Thursday, December 22, 2005
Critique of Management in Other Departments
Happy Winter Solstice Everybody!
Today (the 22nd) is the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year. The is the point where the Earth is nearest the sun but tilted the furthest away, making the hours of sunlight the shortest we will see all year in the Northern Hemisphere. After today the days will get longer and longer. Yay! I'm not really a pagan but I do celebrate this day (and the Summer Solstice on the grounds that they are true observable scientific occasions in the Earth's orbit around the Sun. Same goes for the Equinoxes.
This morning when I came into work I heard the CSR manager talking to (lecturing was more like it) his sole CSR about The Rapture and Christ and the history of the Solstice and all sorts of other crap. (Note to Christian readers: I'm fine with you having your beliefs, just don't preach them to me, thanks.) He was running down the whole Judeo-Christian gauntlet, Leviathan to Rapture, the number of years before the Earth will be destroyed, on and on and on.
I have a little problem with this man proselytizing in the office. Check that. I don't know if he was proselytizing, per se, but he was certainly getting into how people who didn't adhere to his faith were going to burn in hell and the world would end, etc. It was a little much. There's proclaiming your faith to someone and then there's preaching. I don't even know if proclamations of faith are kosher in a business environment (sorry, I had to write it ...). In fact, I don't think that they are. In my opinion the office environment should be as neutral as possible with regards to race, sex, religion, creed, etc. I mean, the whole enterprise is propelling a capitalist business interest, and supposedly capitalism cares little for the specifics of the workers in proportion to their labors, so I think that a business environment should not be endorsing any one faith over another.
No, this does not apply to all businesses. I know that there are businesses which are explicitly religious. There's some Bible/Ministry outfit down the street from us which sells literature or something. I think they're the ones responsible for the occasional parking lot leaflets. That business obviouisly has its orientation, and more power to them. I do not judge them for it. I think that the ethics taught in some religions if applied to business could really make a better atmosphere for dealing.
In this instance, though, I don't think that this manager's actions were on track. The poor woman he was talking to was Jewish (from what I understand) and she didn't seem to have invited the conversation in any way. I think he was jsut on a run.
¶ 12:31 PM
Today (the 22nd) is the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year. The is the point where the Earth is nearest the sun but tilted the furthest away, making the hours of sunlight the shortest we will see all year in the Northern Hemisphere. After today the days will get longer and longer. Yay! I'm not really a pagan but I do celebrate this day (and the Summer Solstice on the grounds that they are true observable scientific occasions in the Earth's orbit around the Sun. Same goes for the Equinoxes.
This morning when I came into work I heard the CSR manager talking to (lecturing was more like it) his sole CSR about The Rapture and Christ and the history of the Solstice and all sorts of other crap. (Note to Christian readers: I'm fine with you having your beliefs, just don't preach them to me, thanks.) He was running down the whole Judeo-Christian gauntlet, Leviathan to Rapture, the number of years before the Earth will be destroyed, on and on and on.
I have a little problem with this man proselytizing in the office. Check that. I don't know if he was proselytizing, per se, but he was certainly getting into how people who didn't adhere to his faith were going to burn in hell and the world would end, etc. It was a little much. There's proclaiming your faith to someone and then there's preaching. I don't even know if proclamations of faith are kosher in a business environment (sorry, I had to write it ...). In fact, I don't think that they are. In my opinion the office environment should be as neutral as possible with regards to race, sex, religion, creed, etc. I mean, the whole enterprise is propelling a capitalist business interest, and supposedly capitalism cares little for the specifics of the workers in proportion to their labors, so I think that a business environment should not be endorsing any one faith over another.
No, this does not apply to all businesses. I know that there are businesses which are explicitly religious. There's some Bible/Ministry outfit down the street from us which sells literature or something. I think they're the ones responsible for the occasional parking lot leaflets. That business obviouisly has its orientation, and more power to them. I do not judge them for it. I think that the ethics taught in some religions if applied to business could really make a better atmosphere for dealing.
In this instance, though, I don't think that this manager's actions were on track. The poor woman he was talking to was Jewish (from what I understand) and she didn't seem to have invited the conversation in any way. I think he was jsut on a run.
¶ 12:31 PM
