To Work Here, You Can Go To Any Church You Want To. Just So Long It’s Baptist. It Can Be Southern Baptist, Eastern Baptist, Northwest Baptist, Chicken Fried Baptist, Sauted Baptist, Boiled Baptist, Braised in a Wine Sauce Baptist, Gumbo Baptist, BarbeQued Baptist … Any Baptist Church At All. We Are Very Open Minded.
Headline: Not Christian Enough? Job Seeker Sues Company for Asking When He Was ‘Saved’
A Mr. Edward Wolfe of Lincoln, Nebraska, filed a complaint with the EEOC.
His first interview went well, but in a second interview with the branch manager, he told lawyers, he was questioned about his religious practices and beliefs.
According to the complaint, the manager asked Wolfe “to identify every church he has attended over the past several years; where and when [he] was ‘saved’ and the circumstances that led up to it.”
In the interview, Wolfe claims he was told most employees at Voss were Southern Baptist, but employees could go to any church, as long as they were “born again.”
Mr. Wolfe was also asked if he minded coming in early without pay for Bible Study.
I wonder what they are studying up on.
Thanks to MB for the heads up.
Please tell me that we have a law forbidding this, that it hasn’t been repealed, thrown down, and danced on in kicker boots by our lovely elected evangelical officials. Yet.
In the military it would probably happen, though– especially the Air Force, from what I hear.
1They’re sure not studying up on labor laws, that’s for sure.
2Sounds like a satirical item straight out of http://www.landoverbaptist.org/ ! Too bad it isn’t. By the way, do you think they would hire John the Baptist?
3Rhea, they cannot ask questions about religion other than ask questions that might impact the employer’s work schedule (e.g., are you available to work Friday evenings, Saturdays or Sundays – perhaps holidays), but they cannot exclude someone based on their religion.
This applicant was well within his rights to lodge a complaint and seek a legal remedy.
On findlaw.com, I came across this statement: “If the question is blatantly illegal, you can lie, too. What are they going to do, fire you for not letting them violate your civil rights?” though I would not recommend it because the employer can always find ways to make your work life a misery should they find out – and I guess not showing up for Bible study would be one clue. Besides, if you go to court, it would be better to avoid any appearance or accusation of lying. Better to let the employer sink in its own illegality.
If still in doubt, use a reliable search engine (duckduckgo is a secure search engine which means no one can track what you ask about) for “Illegal interview questions.”
I think there are around eight key illegal questions. Mind you, if you are desperate for a job, you can answer them, but you don’t have to do so.
4I used to do freelance work for a company which has its own chaplain and a timesheet code for bible study. Nice people, friendly and kind but given the opportunity to have a full time position, I politely declined. I don’t know what their recruitment/interviewing practices are but I did notice that the new employees all seemed to be very clean-cut and none of them would have seemed out of place at a Young Republicans meeting. So I expect that there are ways to accomplish what the Voss Lighting people were aiming at without being quite so heavy-handed and inelegant.
5And now I wonder how those Catholics feel who threw in with these type?
6I got a phone call at work intended for a fellow employee, a collection call, where the collector tried to sign off with ‘Have a Blessed Day’- I stopped him and asked that if he was a follower of Jesus, what was he doing working for the Moneychangers? This prompted an exchange which ended with him screaming and demanding to speak to my boss. Needless to say that never happened and I never got a phone call from that collection agency again. Maybe my co-worker paid up. I doubt it.
7@ Don, I personally know of one of those “clean-cut” types who regularly locked his step-son out of the house so he could molest his step-daughter. His defense what that he was the faithful Sunday School director at his church so he couldn’t have done this. The step-daughter’s testimony was just too credible to be ignored.
You were wise to decline the job offer.
8I’d have taken the job just to go in early for Bible study. You know what they HATE in Bible study? People who have actually, you know, STUDIED the BIBLE.
Yea, today brethren and sistren, we take our lesson from the Book of Proverbs, Chapter 31, verses 6 and 7.
Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine unto those that be of heavy hearts. Let him drink, and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more.
And what does the great King Solomon, blessed by God with wisdom and hundreds and hundreds of wives and concubines, tell us with this passage?
Pass the bottle; it’s five o’clock somewhere.
