Separation of Work and anything remotely personal

lsw-x

My boss and I were meeting in her office today. We started off normal enough with talk about our current patient load and assignments for the nurse managers for the day. We started to stray from the topic of work and onto personal life subjects.

Understand that, as a rule, I strive to keep my personal life completely separate from my professional life…I do not normally share little quips and tidbits of what goes on outside the 8 hour in my day that they pay me to work. I sometimes suffer from MBB Syndrome© – (Mouth Before Brain) – and it’s better for me to keep my mouth shut about my private life before I go off on it and say something, for instance, about the night that I came close to starting the house on fire while giving Chris a blow job. Ya know, stuff like that.

That being said – – this was a conversation I could not resist.

I’m a pretty tolerant person, for the most part. I’m an atheist – however, I do not begrudge anyone their own individual beliefs in whatever deity they choose to worship. To each, their own. As an atheist, it does not offend me that people say “Christmas”, or that they put a nativity scene in their front yard – – or even that the Ten Commandments are in a courtroom somewhere in the country – – or that the Pledge of Allegiance has the word “god” in it. I’m not so self-serving and self-important that I think the whole world needs to bend to my way of life and needs to protect me from the beliefs of others. I’m not so fragile and dainty that I can’t handle it. I’m confident enough in my own beliefs, so someone else’s beliefs do not intimidate or threaten me.

Tina, my boss, is what I would term a “Jesus Freak”. She’s one of those people who will shove religion and “the good word” down anyone’s throat, if she sees a sliver of opportunity to do so.

So, she starts our personal conversation by probing me regarding politics. A favorite subject of mine – – and another area where I’m confident in my own beliefs, so no problem. She tells me she’s a GW supporter (bonus) and watched the Democrat debate the other night and laughed her way through it all. So we start talking about Howard Dean – – and we’re joking about what we’ve termed his ‘short man syndrome’. We started talking about his faux pax regarding the book of Job – – how he first said it was his favorite New Testament book of the bible. Then went on to state that he hated the way it ended.

So, we started discussing the way it ended – – and she told me that she was pleasantly surprised about my knowledge of the story, and of the bible, in general. So, I shared that I spent many years in extensive bible study in my younger adult life – – the knowledge must have stuck somewhere deep in the grey matter.

This proceeded onto a discussion about religion, faith and belief in god. She asked me where my bible studies took me. I told her that it took me on a path of curiosity, questioning and an eventual end of disbelief and finally acknowledging to myself that I do not believe in god, and do not believe that the bible, while a very nice book of tales with good messages, is not the word of god written by men inspired by said god.

She responded to this by quoting scripture after scripture after scripture to me – attempting to prove the existence of god. So, I said – – “Not to be overly argumentative, Tina – – but I just told you that I do not believe that the bible is the word of a omnipotent deity, whom I also do not believe in – – so why on earth would you use the very same book to try and prove the existence of such a being?”

She just looked at me and said, “I’ll have to work on you, Lisa”

Great – now my boss is out to save my dammed soul. That’ll teach me to open my stupid mouth about personal issues at work.

On a related note, I found this interesting link.

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8 thoughts on “Separation of Work and anything remotely personal”

  1. Well if she starts to go overboard you can do things that will keep her at a distance from you. One day come into her office and tell her you joined some weird ass religion or cult and keep talking about it passionately like you are trying to get her to join.

  2. oh blimey… if what lori surgested doesnt make enough of an impact then why not wear a turban to work or something and proclaim to have seen the muslim light? Your place is lookin damn fancy around here! Very yummy template hun.

  3. Get the turban and then the next time the JW’s come to your door, gladly ask for their Watchtower magazine and ask for a couple of more. Then take those suckers to work and put on the act of being a part of “The New Muslim Allah Witnesses” >:)

  4. Too funny Chelle!

    Yeah, I’ve always thought that people using the Bible as their one and only means of support was …well…proving my point. If you only have one book in any other area of life you were using for support, they’d laugh you out of the room. And this book, by the way, has been translated over and over since it’s writing(s). 4 people in the same room can’t play the telephone game without getting things wrong. You’re telling me that monks writing all their lifes to make ONE copy of the damn book didn’t decide half way in (and with some homebrew) that they could spice things up a bit?

  5. It always shits me how people who think they’re in the ‘moral majority’ feel that it gives them a licence to kick some righteous booty. I certainly respect their beliefs, why shouldn’t they respect mine/yours?!

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