Religion

Men and women of religion. I’m afraid I haven’t had much luck with them. From the nun who slapped my kindergarten friend around and out of the class (I wonder how many of us in the class had been traumatized by that incident), to another nun who neglected to record the school fee that I gave to her (during high school, while my father was suffering from stroke), to my accounting teacher (same school) who made me make a name sign for his church (aluminium and plywood, he said. I was a high school kid, how on earth was I supposed to do that?), to the headmaster who slapped my friend in the face with a bible, for skipping mass. My friend was a very nice girl, a star student, for goodness sake.

If that wasn’t enough, add some hate sermon at the mosque. Add a charity group who refused to help a family because they were not Moslems. Add the priest who molested school children, and is now still free. The church has not even acknowledged the problem (one of the girls committed suicide. The parents came all the way from England to talk to the Pope, while he was in Sydney, but they didn’t get to talk to him). Add terrorist groups. Add the Spanish Inquisition. Add witch hunts. You’d think religion is definitely worse than an asylum.

Unfortunately for me, I am now working for a religious organization. This is a more contemporary religion compared to Islam or Christian or Hinduism or Buddhism. So you’d expect something different, right? Wrong. It seems that there is something about faith that makes people a bit nuts, no matter which God they serve. I realized this when my employer called me and used all the manipulation technique in the book to make me accept something that I didn’t want to accept, and when I complained the next day, she denied saying what she said. I never expected to deal with Mother Theresa. But really, I was expecting something much better than that.

I’d like to think of myself as a peaceful person. I don’t like to quarrel, and I don’t like to see people quarrel. Whenever my hot-headed family members fight each other, I usually grabbed my shoes and walked out of the house. When I return, normally the fight is over. But some people just get on my nerves. They could not open their mouth without offending me. Unfortunately for me, some of these people are my bosses. I was still angry at my current employer for bullying me into accepting something that I didn’t want. I was also still angry because she didn’t keep her word. In our initial agreement, she told me that there is no time limit, and I could take my time to finish the project. Then suddenly she started counting the pages that I finished, and started sending me emails that said you have to finish this much pages per day. I was maaad. On the day I submitted the work she called again and complained about something that we had agreed on before anyway. I was reaaally maaaad. So my grumpiest bear-voice came out and I didn’t let her finish one sentence.

Later on I calmed down and it dawned on me that I was rude to a client. And that’s not good for business. What to do? Apologize, of course. For being rude only, because it’s wrong to be rude. Her memory loss is her own problem, not mine. Guess what, she said it’s ok and she blamed it on my reactive mind (this is a religious term, meaning I was reacting based on a bad experience in my past, so I wasn’t actually responsible). I don’t know about that. But I know I felt much better after my grump-fest. Venting felt wonderful and I felt ready to go on with the next project.