Just use fair play. Put up a poster encouraging people to read something along the lines of Jesus Sure Liked Little Boys, Wink Wink. And send an email out that you will continue promoting said literature until the moron with the poster cans it and publically apologizes to all non-xians in the office.
People have been putting up with these twits far too long. If you insist on dragging your personal issues into the office, you should be humiliated and fired, in that order.
I don’t think such a confrontational stance is wise, when we’re talking about a co-owner. Unless one has a new job all lined up.
Ohhh…
I don’t care if my PC freezes,
long as I got my pop-up Jesus
If it was promotional material for one of their products, then yes, there should be some agreement between both owners regarding the shared space. But this is “promoting” the sister company’s participation in some community event–and b/c of the controversy, a dumb way to promote, IMO–, but while sister company may derive some benefit from promoting its community activities, the OP’s place of work gets either no benefit or, screwed. It might offend some clients arriving for ThatDuckIsEvil’s place of work and any benefit from a positive reaction will be for sister company, the actual sponsor. The other owner can then decide how he wants to display it in his company’s non-shared area and let him deal with the reactions from his employees and their HR dept (you’re not HR for both companies, are you? If so, then also do that rules about posting thing others are suggesting.)
Personally, I would have taken it down first, then sent the e-mail, but, because the day is over . . . anything happen?
Excuse me, but what is confusing about the poster to some people? And BTW, it’s The Passion of the Christ.
um . . . its confusing to co-workers of the OP since their interent provider/computer networking company has no connection to it, nor is it a sponsor of its viewing?
Are you still around? I thought you stomped off to Fathom is a snit or something. Oh well.
CheekyMonkey613, as to your third point: was that just a good example of how to be overly confrontational in a religious discussion at work?
protip: you probably don’t want to go around here calling people idolaters over religious differences…besides, I thought you Jews considered Christians polytheists, right?
BTW, what’s up with that bit about the airplane in your second point? I’m familiar with the American Airlines pilot, and think he’s an offensive idiot and completely unprofessional, but I’ve never heard of Christians hijacking planes for religious reasons, they tend to prefer handing out lame comic tracts. “Considering recent events” as you say, wouldn’t it be a certain other prominent religion that you, as a Jew, would be likely to fear hearing proselytized by a man commanding an airplane?
I’m an equal-opportunity criticizer, so I’ve got some for everybody here. But first, it should go without saying that this is a veerrrrrry delicate situation, since you may have unintentionally gotten on the bad side of the owner of Sisterco. So ignore the advice of those facetiously or seriously advising you to make a Big Hairy Aggressive Deal out of this. The reality of the politics of the situation is that there’s Big Him and Little You, and having right on your side won’t count for much if this blows up in your face. That said, let’s look at your e-mail:
What with the talk about “that poster” and “customers possibly being offended,” this sounds very much like you’re not objecting to movie posters as such, but to this movie poster in particular. You assume it is offensive to some – which it may well be, but the fact of its offensiveness should not have been your starting place since – surprise! – a lot of Christians don’t find it offensive at all. As you’ve discovered. You say you’re a “believer” but still were offended – why? One assumes you haven’t seen the movie. I’m a believer too, but I’m not going to assume the movie is offensive (or, for that matter, unoffensive) until I see it. The better tone, IMO, would have been the one taken when you said:
This to me is entirely defensible and, incidentally, less likely to offend. It’s entirely defensible because it’s not premised on the content of a particular movie, as your e-mail implicitly was, and it’s less likely to offend – well, for exactly the same reason. You’re talking about movie posters generally. Not one movie particularly. So the line I would have suggested taking would have been more along the line of “Movie posters just scotch-taped on the door make our reception area look unprofessional. And they confuse the customers, who wonder why we are promoting films that have no apparent connection to our work.” Etc. etc. blah blah blah.
Looking at what he said:
Handle with asbestos gloves, man. I probably would forward this up to my supervisor – actually I’d talk to my supervisor in person, with the door closed. I would explain that I was worried by the clear implication that Sisterco owner doesn’t care if he offends people (so long as he can pray for them) and doesn’t care if he confuses them (so long as there’s a believer handy they can talk to). I would ask for his/her guidance on how to respond, if at all. I would also make very clear that my concern was prompted not by anti-religion-ism, but by concern for the professional appearance and reputation of the company. I would tell him that employees had complained and one explicitly asked that the poster be removed before customers arrived.