9I am speechless … it is too early on a Monday morning and it is too hot already to have the breath knocked out of an old lady so early of a day … these people are totally insane!
Pray for CO … Deadeyed Mitt opened an office up around Denver yesterday … just makes me sick … and he is telling his 4 year old grandson that, “No, I haven’t beaten Obama yet!” God willing, he never will either!
10I noticed the Southern Baptists are having their national convention in New Orleans. I would imagine that, just like the Super Bowl, extra hookers are being brought to town. I saw an interview with a former hooker who talked about how her clientele increased during religious gatherings and about how repressed the men were. It’s also noteworthy that in-room adult movie rental increases dramatically when these fine specimens of Christianity gather.
11Years ago I was in New Orleans the last time they had a Southern Baptist Convention in that fine city. Most every bar in the French Quarter had a small sign on the front door: “Warning: Contents may be Offensive to Southern Baptists.”
12Apparently, Voss is a good sized company, and one worth boycotting.
13If anyone asked me in a job interview when I was “saved”, I’d reply, “Just now when I declined to answer your stupid, invasive, illegal, question and realized I don’t want to work with your bigoted company after all.”
14I once represented a client who’d had defamatory letters sent to a lot of his competitors and various newspapers.
15The letters were also fictitious and salacious: one claimed that client had had a romp with Linda Lovelace. The letter writer owned a pretty good sized company where he convened prayer meetings every week.
We collected a fair sum; I was always happy about that one.
Does anyone know if this type of interview is sanctioned by the Voss company or if it is just at the Oklahoma branch?
16I think I answered my own question; it sounds as if it may be companywide. Here is the Voss mission statement. It contains many quotes from the Bible:
http://www.vosslighting.com/storefrontB2BWEB/showpage/missionstatement.html
Voss specializes in replacement lighting.
17Great find, june! Great find! Somehow they missed Matthew 5:14 “You are the light of the world…” but a lot of so-called Christians seem to miss the entire point of Christ’s mission – the Sermon on the Mount. Too liberal for them.
Also, I love this quote from the EXTENSIVE family history:
“Henry Voss (1915-1997), the man God selected to found Voss Electric in 1939…”
Henry Boss, Henry Loss, and Henry Toss were each rejected by God as unworthy to be the founder of Voss Electric, then when Henry Voss was on the Road to Damascus (Arkansas) he was struck blind and heard a voice saying, “Henry, Henry, why do you electrocute me so?”
Waking up the next morning, he threw away his empty bottle and thought “I’ve seen the light.” He then hurried home and opened a light store.
At least, that’s what he told his wife.
18Oh, daChipster, you slay me! Especially since (and apologies to those who don’t agree) I have serious philosophical issues with Saul of Tarsus (aka “Saint” Paul), who, while saying some good things, I think bent the Church in a direction Jesus never meant it to go. I notice that almost every quote on the Voss page june gave us is from one of Paul’s letters.
19When you are born again, does that mean you have to go through the dirty diaper stage, slobbering and making a mess on your bib and other less than fond memories of growing up?
20True story. During the Y2K conversion process, I worked for a consulting firm in Houston. We had to send a couple of our people to work in one of the client’s field offices up in North Texas… where they had a “mandatory” Wednesday afternoon Bible study. So, we sent up the Orthodox Jewish programmer, the atheist project manager and the high church Episcopalian tech writer.
21That guy may have really needed that job. Imagine having to out up with an interview like that – it’s disgusting.
22If people ask me if I am born again I just tell them, no, I was born right the first time.
23It scares me–I am becoming –I don’t know what to call it–“racist, sexist, bigoted?” I have less and less ability to put up with fake “love” of my fellow humans, less “meanness” that people are handing out, less patience with the rampant stupidity that is everywhere…
24I am grieving every day–every day(!!) for the loss of civility in this country–I remember on the day after 9/11, being in a store and the girl behind the counter said, “You are so polite.” I was startled, because “please and thank you” and holding the door for people is such normal behavior–I don’t even notice…it’s sad that it’s now noticeable, nay, notable behavior, because its the bare basics–“kindness” is what I practice and the supposedly “good” people can kiss my sinner butt( sorry, Momma)
I tell them that I’m a Southern Buddhist, that I was born again — and again, and again, and again…
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