I didn't need more time to make my decision. Today at work, I asked the boss if it would be possible to alter my Sunday schedule to come in a couple hours later than previously. I volunteered the information that it was because I had found a church in Lincoln that I liked, and wanted to attend in the future.

He said, "I respect that, and it shouldn't be a problem." He was pretty sure that the person who's going to be working Sunday mornings wouldn't mind picking up a couple extra hours each week (there's already some Sunday schedules being switched around next month anyway). He couldn't promise that I would be off this coming Sunday morning (though it's likely someone will cover even that), but he's confident that after that, it should be fine.

He didn't ask about what church or denomination. Wisely so, I suppose. Talking about religion in the workplace can be a minefield in more than one way. More on that presently.

The person closing the store tonight was someone I don't usually work with. A middle aged man with a family, he has two or three other part time jobs in addition to this one. He's always seemed pretty nice, but I rarely work with him because he's normally scheduled to work on the nights I'm off. But this week, he traded shifts with someone else, so I got the rare privelege, so to speak.

[Bitscape leaves for a while to ride in the evening air...]

[...And returns, after not only a ride, but more websurfing, plus about 8 hours of sleep. 06:30 CDT]

Hmmm, where was I? Right.

Well, everything was going normally, until about a half hour before my shift ended. I had been running around doing my various cleaning tasks, and I returned to the counter when I finished.

The coworker had changed the radio station, but it was playing so softly in the background that it couldn't be heard distinctly. There was a lull in customer activity.

He said, "Oh, I love this song." And proceeded to turn it up.

Not recognizing it, I asked who it was. He told me the name of the band. It was someone I had never heard of.

The style of it could have passed for adult contemporary, I suppose. ("Adult contemporary." The generic label given to everything too bland to be edgy, too "mature" to be called pop, with not enough distinction of any kind to fall into any real genre.)

With nothing else to do, I listened. The singer went on about how nobody understood the cares and suffering of others, using as examples drivers stuck in traffic not paying attention to how others were also frustrated, or something like that. Well, it did have a point.

As the last verse began, my coworker said, "This is the best verse."

The singer went on to paint a picture of a man nailed to a cross, about to die while nobody around understood or cared.

Ding ding. Oh boy, here we go. A full-on smack of in-your-face Christian religiosity, delivered straight to a workplace near you.

My shift was almost over. I didn't want to overreact or cause a scene. But frankly, I was feeling a little annoyed. I don't come into the workplace and start bombarding coworkers with my religious symbols and ideas. If asked, I might tell people what my religion is (that is, if I could find a way to summarize it in a sentence or two), but I'm not going to go around spouting off about it. That's the code.

OTOH, an objective look at the situation was needed. This was music he liked. I hadn't protested or vetoed the station. (I almost certainly would have if it weren't for the fact that it was almost time for me to leave.) He was simply sharing the fact that this was music he liked. So far.

He went on to talk about the history of the band, as well as mentioning the names of a few other Christian bands he liked, and then proceeded to describe a few of the local Christian stations he liked. Creepiness factor, edging up by the second. It became clear that we weren't going to get away from the subject.

"My kids know all these songs. It's the only thing they listen to. They hear them all the time in the car, and we don't have any other music in the house."

Introverted as I am, I refrained from saying the following: "You know, you seem like a nice person, but you're starting to sound like a bit of a psycho. It's people like you that give Christians a bad name. And as for your kids, maybe they aren't old enough to have figured things out yet, but eventually they will, and that's when they'll grow up to hate you. Because you're setting them up for some real misery when they become teenagers. I've been there. I know."

Instead, I went with a more measured response. Playing dumb, just a little. "Well, you're really a fan of all this Christian stuff, aren't you?"

He replied with upmost sincerity. "It's my reason for being."

Since the subject was on the table, I asked what his denomination was.

He replied that he attended the Lutheran church. "But it's not the denomination that matters. It's the relationship with Jesus Christ that's in here. That's the important thing." He pointed to his heart.

A customer arrived at the counter, interrupting the conversation, and another one after that.

Then it was time for me to go back into the office and count down my drawer before I left.

The conversation was left hanging at that point, and would not resume. I thought about sticking around after my shift to talk a little longer. I guess I just didn't feel like I wanted to spend my time on that.

I know how that goes. I've gone through the script more than a few times.

Had I been stayed longer, assuming he stopped talking for five seconds, I would have given him the "Been there, done that, didn't work for me" speech.

I also wondered whether he had caught wind of the fact that I asked for Sunday mornings off to go to church. (I didn't hear the manager mention it to him, but it's certainly possible that they talked out of my earshot. After all, he did say he was going to try to find somebody to take my hours next Sunday. Though he did say [name of coworker] probably wouldn't want them since he also goes to church on Sundays, he might have asked anyway.)

If that was the case, my devout coworker could have assumed that I was of a similar persuasion. Maybe he thought he had found someone who would share his obsession.

Since we don't normally work the same hours, I doubt I'll be seeing much of him again anyway. But if we do happen to work another shift together, and the subject comes up again, I'll need to figure out a graceful way to inform him of my position.

We can cross that bridge when we got to it.