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Prayer at work... what do you think?

muzby

muzby

Bluelighter
Joined
Feb 12, 2001
Messages
5,517
Location
melbourne - SE suburbs
WELCOME TO THE NEW RELIGION OF BLUELIGHT
seeing as the industrial relations tribunal is looking at ways for people to celebrate their religion (u know the news story.. the guy in sydney needing time out to pray each day..)
so, to enable all of us to take advantage of this excellent chance to bludge a little more free time off our employers, it's time to stand up for our religion and let our bosses know that we need to take 20 minutes each day, in a darkened room, complete with intelligent lights and lasers, with the music of our choice..
and then you are free to dance/nang/massage or wotever each day.. and still get paid :D :D
who's with me on this?
Edited title to make it more relevant to the way the thread has gone.
Kitty
[ 11 October 2002: Message edited by: PsychoKitten ]
 
well how do you think i acwam across bluelight ;)
Surfing da net at works expense!!!!
.......And where do you think im doing this post from?????????????????you guessed it! :P
 
This topic actually has potential for decent discussion. Should this guy be allowed 20 mins a day to pray, and if he gets it, should everyone else get it too? Obviously in a multicultural country we shouldn't discriminate against one persons religion, but at the same time if we let this guy pray and don't give the christians 20 mins off for bible study or something, then aren't we discriminating against christians now instead?
It's the same thing with smokers - some companies give them a few 10 min breaks a day because they are addicted to a substance and need to get their fix, where as those that don't smoke are forced to continue working. Should non-smokers be able to duck out to the street for 10 mins and just stand around? Should smokers be docked pay for their smoke breaks?
How far are we going to take equality? Life's not fair, so why should the workplace be? However if you're going to have rules for some and not for others, that seems a bit dodgy to me. There aren't any easy answers to this - if we give everyone 20 mins off then the employers lose out because they're paying people to do things unrelated to their role in the company.
Anyone think they have a solution?
[ 11 October 2002: Message edited by: Pleonastic ]
 
Become hippies and live in the forest as one
(All except BigTrancer cause he hates hippies)
 
By Pleo:
This topic actually has potential for decent discussion. Should this guy be allowed 20 mins a day to pray, and if he gets it, should everyone else get it too? Obviously in a multicultural country we shouldn't discriminate against one persons religion, but at the same time if we let this guy pray and don't give the christians 20 mins off for bible study or something, then aren't we discriminating against christians now instead?
Well..........i can see two sides to this
Firstly, we are a multicultural country, therefore having many religions...but by roots we are a western country....and not being racist but if people want to enter the workforce over here then they should conform to the western worklife style......as in not being able to take breaks when he wants(kinda like the smoker thing)
BUT
This particulaer person has cut back his lunch break by 10 minutes (this is approx. how long it takes him to pray in da afternoon)...to accomodate his employers.
SOOOO
I think that he has to be met in the middle....he has compromised by cutting back hi lunch break and its not hurting productivity...so they should compromise as well
If he wasnt cutting back his break and asking for an extra 10 minutes to pray in ther afternoon....that would be different.
Who agrees?
Click to expand...
 
I agree... (I wasn't actually aware he was cutting back on his already allocated breaks)... :)
If that's the case and he is still doing the same amount of hours as everyone else then I can see absolutly no justification for his employer not allowing him to pray in the afternoon.
 
I don't smoke, but I have another addiction - Hudsons - everyone in my office knows me as "The Hudsons Administrator" & not to come near me or try to call me @ or around 10:30 as I am on a Hudsons mission... and LOOKOUT for those who disturb it!
Hell hath no fury like a Hudsons Administrator scorned.....
 
Originally posted by Pleonastic:
I can see absolutly no justification for his employer not allowing him to pray in the afternoon.
From the perspective of his employer - he is taking time during normal work hours, it doesn't matter if he then makes it up. If him being away from his desk negatively influences other staff why should he be afforded that time?
For example if our receptionist was to do it, it means that for those five minutes someone has to watch the phones for her which means that persons own job isn't being done, which means the person they feed to isn't running to time. Not to mention that the rest of the company has to reschedule meetings around when the receptionist will be at her desk.
If he's a systems admin and an urgent problem comes in what do you tell the person with the problem? Sorry but he'll get back to you after he finishes praying? I'm sure that would go down really well.
First rule of business is you look after your clients, without them you don't earn anything, most clients expect you to be available to them every second of the work day and if they don't feel that they're being serviced they will go elsewhere, you'd be amazed how quickly some people spit the dummy and look for something better.
My staff don't get smoke breaks and they wouldn't get prayer breaks. I'm flexible and I'd allow people to make up the time once or twice, but I wouldn't let it happen every day.
There are some positions within our company where there'd be no problems with a daily prayer break and a shorter lunch - but those positions are few and far between.
Him making the time up makes sense only from a payroll perspective, yes he is working his full hours and therefore not costing the company any more in payroll costs but what are the other costs to the company?
These issues aren't as black and white as the media would like us to think there are numerous other factors that may have led to the company's decision but because it has a religious slant, suddenly something that normally wouldn't rate a mention is sensational news.
[ 11 October 2002: Message edited by: PsychoKitten ]
Click to expand...
 
