Windy Sydney

When I lived in Orlando I worked with this nice older lady by the name of Diane. She told me stories of how she ran away from home the minute she turned 18 to New York so she could pursue her modeling career. Her modeling career led her to smoking, drinking, and occasional drug use... then she was saved... Yep. A born again Christian.

Nothing wrong with born again Christians... as a matter of fact, I don't have issue with any religion, it's just when the religion is pushed on me constantly that I get the urge to have a melt down. Mormons are good at this as well, constantly sharing their testimony and begging you to join them for meetings or activities in hopes you will "feel the spirit." Diane was constantly bringing religion into the conversation, and it shouldn't be discussed at work... it only causes problems.

Diane and I had a love-hate relationship. We would work well together one day, crack jokes, play games, we gelled... then a few days later everything I did would suddenly start to get on her nerves. She would snap at me, roll her eyes, talk bad about me behind my back to our supervisors (who knew what she was like and didn't really pay much attention to her thank God!) and make comments like, "Sydney, I am praying for you."

It would go in cycles. I would have happy-go-lucky Diane for a few days, then I would have mean-nasty Diane for a few days. If we were overstaffed and I wanted to go home early, the mean Diane would throw a fit and mention that I should work more (none of her business, even if she was right.... which she wasn't) and the nice Diane would say things like, "Oh, go on home sweetie!" or "Goodness, do what you want... we are fine here!" I never knew from one day to another which Diane was going to show up for work that morning. I remember walking up to the building bracing myself for mean Diane... praying for nice Diane, and if I had the nice Diane I was hoping she wasn't going to ask me to join her for church over and over again. I was slowly losing my mind.

Well, one day I finally did lose my mind. I couldn't take it anymore. I was getting ready to open the restaurant and Diane kept telling me that I was doing things wrong. We had worked together for years at this point. We both had the same job title, and we both did these things daily... why in the world am I suddenly doing it wrong? What *IS* the wrong way to unlock the door? I don't get it to this day. So, instead of starting a huge fight I tossed the keys to Diane and said, "Okay, you do it."

That just pissed her off. She thought I was being very rude and marched off to my supervisors office. She went in there and bitched and complained about me for about 20 minutes and then finally came back to help me with the workload. Later in the day my supervisor called me in his office and told me he had "concerns" with the way I was doing things. I explained everything to him and my story made sense. He dropped everything and life went on like normal... well, as normal as it can get working with Diane.

A couple days after this incident Diane came up to me with tears in her eyes telling me she was sorry for what she did. I accepted her apology and tried to move on with the day... but she wasn't done talking to me. She then said, "It's just that Satan likes to mess with our relationship, Sydney. He likes it when we fight and dislike each other. We have to pray to get rid of Satan."

Are you kidding me? First of all, I told Diane that I wasn't going to pray with her. Her religion was her business, and I didn't want to do stuff like that at work. Secondly, and most important, it wasn't "Satan" doing these things, making these statements to my supervisor, picking on everything I did wrong... it was her! She blamed everything wrong she did on Satan...

Now, when my family started to reply to my long resignation letter from the Mormon Church, many of them told me that Satan was leading me away, and that the stuff I learned about Joseph Smith and the rest of the "Profits" were untrue. It isn't pure fact for them, it is Satan's fault.

Doesn't blaming Satan for these things pretty much save you from having to take responsibility for your own actions, beliefs, and feelings? If you write it off as Satan trying to hurt you, you don't have to worry about digesting and dealing with the facts that you might actually be wrong.

Sydney