To have objected to ‘prayers’ at work

I dunno, it was a pretty “serious” law firm (though one with a drinks trolley every Friday at 530 sharp 🍷 🤣) with a long history. I did understand there had been actual prayers in times gone by.

My guess would be that it has more to do with the fact that "prayer" is also a legal term of longstanding usage.

Knowing the British it’s probably a joke. From school “prayers” said in the morning.

I’m an American who thinks this is bonkers fwiw but I worked briefly for a team in a major U.K. law firm just a couple of years ago that had a weekly meeting they called “prayers”. Not a single religious word was spoken but it was an opportunity for the team to brief each other on the matters they were working on, legal developments etc. It was always well attended because breakfast was served. I never knew why it was called “prayers” - I expect it was a vestige of a time when real prayers might have been said.

Yep that is fucking nuts. For most jobs religion and work do not need to be entwined. Email signatures certainly should not reflect religious leanings.

Top notch username btw

That's just them expressing their religion though, not forcing it on anybody else.

No, because singing was allowed.

I recently got an email from someone quite high up at a US university that had a Bible verse in their email signature. Just fucking nuts.

Wouldn't it be a shame if she was downsized because of Trump pulling money away?

Ugh. You have my sympathies.

I really don't want to have religion or politics dinged in my ears in my workplace, and have no wish to discuss mine with my colleagues. Some people really do need to get to grips with the fact that the world isn't queuing up to hear their opinion.

Ha yes, should have been meditation

Not appropriate in the workplace at all. There are no issues from me with people believing in whatever religion or ideology they want to believe in, or of displaying such overt tokens of that belief system as they see fit. What I do object to is having those beliefs foisted on me.

This is the problem with today's BS 'bringing your whole self to work' schtick. No thanks. My work gets quite enough of my time and dedication as it is. The least I've a right to do is to keep my private thoughts, private beliefs and private behaviour, private. Incidentally, I can imagine how well it would go down if I started bringing pagan rites and practices into my formal meetings. It's not in any way appropriate; Christian prayer no more so.

Bringing your professional self to work is all that is necessary. Expecting others to expend their probably stretched professional energy on your particular spiritual bent, which likely means nothing at all to them but an imposition on their time, is unprofessional.

I deleted several hobby groups that were full of smug posts praising god for trump. And gleefully gloating about how unhappy the "libs" will be. Sick minds.

Yes that happens at senior levels in organisations, where a regular meeting with the top boss is held to enable the partners, directors or equivalent to raise matters or make requests - that's what I understand the reference to 'prayers' to be about.

Or alternatively

It’s pretty common for team meetings to have some kind of ‘pause for thought’ type section.

Never heard of such a thing! Breakout groups to discuss one of the agenda points, sure, but no 'general reflection' stuff. What a waste of time.

But I would say poor MH played a part and at 22 I watched this colleague, and the distain everyone had for them, and told myself Inwill NEVER be that person.

We have one in my team and a super-avoider in the wider organisation. Everyone knows the super-avoider and comment to each other, 'Sue's on another smoke break'. I don't even know what she does but I know her because she smokes outside our entrance!

Weirdly, job satisfaction is mildly heritable, which implies it's at least partly hard-wired. I assume the avoiders are hard-wired to hate all jobs and avoid it wherever possible.

Is that an autocorrect? Do you mean meditation?

I've noticed a definite shift in posts in my SM feeds this week. The hardcore Christian evangelists are really out in force.

I'm deciding whether to stay in one group as the admin has started promoting her favourite charity - Bibles for Asia.

Other groups are suddenly full of "Praise God" type comments too.

Ever come across somewhere that has ‘safety moments’.

They’ve been ‘moved with the time’, and moved further into businesses and beyond just frontline activities.

’Reflection’ is a general bucket label I’ve come across a few times.

I work in a very safety focused area and all our meetings start with some kind of 'safety moment' (which could be health and wellbeing focused - our latest one was on road safety in winter).

One of my colleagues keeps trying to get 'mediation moments' in meetings where she guides a 10 minute mediation (I hate mediation but they aren't mandatory so I let people crack on and just daydream for a bit)

A prayer though?? Never in a million years and as an atheist I'd be extremely irritated.

I've never worked in a team that could have done this without hysterical laughter ensuing.

They do it on the radio, sure, but again, that not something you have to contractually participate in. Anne Atkins blethering on can be turned off (does she still pop up?) but if she arrived in my team meeting and stuck herself and her views on the formal agenda, it would be quite different.