Other Kinds of Praise

The preacher said there was the praise you gave to God in the midst of your trials and tribulations. Okay. I can take that, but he also overlooked another kind of praise: The kind that comes from resisting the evil and mean spiritedness of the day.

So often I hear Christians talk about praising God and giving God the praise. What amazes me is when they don’t exercise that in their relationships and on their jobs. We all know about the difficult co worker (and sometimes that person has been us) who brings their arguments with their spouse to work and tries to get any loss of a sense of power back by deciding they have a good opinion about how the job “really” should be done. 

It’s one thing to have a better suggestion and a good supervisor who will hear it and implement it, but it’s another to stage a coup because you’ve got issues and you didn’t win at home, so you look for a victim at work. 

A friend and I were talking recently about employment issues and dynamics.  I had left a job feeling really put upon (and it wasn’t the first time). Somebody left, I got their job. No raise.  Somebody left again. I got their job. No raise. And when I started saying No, I was difficult and I saw that oncoming train of me being pitted against a black woman while the white woman over both of us could throw up her hand and say I wasn’t being racist. He’s being difficult and making the initial supervisor’s life difficult.

I’ve heard from the old folks more than I care to remember just be thankful you got a job. I know many of those same old folks lived the system of segregation and really took the attitude when they found a “good” job that they should be thankful to God and hold on to it for dear life. And dear life could mean bread and butter in or out of their children’s mouths. 

The here I come gawking at the words falling from their mouths. It was hard for me to get a grip on their point of view in my present situation. Different folks. Different times. I’m still amazed at people who stay in abusive jobs for years then I have to think about those same people will stay in abusive relationships for years. Their faith has shifted from God to fear cloaked under the guise of good sense and being practical.

 Then I had to realize that many of them stayed so I didn’t have to in this day and age.  That’s how I choose to interpret at this point.  Could they have pushed for better? I think so, but I was born later than them and have a mindset built up not only out of what they suffered, that says we don’t have to take that anymore. Many of us are fighting battles that didn’t take place year ago. Sometimes you can’t escape the war, you can only delay it. 

I too am a parent and with that last job I stayed for more reasons to do with my son and paying bills and keeping a roof over our heads. Sometimes I think employers know your personal stuff and think they’ve got you right where they want you especially if you’re a good dependable employee. 

I’m also of the mindset that God would want better for us than abusive job situations.  I don’t think we should have to go along to get along.

Sometimes trying to be cooperative with lowdown just isn’t the thing to do. You give an inch, it will take a mile (several of them and your life too).

Then there is that person who can take it for Jesus or “my God”.  I often wonder who told them their soul was something to be battered against like they were quite human.  Too many black folks have already “taken it” for us.  It’s time to take back and resist. Too much evil is loose in the world.

To resist is to praise. 

I remember at my last job people questioning my sanity for speaking up about the way employees were being treated and most of all bullied. I even complained about it to the board. Nothing was done. I left.

Still unemployed I don’t regret leaving the job or the stressors of being unemployed. I gambled, but I gambled with the expectation that God was going to answer in some kind of way. I’d be lying if I told you that that positive expectation hasn’t been challenged and seriously questioned because it has.  But I still have no regrets looking in expectation for the next and better door to open.

It says somewhere, “resist the devil and he will flee from you.” I know this isn’t what some church folks want to hear especially in the context of jobs, but we need to hear it. There are way too many of us sitting in abusive workplaces more out of fear than necessity, overworked, underpaid and mistaken for things not people. Yeah, you’ve got the light bill and the kids need to eat, but you’re paying for it with high blood pressure, headaches the doctor can’t track to a source, quick tempered in all the wrong situations, and a seething underlying anger at the world who you feel has betrayed you, or you’re angry at yourself for your own predicament and somebody else’s meanness and not fighting back for yourself.

When I resisted at my job there was some back lash. I had to go to the doctor after my three week notice and I was docked that day of work. I didn’t know it was in the PPM that you couldn’t do that. I was reminded of this in a meeting where I was also told I could go ahead and quit that day if I wanted to  as if they were doing me some kind of favor. I told them No. I would end my days of service there as stated on my notice letter and further sent them an email to document that I had talked to a lawyer and had been informed that if they gave me any trouble my last week there that I would seek legal action.

My co workers had played nice with the administration worried about bills, house notes and children like I didn’t have the same concerns. But my son had called me one day out of the blue to tell me that I should quit my job because I was moody, didn’t do anything anymore when I came from work but sit in front of the television, was miserable. I didn’t recognize my own self defeated behavior. I didn’t know my then 17 year old son had seen this in a hurry to get out the door and hang with his friends. My answer to him was I’ve got bills to pay but I appreciated his coming to me with his concern.

I was operating out of fear at the same time that I had been resisting the devil so to speak. I’d be lying if I said it was an easy thing to bear resistance against wrong especially when it’s your bread and butter, but I knew that illness and the grave might have the last word if I didn’t do something.  I fought the good fight out the front door on my own terms. I’d stayed too long and felt compelled to pursue other career and dreams.

Nobody ever told me this was praise too. I like David had slung my rock and popped Goliath dead between the eyes. What troubled me was that he was still standing when I left. I felt like the failure and other employees who complained and moaned under duress in my office, getting more time in than my clients kept right on working under the craziness. They stayed. I thought there should have been an insurrection. Many of them lied to cover their ass, pretend like they loved their jobs and lied about how happy they were to be there. A great big wad of spit in the eye of the ancestors who’ve already paid the price for them to say No and mean it and take out looking for another kind of north star in something better for them and their children, not living from pay check to pay check and insult to insult that wasn’t in the job descriptions. And our kids are watching us!

It’s praise. 

Months after I left, several old co workers stepped out on faith and left too looking for something better.  A comment had been made that Conrad’s going to start a domino effect and I guess I have.  Sometimes it’s not just the fight to take Goliath down.  Who knows how many people had already slung rocks between his eyes and it did nothing. Nothing but weaken that spot so somebody down the line would sling the rock and break open what others had already been pounding at for who knows how long. The previous rock slingers probably felt like me that they had failed even after speaking up and out. I guess the universe has its own time.

Don’t be afraid to resist the oppression on your jobs, to speak out for justice, for what’s right, to resist crazy co workers whose job description is to bring hell to work. Draw lines and tell the devil he’ll come no further.  Keep them out of your office or space when you can.  But do your job and do it well.  It’s not an easy thing to do, but the effect on your mental, spiritual and physical health and the real lessons we teach our children about what’s worth fighting for are lost.  Then we sit back and complain about how crazy they all are. They had wonderful teachers in those of us who did not slake our thirst for righteousness.

I had someone to comment that I was not at my last job to resist the foolishness of the upper management.  I differ on this. I was there to serve clients, but I was also there to serve my own best mind which is one that does thirst for righteousness. He thought I’d wasted my time speaking up. I know better. God had me slinging rocks all over the place.

I praised.

Praise isn’t just about jumping pews, waving our hands when the preacher says what we want to hear, that song about Jesus that takes me back to the old way.  Praise has another side and it’s resistance to injustice and mean spiritedness and those persons who would love to undermine your sense of self. 

Praise enough to say No when it means the destruction of somebody else’s life and well being or your own.  See if you can be obedient to the other kinds of praise that don’t always feel so good or having you looking cute. Sometimes praise means bearing your teeth like a good wolf to warn evil, that far and no farther.

You have to remember one thing. Your supervisor isn’t your real boss. God is.

© 2012 Conrad R. Pegues