My first manager HATED religion

He was my manger at the time of me reverting - and no - I never told him I had reverted.

He was always just a completely angry and hateful man - but there were some topics that really brought out the worst in an already pretty sour existence, and religion was one of those things.

He wasn't my first manager, I had had many jobs and managers before that, I just mean first - as a Muslim.

It wasn't a completely new experience for me, being in a position where, despite me being atheist, and agreeing with another person's views, I ended up being the one to defend religion. This would happen when the other person was being so harsh, and so strong with their expression against religion, that I felt some sense of morale obligation to say something.

Example of a conversation I had where someone was putting science against religion. Their core arguements were -

1. Science has evidence, it has books, religion does not
2. Science thinks something, it may be wrong, but when evidence comes forward that shows otherwise it accepts and adjusts it's position. Whereas religion does not

And essentially I was trying to explain (as an atheist also...)

1. Religions always have their own books that they have as evidence, they have people who back those books, and whilst you may not agree, they still have evidence. You'd be able to find failings and inaccuracies in both (not Islam) so that's kinda a blank point
2. Science is full of many bias and is almost always wrong in some respect. Sure maybe the core explanation is based on something widely accepted, but the majority of scientific study is laced with faults. And it is often warped by politics, money, personal gain etc etc. yea ideally it wouldn't be, but to display it based on it's ideal, you need to do the same with religion if that's the plan.

And with Mr Hateful-manager, it was more about trying to diffuse the hate. Any form of real discussion was beyond him at that time.

If we had a customer who was religious he would always take time after they left to rant about how they are horrible stupid people. The best I ever managed was stopping him. Pointing out that they aren't doing anything that harms him, and that by doing his rants he is being there aggressor for no reason, making him by all accounts the bad guy.

If course I would hide my praying at work, not mention anything about me and my thoughts and just try and shrink the damage he could cause. I know that if anything had ever happened then employment law would be on my side, but that's not so much the point.

Time passed and I changed companies. I still wasn't outwardly telling most people, I would still hide in a room to pray and I would still not really do too much to express it. Towards the end of me being at this company that attitude has changed however.

I started there in one job and had a manager who, again, was really just a horrible person. This one was different to Mr hateful, let's call her Mrs snake. Mrs snake had so many faces that it was impossible to keep track, she engineered situations to be hard and challenging and outright disrespectful.

By this time in my journey I had started to develop the slight ability to sense people. I has previously not been a great judge of character. I knew what was good and what was not - but it took me a while to determine the nature of a person. Sadly this was the case with Mrs snake too. And whilst that job was really very demoralising, and genuinely caused a lasting sort of damage to me, I did gain a better sense of people.

She clearly had implicit racism, and thought herself to be above others. She would damage and attack others, then play the victim to gain favour. Any time she did something wrong it was because she is doing so so much and it's so important, and when others don't do as she says it's because they're terrible and hate her.

And after the redundancy, for a time I did really hate her. I think now I just resent the situation, and am sad I didn't see it sooner.

I redeployed to another job in the company that I didn't want to keep, but this new found sense of freedom I had allowed me growth. The grievance I had against her resulted in her and her manager 'leaving' the company and though I didn't want to stay myself, I now felt that I could exist more as me. The 'who cares' feeling that a teenaged Adam would have held managed to say least in part, return.

I became more open with who I was, and did Islamic awareness and optional talks during Ramadan so people could learn. The area was very white/Christian. There was a Muslim community, but the company was 99% white. Mrs snake once said about the demographics of the area as

'not having many bame (black and ethnic minority) people, but we know where they are.'

Bame being a common term for companies to use in the UK

And the emphasis on 'they' was hard and clearly negative.

Safe to say not many people came to or mentioned the sessions I ran.

Fast forward to my current job. I was completely open about my identity as and when it was appropriate to mention. (I didn't just go about trying to get others to revert ha) And have the pleasure to work with a few others who are Muslim also.

Where I work is noticeably more diverse and accepting. There are still the same things, the same 'odd vibes' you get from people, but the feeling I have is off greater comfort and control.

There was this one guy who mocked Ramadan, Eid and tried to get me to drink alcohol and bacon. He was a prick. I felt a sense of disappointment that despite him doing so in meetings or in the open that no one said anything. But I feel comfortable enough in myself that is didn't get too deep.

I have no need for people to be my friend, and he was clearly not wanting to be one either. Fortunately he was a contractor, so has since gone.

I think my advice to me, is to just be myself and be non apologetic about it. To be more careful of people, and to actively protect myself.

That being said, if I had done so straight away I would have 100% exposed myself to abuse, so it's a tricky one