Dear Claudia,

Recently my boss hired someone he knows from church. She’s really nice, but has this annoying habit of bringing religion into every discussion. It doesn’t matter who she’s talking to (candidates, hiring managers, perfect strangers), and it doesn’t stop at just “God bless you.” We’re talking all-out, in your face, religious recruiting here. Our office is an open area where it’s impossible to avoid overhearing her, but asking her to stop only brings on another round. The boss likes her, and she’s producing results so I expect she’ll be around for a while; what can I do to improve this situation?

Praying for Change

Dear Praying for Change,

Oh dear, I knew we'd eventually get to faith in the workplace. You’ve got yourself a really interesting situation here, complete with the miracle that no one has duct-taped your colleague’s mouth shut during work hours yet.

Although workplace religious rights and protections are legislated in the United States (forgive me for assuming, you may be located somewhere else in the world), I'll leave the legal discussion to the attorneys and HR Generalists in our midst. So let’s focus on common sense instead, shall we?

The common sense answer is that your workmate either lacks an awareness of the emotional states of those around her (a skill that is commonly used in the back-and-forth of everyday conversation), or she chooses to promote her own goals in spite of having that awareness. Chances are reasonable that she's good-intentioned, and hasn’t got a clue that she isn’t playing nicely in the sandbox.

Regardless, you can’t control her behavior. You can only control yourself, and you do have a few choices in this regard: you can educate her about your preferences (“I don’t want to talk religion with you. Pick another topic.”), you can give her a taste of her own medicine (visions of an altar on your desk to a deity other than God Almighty come to mind), you can ignore her (“La-la-la-la-la, I can’t hear you!” while you pick up a phone to make your next candidate call), or you can wholeheartedly get into the discussion with her (put on your seatbelt, and sharpen your debate skills). I don’t recommend that last one, by the way, as it ignores the real reason you’re at work anyway. The most drastic choice available to you, of course, is to find another job – but I encourage you to keep that as the ultimate last resort.

Generally speaking, when someone irritates me beyond belief the opportunity to learn and grow is mine. I encourage you to to check your own biases and motivations for holes and assumptions; it’s possible that without expecting it you’ve started a graduate-level course in dealing with difficult people. Make it your goal to come out of the situation aligned with your highest values.

Of course if that doesn’t work, you might reconsider the duct tape idea.


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