Alot of employers support charities through the United Way, including mine. Recently, there was a staff meeting to try to get employees to donate. I was not impressed by the charity they chose to come and speak. It was a Christian farm camp for troubled teenage girls, run by ex-military people. Unlike similar operations, they make it clear that parents can dump their daughters there whether they want to be there or not. Another thing they emphasize is that they then pull these kids off any psychiatric meds they might be on. They also mentioned funny names they have for hard labor, as if this hard labor was therapy. They said the girls stay at least a year and get six months added every time they try to run away.
There were three guest speakers. One was an executive type in a dark suit, an employee of the United Way who launched into a tale of how he got laid off from a corporate exec job after so many decades with the company, and how the next job he found was with the United Way and how it doesn't pay as much as his old job but it feels so good to make a difference. That was his lame attempt to relate to a bunch of underpaid government workers in bad economic times. This guy then handed the mike over to the other two guest speakers, from the farm camp. It was an older woman and a seventeen-year-old girl. The woman was just an idiot, and the girl looked like she had been brainwashed.
Here's where I've got a problem. I have a sister who is bipolar. I've seen what it's like when she's off her meds and it's horrible. I'd like to see them try that pulling-meds shit with her. I myself used to take Lexapro. The stuff was almost like rose-tinted glasses, and then getting off it was a bitch. I had to get used to being crabby and irritable all over again. Unless you're a shrink, you don't fuck with somebody's daily dose of that stuff, either. So, considering all that, I can imagine a bunch of girls freaking out jonesing for their head-meds while a bunch of religious, military people scream at them and push them around to break their will.
Then there's the matter of a religious organization coming into a government office to make a pitch to a bunch of government workers who are on the clock. If the employer was a small family run company, that's one thing. But I work for a government agency. Is that shit even legal? Not only do somebody's taxes pay my salary, but I would have rather been doing my job than sitting there watching that shit. Separation of church and state, anyone? I'm an agnostic with Christian relatives, including my stupid aunt who once tried exorcism on my cousin, so I am really not impressed.
I complained to my supervisor afterward. I wasn't the only one who complained either. A member of my team who happens to be Wiccan, also complained. We only did this because we know this supervisor well enough to be absolutely sure he's not going to arrange for us to have a bad day and then give us a shitty evaluation. (The boss we had before, we definitely wouldn't have complained to. She was highly religious and wore so much makeup she looked like a CPR training dummy. With her in charge, I used to get in trouble for cussing. I'm sure you've all known at least one of those.) We know of at least one other co-worker who wasn't pleased (an engineer who's into conspiracy theories). I'd imagine there are others, but most won't complain because they're probably afraid for their jobs.
I'm just wondering what organizations would give a fuck about this situation. The ACLU, perhaps?
