When I first decided to leave the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (the only true church upon the face of the earth, and obviously a decision made because I couldn’t live without coffee for a minute longer) I had the unenviable task of telling my family, my friends, and my coworkers of my decision. Because I live in an area dense with Mormons, I was not the only LDS member working at the library; I had three coworkers who were also Mormon.
Tangent: Why is it that leaving the Church has to be such a big deal? You can’t just stop attending. Nnnooooo. There is so much that goes into “being Mormon.” Your underwear, for one thing. There are garment lines, and then there are “normal people” underwear lines. If I had stopped wearing my garments without telling my coworkers first, they would have noticed anyway. Every time I bent over and had a normal panty line under my slacks, it would broadcast to the world that I was no longer wearing the ol’ garmies.
But anyway, back to my story. So I tell the two Mormon ladies who work at my library that I am leaving the Church. I told them both that I am leaving because of doctrinal issues, not because someone offended me or something ridiculous like that, and that it was a hard decision to make. They both were kind and understanding and never once did I feel weird around them because of it. They loved me before I told them (both of these gals are my friends) and they loved me afterwards.
Then comes the male coworker. He had always struck me as being strange, and unfortunately, the more I got to know him, the more I realized that there was more than one screw loose in his head. But he had only been working at the library for a couple of months at that point, and although I had talked to him some, I really didn’t know him that well (he worked in a different department than me, so our paths only crossed occasionally).
Let’s call him Bob, shall we?
So when I told Bob what was happening with me, and that I did not leave the Church because someone offended me, blah blah, he was visibly upset about the whole thing. He started pressing me with questions, but I was busy and didn’t have time to answer any of them. (His main question was which websites I had gone to get information because he wanted to read those websites too, to see what would cause me to lose my testimony.)
The next time I see him, the first words out of his mouth were, “So who offended you?”
“Excuse me, what?” I said, completely confused.
“I just wanted to know who offended you and caused you to leave the Church.”
I stared at him, a little slack jawed. Please know that out of all of the many people that I have told that I have left the Church, he is the ONLY one who has asked me this question. What makes him a completely idiot is the fact that I had already flat out told him that no one had offended me. It was as if in his little bubble, no one could possibly leave the Church because of doctrinal reasons. That simply couldn’t be it. It had to be because someone was mean to me one day in Sacrament Meeting.
“No one offended me,” I said slowly, as if talking to a slightly mentally retarded human being (which on second thought, is exactly what was happening.) “If the LDS Church was really true, then I would never throw away my eternal salvation because someone was rude to me. That’s just idiotic. I left because of doctrine and the history of the Church. There are things that you will never learn about in Sunday School, but are a real part of what happened in the Church. When I found out the truth, I left.”
After that, I became a target to Bob’s obsessive questions. He bore his testimony to me. He told me that I ought to be scared of him telling his wife what happened, because she doesn’t put up with things like this (what, is she going to come beat me up? I had met his wife, and she was a nice lady. I kinda doubt the woman was going to take out my kneecaps.) He asked a great deal of questions about what I had found, and pushed me several times to bring in the website address for the site that made me lose my testimony. (FYI: I’ve posted it before, but here it is again, for those who want to know).
After a month of being hounded by the guy, I finally told him that I wasn’t going to discuss it anymore. I told him I had already had a lot of pain inflicted upon me by my true-believing mother and grandmother, and I wasn’t going to get into a discussion of the truthfulness of the LDS Church any longer.
To his credit, he finally stopped pestering me.
Unfortunately, that just meant that all of it festered inside of him, making him crazy with questions. Those questions eventually came out, but they were directed at someone else: My good friend, Tiffy, a coworker of mine at the library.
Tiffy is a born-again Christian, but she is one of those good ones who doesn’t feel the need to push her beliefs onto other people. She’s also the unlucky soul that I drug to the open house of the local temple before it was dedicated. I had told Bob that she was coming with me, and at that point, he had no idea that I was questioning the Church. He thought I was being a good member missionary like all Mormons should be.
One day a couple of weeks ago, Tiffy was downstairs doing a check in of the books, when Bob appeared. His desk is fairly close to the downstairs check-in desk, but he wasn’t actually supposed to be anywhere near that area at the time. He was on duty in the children’s department, but as usual, this did not bother Bob. Small things like “doing your job” are not real big on his priority list. (You think I’m being sarcastic because the guy is not real high on my favorites list, and even though that’s true, every word of this post is the un-exaggerated truth. Bob wouldn’t know what hard work was if it came up and sat on his lap. Sadly enough for those of us working with him).
