Ever work with people who talk about church all the time?

[Nola009]

Does it get on your nerves? If so, how do you deal with it?? I'm no devil worshipper, and I see my self as being pretty tolerant of others, but I work with some people who seem kind of smug about their church attendance and often find a way to work that into many a conversation. Completely unrelated conversations.

[xoemmylouox, ASN, RN]

I have several co-workers that are very firm in their beliefs and very active in their churches. None of them has ever made me uncomfortable. I'm not religious myself, but can appreciate how happy they are with their beliefs.

[PacoUSA, BSN, RN]

I'm curious ... Is this "coworker religion" issue more prevalent in hospitals that are religiously affiliated? Mine is definitely not religiously affiliated and it's not a problem, like I posted before, no one talks about it.

Sent from my iPad using allnurses

[Nola009]

I work for a Christian-based, non-profit, grossly underpaying nursing home. But they don't give any Christmas (or any other) bonuses or cards. Nobody's had a raise on over seven years and new grads start out at the same pay rate as those with experience. The only experienced nurses we attract are those from the small town in which we operate &/or really wacky ones. I think they prefer that administrators put a Christian spin on why they pay so low and maybe that's why we have some radical churchies?

[macawake, MSN]

It’s actually not happened even a single time as I can recall, in nurse-to-nurse conversation in any of my workplaces. I’m Swedish and according to Wikipedia Sweden is “one of the world's most secular and irreligious nations, partly because many Swedish people define themselves as irreligious but spiritual people”. I didn’t even realize that “irreligious” is a word.

Polls vary, but the highest number of atheists I’ve seen reported in one, was 85% (and Wikipedia seems to concur on this matter) but that was a few years ago.

Anyway, I think that religion is something personal and private and not something you necessarily discuss at work. Making sure that a patient’s religious or spiritual needs are met, is obviously a different thing.

[MECO28, BSN, RN]

I used to work with this one nurse who was super religious. I didn't care but then she started talking about how gay people are going to hell, etc, etc and as a gay person it made me pretty uncomfortable. I wasn't out to her but it still bothered me. Thankfully I don't work with her anymore. Unrelated, isn't one of the Westboro Baptist church crazies a nurse? I wonder if SHE talks about church at work....

[Muser69]

We had a very religious DON who had a "blessing of the hands" ceremony every year during nurses week. Most of us never went and we voiced our negative opinion. We also put a Festivus sign up at Christmas to counteract all the religious stuff. The blessing of hands was stopped last year when the religious DON was fired. There is quite a bit of religious discussion on our unit but it's kind of interesting to hear about all the different beliefs.

[Twinmom06, ASN, APN]

"Religion is like a member. It's fine to have one and it's fine to be proud of it, but please don't whip it out in public and start waving it around"

[Pangea Reunited, ASN, RN]

I used to work in a religious place with a church built into it. We had staff meetings in the church that always started with prayers. This church had pews, stained glass windows, etc... It was awkward, but somewhat amusing. There were also prayer schedules posted all over the place letting you know when to pray for doctors, pharmacists, patients, etc.

Radical religious coworkers are no more or less annoying than radical religious people in the outside world.

[OCNRN63, RN]

Sigh...it never fails here. Whenever the topic of religion comes up, someone has to say something snarky about my faith. It's too bad this conversation couldn't have continued without someone pointing a finger at a specific faith. Particularly when you only hear one side of the issue.

[roser13, ASN, RN]

Sigh...it never fails here. Whenever the topic of religion comes up, someone has to say something snarky about my faith. It's too bad this conversation couldn't have continued without someone pointing a finger at a specific faith. Particularly when you only hear one side of the issue.

But that post wasn't about you or your religion. It's about one person's experience with a family member who entered that religion. Nothing in that post was globalized to include an entire religion.

[HikingEDRN, BSN, RN]

"Religion is like a member. It's fine to have one and it's fine to be proud of it, but please don't whip it out in public and start waving it around"

I'm stealing this... :)

[OCNRN63, RN]

But that post wasn't about you or your religion. It's about one person's experience with a family member who entered that religion. Nothing in that post was globalized to include an entire religion.

If you had to deal with people constantly saying something negative about something important/personal to you, you would understand. What usually happens is when one person says something bad about JW, it turns into a dogpile. There have been threads that had to be edited heavily by the moderators (and I appreciated that) because of things that were said.

It certainly was about my faith; I've never made it a secret that I am a JW. Even if it were a post saying something negative about another faith, I would still find it offensive. This is supposed to be a site where everyone feels welcome. Badmouthing a religion runs the risk of offending others.