Ouch.

During our men's group Sunday night, we briefly ran across the subject of being a Christian in the workplace. It reminded me of an eye-opening event. But first, let's set the stage.

--/begin setting stage:

A few jobs ago, I worked at this large company (900+ employees in a large cube farm) where I got promoted to work on a QC team. Basically, I was decent enough at what I did and technically-savvy, so I got to be a member of this five-person Quality Control group. We grabbed "grunt work" submitted by all of the other 60 or so employees in my department, and checked them for accuracy, compliance with regulations, etc.

It was pretty mind-numbing after a while, but better than doing the grunt work I had graduated from.

(Imagine the above picture as half of my department. Now imagine that there are eight to ten more departments of that size. Now cram all of that into one large, open building with no windows. Cubes as far as the eye can see. Have I scared you yet?)

--/end setting stage.

Anyway, there were two other Christians in my group that stood out. I'll call the first one "Laverne", because she reminds me a LOT of Nurse Laverne on Scrubs. She always spouted Christianese phrases and had a bit of the "holier-than-thou" air about her. But, she was sweet and we got along well. Her main problem was her work ethic - it stunk. Always late, put out very poor-quality work, etc..

The second, I'll refer to as "Pam". As in Pam from The Office. I also had a Jim-like crush on her, but like Pam, she had a fiance. That she eventually married. So, no Season-Two-Finale-Kiss going on there.

Anyway, she was very pretty, and had a great personality. The only odd thing about her? She belonged to this denomination that was very strict about hair, makeup, dress, etc. Most everyone in the department really liked her, but thought she must be weird because of the almost-cultish "rules" she had to follow.

I kept these summations of my fellow Christians to myself, but always felt that I should try and balance out the equation by trying to be a stable, reliable, and above all NORMAL Christian. Yeah, that worked out well.

One afternoon, "Pam" pulled me aside and told me that someone had asked her why, if I was a Christian, did I loudly bad-mouth other people's work when doing QC? You see, those of us in the QC group tended to mouth off to each other to let off steam, and that usually included making fun of the obvious mistakes other people made that we had found during the day.

I had also forgotten the fact that, in a cube farm, EVERYTHING said out loud can not only be heard by 20 other people, but spreads quickly.

Needless to say, I was shaken up by "Pam's" statement. Here I was, trying to be that good Christian and be an example to the non-Christians around me, and I didn't even notice that I was just as jaded and flawed as everyone else. What a world view, right?

I can only hope that the experience has served to illicit some change in my behavior. It's definitely made me more aware of how criticizing others often only serves to damage our reputation as Christians. I still tend to be a bit snarky, but I try to do so in a way that doesn't put others down. At least, that's my goal.

"Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye."
Matthew 7:1-5