it up. But that was a pretty rare situation. In most jobs (including my current one), atheists are under societal pressure to stay in the closet.

In a work environment, employees are expected to be as inoffensive as possible and the fact is that for atheists our mere existence offends the religious. But the injustice of the situation is that the religious aren’t under the same obligation to be inoffensive. They can wear their religious symbols, talk about their religious beliefs, and discuss church matters (within some limits) with fellow employees and even customers and clients.

As an atheist, I can’t even respond to customers and fellow employees who choose to discuss their religion with me. I have to be careful how I answer questions about the church I belong to so that I don’t offend the tissue paper thin sensibilities of believers.

I don’t know how to change this reality, but I suspect it will come when atheists are more open in non-work environments. The more visible we are the better chance we will have to change the landscape.

Do you have a story of being proselytized to on the job? How do you answer questions about church affiliation at work? Comment below.