So there was Bob, down by his desk, pretending to work. Then he’d drift over and watch Tiffy check-in items on the computer. Then he’d drift back to his desk. Then back to Tiffy. Tiffy told me that this entire experience was a little surreal, because he never said anything to her, and she couldn’t figure out why he was watching her do her job, since he is in no way her supervisor. He finally blurted out, “Does the Lyoness smoke?”
“What?!” Tiffy said, completely surprised by the question.
“Well, I heard her say that she was trying coffee and beer and other things that are against the Word of Wisdom, and one day, I walked past her and she smelled like smoke. So I thought maybe she had started smoking too.”
Now you guys all know my thoughts on smoking. I’ve made them perfectly clear. I’ve had this discussion with Tiffy too because we have to deal with smokers as patrons who come into the library all the time, and who stink so bad of cigarette smoke that we’re forced to hold our breath while helping them at the front counter. Just the smell alone is enough to give me a headache.
So Tiffy knew my thoughts on smoking, and she promptly told Bob what they were, and added that if you stand next to smoker long enough, you’re going to briefly smell like smoke until the smell dissipates, and so that was no doubt what he had smelled. She also said that the same thing could happen with any of the people who work at the front desk.
The conversation went on for a while after that. I cannot remember exactly what else he asked about (since this is all being relayed to me second hand, I want to be sure I’m only reporting everything I’m positive of happening) but I do remember that Tiffy said that Bob had a spirit of meanness about it. She said that he wasn’t asking questions because he was truly worried about me, but instead because he was mad and basically wanted the dirt on me. I’m shocked he didn’t start asking questions about my sex life.
Strangely enough, he also seemed upset with Tiffy, and (according to her) seemed to be placing a lot of the blame of me leaving on her shoulders. (Of course! The only thing he hasn’t blamed my leaving on is global warming, but I’m sure that’s next). Apparently, because Tiffy is a born-again Christian, she was a bad influence on me and caused me to leave The Only True Church Upon the Face of the Earth. When she relayed that bit of information to me, I burst out laughing.
“If you’re such a big influence on me, then why, pray tell, am I not at a Christian church every Sunday morning?”
This guy is a whack job, no doubt about it.
With every new outrageous piece of the story, I laughed harder. We made fun of Bob’s sheer stupidity, and had a great time of it, I’ll admit. But then I started to think about it, and I started to get angry. I mean, really pissed off. How dare he interrogate my friend at work about my religious beliefs?!! It was bad enough that he pestered me with questions for a month straight, when that sort of behavior is not at all appropriate for the work setting. But my friends too?!
That’s where I draw the line.
I went directly into the director’s office and told her what was happening. Although I left the Church last fall, she had no idea that I had, nor that there had been any fall out because of it. I don’t tell her about my personal life, and she doesn’t ask. That’s the way a working relationship is supposed to work, right?
Somebody needs to tell that to good ol’ Bob.
Well, actually, somebody did. The director, to be precise. She pulled him into her office and said, “I’ve had some employees and supervisors report that they are having some problems,” and just from that sentence, he immediately jumped to my situation, although neither Tiffy nor I are a supervisor. I can’t decide if that’s because his conscience had started to bother him and he realized he shouldn’t have said what he did, or if it’s because he went home and told his wife what happened and she told him he was a nimwit, and pointed out the problems with what he did (she comes across as being the smarter of the two).
Either way, the end result has been that Bob has refused to speak to or even look at either Tiffy or I since this incident. Which is good, because at first I was worried that he was going to come up to me and start pushing things with me again. I had already resolved to scream harassment from the rafters if he did this, and possibly bring a lawsuit down on his worthless butt (I am not a fan of frivolous lawsuits, but there is a limit and I had reached it) but luckily for me, he’s apparently decided that he would instead never speak to me again.
Hey, I can live with that.
I’m just wondering how much longer he can last before he approaches someone else in the library and starts asking them about my religious beliefs and habits. I warned all of my friends at the library (anyone who I could even possibly conceive of him wanting to approach) about what happened, and also told them to tell him to shut up because I was lawsuit happy, and he better not risk it.
So far, he hasn’t breathed a word about me to any of my coworkers/friends (and really, I consider almost everyone I work with a friend - it is a great group of people!!!! - other than him, of course) and I’m really hoping it’ll stay that way.
But it does make me realize how indoctrinated some Mormons can get, that they don’t even realize that their behavior is beyond the pale. It is so natural to them that it doesn’t cross their minds that they could be heavily offending the person they are talking to.
I grateful that this type of Mormon is far and few between. I may not be a fan of the LDS Church (understatement of the century) but as a whole, I don’t have any problems with its members. After all, most of my family and my friends are Mormons.
I love the people, hate the religion.
So, dear readers, when you left, did you have problems with coworkers leaving you alone? Tell me about it below, or submit your story via the submission page.

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