Long post So now that I'm no longer working there, I can get this off my chest. I worked for a pretty popular life insurance company for all of a month or so (I won't give the name because it doesn't reflect the company in any way). When I started there, I thought it was great. Finally a career opportunity where I can be myself and show my full potential. Unlike working in hospitality where they want you to bite your tongue and kiss some entitled guest's ass that comes to the hotel (just for them to fake a complaint about their service at the front desk and demand their money back. Can't afford the luxury hotel so they have to be cheap...I digress).

After meeting my coworkers my first week, I learned that pretty much everyone there was a minister of some sort. The office General manager was an ex pastor. His assistant manager was an elder of a church (and so was her husband). One of the girls they had me train with was a pastor, a beautician, and an insurance agent (She triple dipped in to her congregation for her income). My coworkers had their head so far up a god's ass, I couldn't see how they were able to function. Even the openly gay chick was blinded, which me being me, I'll never understand.

It was suffocating being there. Literally the only atheist in the room. I had to listen to them badmouth us as if we were monsters constantly. Got the strangest look when I defended atheism and other religions. I remember sitting off to the side feeling as small as a mouse. I couldn't handle anymore of their "non Christian" bashing. Had to tell them roughly (because this won't be word for word, and my heart was pounding hard) 'not all atheists are disgusting monsters as you make them out to be. There's good and bad people in all walks of life. To give atheism some credit, .02% of the US prison population is atheist. The rest are religious, and the majority of THOSE people are Christian and then Muslim. Everyone thinks they have the right belief system because it's either due to the geographical area or because it agrees with their way of thinking. Or both. People from other religions think the same about you and it's why people are killing each other.' I got my point across, somehow. And they just stared at me. The only line of defense they had was "you still need god. You can't be good without god.. You have to believe in something."

Usually I wouldn't have bitten my tongue at this point. I would have said what I was thinking. But I didn't. I wanted to point out the thousands of other gods worshiped by man, but theirs just so happened to be the most popular. I didn't because I thought I'd lose my job. My only regret to this day is that I didn't. But we parted on a bitter foot anyway. I had to split my commission with them. They knew I needed to provide for my kids. So those policies we set up with clients, the GM would intentionally postpone sending them to underwriters. I wasn't getting paid. It put me in a shit spot. They had money to fall back on. I didn't. I sacrificed a lot to give my family a better life with a new career. And the GM sends me a text demanding that I call him. It's 6 pm. He says "you're not a successful team member so far. I see you're heavy on the phones and people like you, but you're not bringing in the business. You need to decide if this is the right career for you." Basically, that was my performance warning. It has only been 3 weeks at this point. I stuck it out for another week. Still no pay. Complained to him. He made it my fault.
I started to feel like this was all because I defended atheism and other religions without outting myself. Since that day, they had kept their distance from me. I wasn't invited to the Halloween party for work, but showed up dressed up anyway. Wasn't invited to the team lunch or the meeting they had the last Friday before I quit. I came back from lunch and they were all huddled together in the office with pizza and punch.

After I was $600 in the hole for what I owed daycare, I quit. My bank account was overdrawn a little over $350. They waited until after I quit to send me $150. The last of my commission was sent two weeks after that. I struggled to get my account back in good standing. I was happy I didn't leave the hotel completely, but kicked myself because they only gave me 4 hours to work on Sundays.

Can't get anymore hours than that to this day (even after asking to come back full time). I can say, I'm truly happy to be away from those people. The debt I owe daycare is $850 that I'm slowly paying down (It cost me $307/week and thanks to my income amount I didn't qualify for assistance). Stuck trying to pick myself back up. My oldest 2 are in school. My baby is home with me during the day, and I babysit to pay this off. I let my phone get shut off to keep extra money in my pocket in case of emergency. I'm roughing all of this as a single parent. But through all this mess I'm in because they screwed me over for defending non-Christians, I'm happy. I feel like for the first time ever my head is clear. I never thought I'd see the day where I'd have to go back into hiding because of Christianity. When I realized what was going on and why, I left. It's shitty how hard it is to be the only atheist in a place of business. When I worked as an engineer, most of us were atheist. Maybe I got too comfortable. And at the hotel, we were pretty much forbidden to bring up any religious bs so it was cool. I think next time I'm going to pass on working with anyone whose background includes "I was once a pastor at XX church"...