Worker Reprimanded For Listening To 80s Music That Isn't 'Faith-Based' While He Does His Job
Separation of church and state exists regardless of who owns the office you work in.
Pressmaster | Canva Pro Work is often hard enough without being micromanaged for seemingly innocuous, petty things — for instance, your choice of music while working at your desk.
That's what happened to a Redditor on a recent day at their job, but the talking-to he received quickly moved into territory that has struck many as inappropriate — and possibly illegal.
The worker was reprimanded for playing music at his desk.
We all like a few tunes now and then while we knock out our work, right? Some studies have even shown it makes us more productive, and unless it's something incredibly loud like, say, heavy metal, it's typically just part of the background noise of whatever cubicle farm we're plugging away in. This Redditor's workplace is different, however.
"I recently got a job with a small, government-funded, vocational school in the Midwest, USA," the Redditor wrote in his post. He's new to the job, in which he works on admissions for the trade school, and right off the bat, they noticed some interesting dynamics.
Their building is owned by a church, and there is a judgmental Christian vibe in the office.
"During the interview, they informed me that they share a space with a local church," the worker wrote. He's not at all religious, but he wasn't particularly concerned. "It doesn't bother me as long as it doesn't affect me or my work," he wrote.
But once he began training, the environment seemed a bit off. "I trained with a woman, we'll call her Betty," he wrote. Betty is deeply religious and also works for and attends the church that owns the building.
Betty would play Christian music on a Bluetooth speaker for her entire shift each day at work. That's sure to annoy a person or two, but ultimately, isn't that big of a deal, right?
What did make the man uncomfortable, however, was the "judgmental" way she treated the students who would come into the office for things like placement tests. "She would probe into their personal lives," he wrote, "and heavily insist that they come to her church."
When he put on '80s music one day at work, he was told only 'faith-based' music was allowed.
A few weeks into the job, the man was in the office by himself and "slapped on some '80s hits to get me in a good mood" and motivate him to get his work done quickly and efficiently.
"Suddenly, I'm told I can not play any music that is not faith-based, even on my own speaker," he wrote. The rule left him "puzzled" as he was the only one in his part of the office that day. What difference did it make?
He told his boss that he thought it was a "ridiculous rule" but was told that "the church is the landlord and that they have their own rules." That seemed fishy to him, so he checked out the employee handbook, which made no mention of this rule — or the fact that the church's security cameras were operating in his office, which he never agreed to.
His boss was "baffled" by the pushback, leading him to look for a new job. But he couldn't help but feel unsettled by what was going on while he waited for a new position. "Am I overreacting?" he asked. "Are they running a racket?"
What's going on at his office is likely illegal, especially since the school he works for is government-funded.
Most of us know that we have a little thing called "separation of church and state" here in the U.S. And especially since the school this man works for is not only public but funded by the state and federal government, these religious rules being imposed are likely highly illegal.
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act prohibits religion from being imposed or discriminated against in the workplace, and government funding likely means other laws also apply to this man's situation.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission forbids religious discrimination "unless it would be an undue hardship on the conduct of the employer's business."
Playing non-Christian music doesn't exactly rise to that standard, and under the law, there's also nothing stopping this guy from declaring himself a Satanist who considers '80s music a religious rite — as several Redditors urged him to do.
But others urged him to take them to court since the government funding almost surely means mixing this business with the local church is very illegal.
Religious freedom also means freedom from religion, after all. It sounds like this man's employer could use a reminder about that.
John Sundholm is a news and entertainment writer who covers pop culture, social justice and human interest topics.