By that rational though, what if a client had an urgent need during the allocated lunch hour when most people are out of the office? Surely if round the clock customer service is required then the lunch breaks would be staggered across the day and there would be more than one person capable of doing a particular job. That way when one person is on their own lunch break, all bases are still covered from the start right through to the end of the day... everyone at some stage would have to look after someone elses area while they had their lunch/prayer time. :)
 
Psychokitten: On the news report it was stated that "this 10 minute break in the afternoon IS NOT effecting productivity in the slightest".....and even if it was, im sure its not hard for the person who sits across from his desk to listen out for the phone whilst he goes to do this..........
Think about Mothers who work & breast feed who need to regularly leave their work to go and release their milk.....im sure if we had a bitch about that we would ahve mothers groups all over saying how sexist we were being.
And i think that a prayer break is completely different froma smoke break......
Telling someone they cant go and ruin their lungs is NOT the same as telling someone they cant practice part of their religion........doing that is in fact racism....
I think that we all need to learn to chill out a little bit and embrace other peoples cultures and beliefs.....who knows you might even learn something
 
Sintress – according to the media (and therefore him, since he is the one talking to the media) it doesn’t have any affect on his productivity.
The statement from the company he works for was more along the lines of no comment. Do you really believe his workplace would issue a statement saying that it didn’t have any affect on his productivity? That would be like shooting themselves in the foot.
Of course he doesn’t believe that it affects his productivity, just like smokers don’t believe it affects theirs, and lactating mothers probably don’t think it affects theirs either. Fact is it does. As an employer, when you’re working for me you’re on my time and I intend to get my moneys worth, the day you cost me even $1 in lost productivity or negatively influence the staff around you into lost productivity you no longer work for me.
People need to stop making this an issue about religion because it’s not, it’s about whether it’s viable for the company to allow him to continue his breaks. The fact that the breaks are to pray is not as relevant as the media would like you to think.
 
I've worked for employers and managers in the past that try and squeeze every second of productivity out of your day - they'll yell and scream if you start work 1 minute late and if your allocated half hour break goes for 30 minutes and 15 seconds you almost get fired. And while they got a full 8 hours of work out of me, it wasn't very productive because I didn't want to do the extra little things for these bastards. I did what my job description said, no more no less...
Now, I've also worked for some other managers who don't really care if you stop for 10 mins and have a chat to someone... if you're hungry or thirsty you can duck out for a quick snack or drink. And while I might have only done 7.5 hours technically, I did a fucking lot more work because I put more effort in. I was happy with the situation and it reflected in my performance. And we were less likely to abuse the system because it was so damn easy to do that you'd feel guilty doing it. Mutual respect for employer and employee goes a long way towards increased productivity...
Point of this ramble is that we're just humans and not machines. A happy worker is a productive worker, and if this guy is allowed to take 20 mins to pray, then he'll be personally fulfilled and won't spend the day worrying that his god is angry at him or something (which no doubt will decrease his productivity)...
All this is within reason of course... as long as the job gets done then I don't see how a little bit of time off would really hurt all that much. It's better than him sitting at his desk playing solitaire all afternoon or surfing the net... :)
P.S... I'm just being argumentative here, so don't think I'm out to get ya kitty... ;)
 
Pleo - good thing I love a good argument. :D
I don't care if my staff chat or take personal time, quite often I instigate two hour long lunch breaks with my staff, and yes they are more productive because of it.
I also expect a lot from my staff and reward them accordingly, my company is paying for a girl from our marketing team to go visit her family in perth because she increased the turnover for the department she was marketing for by 98% - how many companies do that?
All I'm saying is I can understand how this whole mess would have come about and trying to make people have a look at the other side for once. All too often people believe the crap that is fed to them by the media without actually thinking about the issue. It’s all too easy for someone to go“ohhh woe is me, I’m being discriminated against because I’m black/religious/female/have blonde hair”
It’s a bloody joke. There is no such thing as equal opportunity anymore because we spend our time bending over backwards for the people who have claimed they are discriminated against
 
^^^^ Pleos P.S goes for me too Kitty!^^^^^^.........i think thats enough argument on this topic (is i was a mod at this point i would be closing this thread)
[ 11 October 2002: Message edited by: sinntress ]
 
I just asked my boss if I can go release my milk - he has told me to go to HR and wants me to go for some counselling, provided by work, during work hours...
guess it did work in a round about way?
 
OK, now I've had fun arguing a bit, here's what I really think... ;)
This guy should be able to pray, but to put himself up as a pariah is just counterproductive. By running to the media, he's using the politically correct moral majority to pressure the company into doing what he wants them to do, when in reality he should argue with his feet and walk away from the job. There are people out there that would be more than happy to accommodate his requests.
It's hard to comment on any specifics without specific details, so I'll refrain from making any further comments about what he should and shouldn't do. I don't know exactly what his role in the company was, and there is a good possibility that the company is just enforcing rules for the sake of enforcing them (they wouldn't be the first ones to do that).
Equal opportunity is a great thing, and I strongly support it. Jobs should go to the people that are most suited to the position, and not to someone that is female or black just to even out numbers. They might very well be female or black, but they'd have to be the best to get the job, their gender or race/religion shouldn't come into it. However with that comes equal responsibility, and an equal expectation that if everyone want's to be treated the same, they shouldn't ask for special requests. If all the politically correct people want total equality, they need to see it through to the very end and apply it to both sides, not just employers...
A good manager should be able to make judgement calls, and decide whether a request is reasonable or not. And this issue is complicated and I don't have a definite stance - all these things should be taken on a case by case basis. So I'm gunna leave it at that... :)
[ 11 October 2002: Message edited by: Pleonastic ]
 
sinntress: I'm not closing it because i'd like to see if any of the people who can't surf the net at work have an opinion on the topic.
Heh and since pleo and I have both stated our piece I guess they'll get a chance now :p
 
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