To have objected to ‘prayers’ at work

[Iamthewintersale]

Will try to keep this brief… Work in a team of 12, 6 in U.K. and 6 in USA ( mid-west) and once a week we have a team meeting that we take turns in running.

Tomorrow is the turn of A. A is a Republican, church goer, voted Trump because she wanted, quote ‘More money in my pocket book and illegals dealt with’.
So far so MAGA. This came up pre-election as she’s the only Trump fan on the team and was open about it.

On the agenda for the meeting is ‘Prayer’ as point one. I pinged manager a note saying what?? A thinks it would be nice to start off with a prayer. As a team. I have asked for it to be OFF the agenda. US manager thinks it’s ‘harmless’ but has said will clarify.

AIBU to think it’s totally inappropriate??? I’m an atheist for a start, most of my U.K. team are the same or at least agnostic.

Seems weird that she’s never tried this before, but suddenly Trump ‘god saved me to MAGA’ is inaugurated and a team prayer is in the agenda.
We are a large global company, BTW, not some local mom & pop outfit that sells bibles…

YANBU - work is secular. She keeps her views and prayers to herself own time.

YABU - lighten up, what harm can it do.

ACAS guidance states that when an employee is taking time to pray during the day, agreed with their employer, they should be making the time up elsewhere. Also that the arrangement should be made in a way that does not create unfairness with other colleagues. So it sounds like your employer wasn’t flexing as much muscle as it should.

Oh hilarity 🙄

The fact that you're spending time and effort commenting on something despite how unimportant you say you consider it. Objecting to things isn't a marker of having a 'carefree life', I think that's a very odd perspective.

You could just pray for Trump to die and/ or for the eyes of the American people to be opened, for them to be released from their blindness. Amen.

Thanks for your thoughts everyone. We worked flexibly but as I sat next to her, I know that she wasn’t making up the time. She began and left at about the same time as everyone else and I saw no evidence that she was making it up at home, either. It was a few years ago now, so water under the bridge, but I still get annoyed to this day that she was basically given a third of the working week off to pray. She also refused to attend any events during Ramadan if there was the possibility of food of any sort being served (which was the norm), although networking was a huge part of her job. It wasn’t her religion, it was just her using it as an excuse to dodge work (she was absolutely bone idle when she was at work anyway).

I think there are always people who would take this piss - whether it’s with smoke breaks, ‘prayer breaks’ or whatever. But if it’s sanctioned by HR there’s not much to be done.
I worked with someone who put so much effort into not working, that I wondered why they bothered! From fictional appts in the work day, to getting someone to swipe them in early or swipe them out late for flexi, to overlong lunch breaks which were excused with absolutely ludicrous reasons for coming back late, to ‘smoke breaks’ to meet a friend who smoked - this person didn’t!
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.

The 'what's the harm in it' people are dangerous. They can't see boundaries. What's the harm in men in women's loos? What's the harm of men in women's sports? There's no end to the harmful things they can't see any harm in.

If prayer is agreed go on mute and video off until it’s finished. Take 5mins to relax.

Last two places I worked at had a room set aside for personal contemplation. Some Muslim colleagues used it for prayer. Some "couldn't be bothered with all that nonsense". One place - where the CEO was Muslim (and never used it, but did record podcasts what seemed 5 times a day 😀) - insisted people made up the time.

Life - what a rich tapestry.

Question all as too their ways, and learn the secrets that they hold

Well, indeed. We all work with piss takers. Right now I'm posting on MN when I have something else I could be doing, so maybe I'm one of them! For this colleague it was her prayer breaks. ACAS do point out it's easy to create resentment with any adaptations provided for anyone so employers really should think about how they handle this, but that's a step beyond for many.

Personally as a lifelong non-smoker, the early part of my career was definitely spent seething at quite how much time it seemed to be acceptable to spend outside having regular fag breaks through the day.

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

In the same vein some radio shows do.

I see no problem with it as long as active participation is optional. It’s no skin off anyone’s nose to quietly observe a short period of meditation, or prayer, or thanks, or person sharing their xperience of how in this particularly cold snap you need to be careful with using screen wash as it might freeze on the windscreen and make things worse (last memory from a uk/us team meeting when Houston briefly got sub zero).

It’s pretty common for team meetings to have some kind of ‘pause for thought’ type section. I've never heard of that at all @ScaryM0nster , and I am OLD.. :D but i suppose it depends on industry etc, though I have been in a few.

I have never ever had this, not in 30 years of working!

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.

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.

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'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.

Is that an autocorrect? Do you mean meditation?

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.

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.

Or alternatively

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.

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.

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.

Meeting went ahead, no prayers but colleague did manage to mention ‘our new president’ and her optimism for the future… which was immediately shot down by another colleague in the USA as the new edicts around several things are likely to impact their Revenue…
any more is too outing but that solidifies that the prayers are going to have a political tinge to them…