The 6th of May is the \u201cNational Prayer Day.\u201d\u00a0 I\u2019m very sorry that I know that, but it just couldn\u2019t be avoided since all the pantries in my office building were plastered last week with fliers and posters encouraging staff to \u201ccome to the roof between noon and 12:30 and pray towards the Capitol for peace and change.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yes, seriously. I, of course, spent the better part of a day tearing down all the fliers and stuffing them deep into the trash can, but that doesn\u2019t change the fact that things at my day job have gone horribly wrong.<\/p>\n
\nI\u2019ve been here for nine years, and I had somehow fooled myself into believing the rhetoric coming out of the executive office \u2013 we were a left-leaning, people-friendly company.\u00a0 We cared about the little people and worked hard to get those silly \u201cbest workplace in America\u201d awards (though we never made the grade, and that should have told us all something).\u00a0 It took the economic freakout in 2009 to expose the true colors of the executive office.\u00a0 They immediately panicked and stalked through the hallways executing staff members (and our benefits).\u00a0 They laid off ten percent of the staff, all of whom had a diagnosed medical condition (the lawyers say that\u2019s just a coincidence). They rolled back our pay and they trimmed just about everything that was good in our benefits package.\u00a0 Then they started fucking up their products because, you know, they fired a bunch of people.\u00a0 So they released a defective item and went right back into the red trying to make it right, setting the stage for more economic trouble down the line. Though, instead of taking advantage of the biggest fuck-up the company has ever done to fire a few deadbeat big-wigs responsible for all of our woes, we were all forced to give those deadbeat big-wigs a standing ovation for\u2026releasing\u2026the defective\u2026product\u2026and\u2026<\/p>\n
Yeah.\u00a0 I don\u2019t get it.\u00a0 As 2009 rolled into 2010, our company went from an unhealthy workplace full of bad practices into a sort of eccentric LSD nightmare.<\/p>\n
Most recently is the National Day of Prayer, where the company not only allowed for fliers to be plastered all over the place, but they\u2019re also allowing a cultist revival ceremony to be held on the roof.<\/p>\n
This isn\u2019t the first time God has invaded my workplace, though.\u00a0 Our director is a big church person so, before every meeting, and birthday party, and pot luck, and all those idiot gatherings you have in an office, he would lead us in prayer.<\/p>\n
Eventually, some brave soul complained and the prayers stopped at the staff meetings, but they continued at all of the special gatherings.\u00a0 Now, for the record, the director does try to side-step leading the prayer.\u00a0 He\u2019s either encouraged to do it by the prayer nuts, or he sheepishly asks everyone if it\u2019s okay.\u00a0 The former are legion, and the latter is tough because you can\u2019t turn to your boss and say, \u201cFuck, no.\u00a0 Hail Satan!\u201d<\/p>\n
So we still pray.\u00a0 Non-Christians sit silently and awkwardly in the midst of a Pentecostal blaze of zealotry. And despite repeated complaints that have travelled all the way up the ladder about this prayer disease, here we come to May 6th, which is all about the staff taking half an hour out of their day to crowd together on the roof and call the wrath of God down on Obama.\u00a0 Or something\u2026<\/p>\n
It has long ago become clear that my company is diseased and insane, and cares little for the employees and the customer.\u00a0 And, really, deep down, I\u2019ve always known this.\u00a0 I saw it when I first started and I didn\u2019t care because I got 18 hours vacation every month, and they let me take 4-6 weeks off every year to travel the world and live like a rock star. And, after all, isn\u2019t every company like this?\u00a0 There is no integrity in the American workplace, so I shouldn\u2019t be shocked by the evil that they do.<\/p>\n
But I am shocked by the prayer shit. I never imagined that the company would start to resemble a bad day at The Heritage Foundation.<\/p>\n
Layoffs, pay cuts, defective products, insane internal politics\u2026 It\u2019s all fine.\u00a0 What do I care?\u00a0 Just send checks and stay out of my life.\u00a0 But the prayer thing is just too much.\u00a0 It\u2019s too offensive.<\/p>\n
I believe religion is a weird tribal holdover anyway.\u00a0 Some sort of Neolithic, proto-Cro-Magnon anachronism that\u2019s become a bad habit.\u00a0 It\u2019s designed only to comfort (or, rather, prey upon) the weak and the foolish, and therefore has a toe-hold in the modern day when, really, we should have long ago evolved past religion.\u00a0 It\u2019s the one thing holding us back from greatness.\u00a0 It encourages hate, prejudice, vanity, hubris, and fanaticism. Religion \u2013 and especially Christianity \u2013 has come to embody everything that is wrong with the Human race.<\/p>\n
I single out Christianity because I can\u2019t stand hypocrites.\u00a0 Since the 300\u2019s, and especially for the last thousand years, we\u2019ve all practiced a form of Christianity that is so perverted and wicked, it would make Jesus want to go right back to his tomb and roll that rock shut.\u00a0 Fuck you all.\u00a0 And all of my inbred co-workers who mumble right along with our arch-deacon director, and wave their Bibles on the roof of the building, should be exterminated. There\u2019s just no other way.\u00a0 I remember on 9\/11, when we were told to get out of the building in a free-for-all hysterical freakout.\u00a0 Most of my co-workers stayed, forming prayer circles, preparing for the end.\u00a0 The rest of us pushed and stumbled past them to escape the building.<\/p>\n
Outside, black smoke on the horizon, jet fighters screaming low, emergency services in a scattered tumult of sirens and panic, more co-workers fell to their knees and prayed.<\/p>\n
I suppose that was an extreme situation.\u00a0 My only thought was getting out of town, going home.\u00a0 Processing what had happened.\u00a0 But I suppose prayer has a place in such instances\u2026? Still, though, that\u2019s who I\u2019m working with, and that\u2019s why we\u2019re subjected to inappropriate prayers when the staff gather together.<\/p>\n
And while I blame the god-head fools, the real problem comes right back to the executives.\u00a0 All part of this emotionally crippled corporation. Why have they approved this? Why do they allow it to continue?<\/p>\n
How many of you reading this are going to have the bulk of your co-workers gather on the roof today to pray like some suicide apocalypse cult?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The 6th of May is the \u201cNational Prayer Day.\u201d\u00a0 I\u2019m very sorry that I know that, but it just couldn\u2019t be avoided since all the pantries in my office building were plastered last week with fliers and posters encouraging staff …<\/p>\n