Work is fairly miserable right now

[Tradd]

Never mind

[sweetana3]

Wow, thank heavens he is leaving. He has created stories that will last a very long time and they sure are not good ones. Makes you wonder about management but your stories make us wonder about them all the time.

[Tradd]

This guy was forced on us by the very highest international people in the company.

[JaneV2.0]

This guy was forced on us by the very highest international people in the company.

Congratulations on outlasting him!

[frugalone]

I don't quite know what's going on, but glad things are improving for you!

[Tradd]

I deleted everything as t was just too much. Basically, we had a guy from one of our overseas office, who is a very devout Muslim, in the office for a few weeks. Going around to different offices in different countries to get exposure to how things are done. The problem was that guy was causing a ruckus when there wasn’t a private place for him to pray (he actually threw people out of their offices), called me a racist and an Islamaphobe when I told him he can’t take the exam for the license I have since he’s not a US citizen, even after being shown the regulations. It was stuff of that sort. He was finally packed off back overseas today. We just couldn’t deal with him anymore. He was disruptive and trying to get work done was very difficult.

He was pleasant enough when he wasn’t causing a ruckus. I don’t know if he’s like that in his home country (not a Muslim majority country) or if he decided to just play it up since he was in the US.

[Teacher Terry]

That sounds awful. Glad he is gone.

[flowerseverywhere]

You have really had a hard go of it lately. I don’t know how to handle the religious thing. Is he expecting to be paid for his prayer time? I remember how I worked in an office and the smokers would go out for a half hour four times a day (plus lunch) and their phone trees would send them to the non smokers After a few team meetings a group of us filed a complaint with Human Resources. They actually had to institute a policy about being away from your desk.

[Tradd]

You have really had a hard go of it lately. I don’t know how to handle the religious thing. Is he expecting to be paid for his prayer time? I remember how I worked in an office and the smokers would go out for a half hour four times a day (plus lunch) and their phone trees would send them to the non smokers After a few team meetings a group of us filed a complaint with Human Resources. They actually had to institute a policy about being away from your desk.

I don't know about the wanting to get paid for his prayer time, but it was a space issue. All our offices are occupied. The conference room always has people in and out of it. Guy wanted a private space for his prayer time, but that space simply doesn't exist. S

[jp1]

I realize that a) I'm in San Francisco where average expectations may be different, and b) I work for a highly scrutinized mega-corp that dots all their i's and cross all their t's for everything HR, or otherwise, regulatory related, but although we don't have a single private office, we do have a privacy room that has no windows and does have a lock on the door. (I think it's actually called a quiet room.) The main reason it exists is for lactating mothers who might need to pump breast milk. But it would work equally well as a prayer room. There are even lockers in it where one could store a prayer rug (or a lactation pump).