It is not the privilege of Sisterco’s owner to confuse and offend your clientele, and then to make so explicit that he doesn’t care if he does so. But it’s not your place to explain that to him. This is manifestly not your battle and it would be six kinds of foolish for you to wade into it. You have nothing to gain and potentially a lot to lose. Kick it upstairs, express your concern and dismay, and then leave it to the Powers That Be to figure out. Your best recourse at this point, IMO, it to back the heck away from this hand grenade. But you don’t want to drop it, so . . . hand it to someone else.
In short, my advice on how to communicate with this individual is . . .don’t. I’d have different advice if he was anyone other than the owner of Sisterco, but that’s what he is. CYA, my friend. Cover your ass.
"Oops, I didn’t know that the poster was placed there by someone prepared to invoke oppression under color of office. Regretfully, your poster was damaged, but a hasty google search of “Jesus” and a rapid color print-out has put things right again:
(Suicide, I know, but a guy can still dream.)
And one more thing: I’m a great believer in presenting solutions as well as problems because I think that keeps you (anybody) from coming off as a whiner or complainer. I realize I didn’t suggest any solutions, so I’ll add just that bit.
Your complaint is clear – it’s two-fold actually: (1) the poster was put up in the first place and (2) the response of Sisterco owner, which you don’t know how to respond to. The potential solutions to present, IMO, are: (1) "I think it would be a good idea to have some guidelines as to what is acceptable to display in the public areas of the companies. That way we won’t have any confusion about what is allowed and what isn’t. And it would be great if Sisterco could give us a heads-up as to when they are putting up promotional materials, so we can be ready for them, and tell us what the connection is to Sisterco’s product/function, so that we can explain it. Part of the problem with this poster was that no one had any idea who put it up, or why.
As far as (2) is concerned . . . well, I don’t have a solution for that, because I don’t know the guy or what your relationship is to him or what your bosses’ relationship is to him. So I think this is an occasion when the best bet is to just frankly say, “I’ve got a problem and I don’t know what to do. What do you think?”
So I guess I really only had half a solution. Hardly worth three paragraphs really . . . .
You thought? What was it like, being the first time and all?
:lol:
What the hell is fathom anyways?
Well, maybe some Christians don’t find an image of a man literally nailed to a torture device after having the skin flayed from his back and his scalp pierced by thorns and left to die in the hot sun offensive but I do. I find it pretty fucking disturbing, gross, and nauseating. Hanging that in an office is like hanging up pictures from a morgue depicting violent death.
Which may be the point - there are a lot of folks out there who aren’t Christian and may, like me, find a graphic depiction of death-by-torture to be utterly gruesome. How is that appropriate for a place of business? That’s just a sick thing to hang up in public.
Opal’s board. I got mad at Lynn and made an ass of myself over there.
Duck, this man is a numbskull, much like the American Airlines pilot.
I don’t care about how people choose to waste their time. When they start sticking it in my face, I reserve the right to get annoyed about it. This guy is not making use of his free speech rights or anything, he’s using a public area to proselytize.
The FCC decided Bono didn’t swear when he used ‘fucking’ as an adjective (“this is fucking great!”). In much the same way, nobody minds the name Jesus when it’s used in a way that’s amusing or interesting instead of obnoxious, preachy, stupid, self-important, arrogant… well, you get the idea. More average swears like “aww, Jesus!” tend to be reflexes, not actual attempts to persuade the unfaithful that “Aww, Jesus is great! He made me stub my toe!” So it’s perfectly logical to interpret the two things different.
Yeah, I do. And I find the idea obnoxious, preachy, stupid, self-important, and arrogant. Has it ever occured to you that those are not objective standards? That someone else might think cursing is obnoxious and praise is interesting? Do you hate just 'cause hating’s fun? Or what?
So, do you mean the OP, in particular? If so, could I see a cite of his flippantly using the name of Jesus…particularly in the workplace?
If you mean all those who are not unapologetically mystical…well, I don’t blindly follow anyone, but don’t take anyone’s name in vain, either. Please apologize to me.
The Fabulous Furry Forums of Fathom
Hi, Opal!
You should have just added a caption.
“Just hangin’ around this weekend? Go see The Passion, sponsored by Sister Company at the Googolplex!”
/window seat please