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OTOH, I can't believe how uptight some are about the issue. I was talking with someone at work once and we ended up talking about which churches we went to. It was not a high spiritual conversation, and in fact I recall it was entirely about service times and parking issues. The conversation was less than 10 minutes long. A third person listening in on the conversation had a cow and went to HR about it. In their opinion no one should be even allowed to mention a place of worship, I guess.
Complaining about that is about as daft as complaining about South Park action figures.
That was intended as tongue in cheek, in reality there were no guard dogs.
Unless you were intending to push for mandatory Christian religious teaching in schools, then you would not be included in the group that might be offended.
In the example you used, that is a derogatory label used to diminish the standing of people who argue in favor of environmental awareness.
Actually it can and has been used tongue in cheek more than once and drew your complaint. And tree hugger and those who argue in favor of environmental awareness are not the same thing, tree hugger is typically used for the "lunatic fringe" of that group, the ones who climb up in trees at Cal Berkeley and live there for months.
I knew you weren't really saying dogs and chains but that's just as derogatory the way you used it as tree hugger is.
You're doing the same thing you're accusing Heucrazy of doing, interpreting things in a way that suits him.
So we have a group of Muslim folks at work who essentially on their own took an empty cube, took off some worksurfaces and set up a prayer cube that if I understand directly faces mecca. No problem, they've had one for over a year, never an issue. I was told once they got permission for this but I don't know from who, I know it wasn't from HR so I suspect at best they asked their manager.
Well it turns out we are expanding a lab in that area and the lab guys want to use that cube now, but the guys who pray in that cube also work in the lab and are complaining they have the right to have a prayer cube. Nobody wants to step on toes so they're telling me since I technically control allocation of cubes.
My inclination is it's really an HR and Legal matter and I'm letting them know but I'm just curious is there anything at all that says you can demand a place to pray at work? I know for example there are rules about providing rooms for pregnant women and nursing mothers, we've always done that here as per the law. But my understanding is the only laws relating to religion are about not discriminating, in this case asking them to move their location would not be discrimination would it?
Russ - what does their employment handbook say?
Maybe there is something there addressing terms of employment related to religious issues.
We actually don't have one believe it or not. We have some documents but not a full handbook and none of the docs cover this.
That my friend is not a good thing and its way to late to create one.
From my experience in management this is a lawsuit waiting to happen. Just be sure when the hand grenade goes off, you are not the one holding it or even close. Those things spread shrapnel over a wide area.
It doesn't matter if it is justified or reasonable or that they are muslims.
i pray to god that we do not insure your company - between this, the prayer cube and threatening temps
do you guys carry EPL insurance?!
I should say we don't have one that I'm aware of. I've been here 7 1/2 years there may be something new employees get that I never got although I'm not aware of it.
We have a "newhire package" but to my knowledge it's benefits stuff, personal info etc, not a handbook.
I could tell you some things. We had a previous HR Generalist who decided that because the address was wrong on our safety docs and IIPP(because the company moved), she had to pull it out of the newhire kit because "I got tired of explaining to newhires that the address was wrong but they still needed to sign that they got it."
This then created a problem, our documentation did a "blanket address change" on all the documents to update to the new address, but because she'd pulled those out of the package, they weren't in the blanket change because they were no longer considered "approved".
This created a 2 year nightmare for me trying to get the address change approved. One legal guy wanted to re-write both documents because he didn't like them(they'd been approved 5 years ago and had passed several fire inspections and insurance inspections). He delayed it for 6 months until we had a layoff and he was gone. But then we all moved into one building and the corporate address changed from 215 to 255(right next door) and I had to start the whole change process over again.
It took 2 years and countless changes to our documentation process before I finally got my docs approved with the right address, right exit maps etc. Then I was told they changed the newhire package and now didn't have room for my documents, so employees would just be given a list of docs online they should read.
Oh did I mention the HR person who started this mess waited until I went on vacation to pull the docs, and then left the company 3 months after creating the mess?
But we do have a ping pong table in the lunchroom so all is well.
dreamcastrocks--My Hero!!
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