Worker Fired For A God Pin?
I found this disturbing article on Yahoo yesterday. Basically a man was fired. Depending on who you ask will depend on the reason. He says it was because the pin he wore said “One Nation Under God”. The company says that he was fired for not following company policy which states ONLY company pins could be worn as part of uniform.
Now me being the capitalist I am, I would have to say that if someone does not comply with uniform rules and are heavily defiant about it….they should get fired. BUT. The man claims he has been wearing it since March 2008. A year and a half and NOW the company wants to fire him? The man also claims that he had recently started bringing the bible to read on his lunch break. And it wasn’t until then that his button was an issue. IF all of that is true than the company has just discriminated against this man because of religion.
I have worked with people who have brought their bibles to work. I have worked with people who wear religious pins and religious jewelry. I personally don’t see what the problem is with it. Now if a company wants to say that there are uniform rules, fine. I am totally ok with that too. But you don’t wait a year and a half to fire someone over it.
Please read the full article (I am too lazy to c&p it here, sorry) and share your thoughts on the issue!
I agree with you. If it is simply a dress code issue, why did it take so long to fire him? If it is a religious issue then that’s just stupid, and I am a little confused… a Christian is being discriminated against in Florida? Call it a stereotype, but I would figure other people would support him.
I am equally surprised at the lack of support. Makes me wonder if there is more to the story. I suppose we will find out sooner or later. I sure hope he didn’t lie about it…I will feel like an idiot supporting his rights.
Honestly I’m not surprised… The Christian discrimination thing is happening more and more often lately. Not saying we have it as bad as yall do, but still… it does happen.
Kinda sucks that there is any kind of religious discrimination at all. I guess I am so used to the majority being Christian that it seems weird for Christians to experience discrimination like this. I just hope that eventually we all grow up and get along!
There is more to this story, there has to be. Something is missing here.
I had an employee who was a very passionate Christian, and she accused me (informally) many times for discriminating against her on the basis of her faith.
What she didn’t seem to understand is that clogging co-workers’ inboxes with email forwards, after having been counseled several times, is unacceptable, regardless of content. So is telling another employee that her weekend activities will land her in hell, and so is inquiring about and commenting on coworker’s religious beliefs. Oh, and holding lunchtime worship sessions IN THE CUBE FARM.
No one should be discriminated against based on their religion, but Christians seem to suffer a special disease in which they believe that the “righteousness” of their beliefs entitles them to disregard the boundaries of professionalism and polite society.
I would be very interested to know if this uptick in lunchtime worshiping was accompanied by witnessing, etc., and they fired him for the pin because it was more clear cut.
Also, he was called out for his violation and offered an alternate pin, and they fired him when he refused. I’m violating my company’s IT policy right now, and I don’t expect to be fired for it, as I wasn’t yesterday or the day before. But if my boss called me and told me I had to stop using the internet for non-business activity, and that maybe I should take and use my lunch break to handle personal internet biz, and I refused? He would fire me, and he’d be well within his rights.
just my two cents.
Yea now if this guy engaged in witnessing and overstepping his boundaries that’s a whole new can of worms.