Hello all,<\/p>\n
I should not be working on Christmas eve, rather enjoying my drink and relaxing. Merry Christmas <\/span>everyone! By Melissa Nelson, The Associated Press<\/p>\n PENSACOLA, Fla. – A Florida woman claims a vacation rental company fired her because she used “‘Merry Christmas” to greet callers.<\/p>\n Thirty-five-year-old Tonia Thomas says she lost her job after failing to use the company-mandated greeting of “Happy Holidays.”<\/p>\n The Panama City woman and self-described strong Christian has filed a federal complaint that accuses the company of religious discrimination.<\/p>\n She has since found another job since her Dec. 10th firing, but for less money and is seeking compensation for lost wages.<\/p>\n Her former employer, Counts-Oakes Resorts Properties Inc., says it’s no Scrooge.<\/p>\n It describes the woman as just a disgruntled employee, but refuses to elaborate.<\/p>\n Liberty Counsel, an Orlando-based legal group that advocates for people discriminated against because of their religion, is representing Thomas before the federal Equal Opportunity Employment Commission.<\/p>\n Their complaint also accuses the company of harassing and taunting Thomas after she was fired by calling the police to watch her pack her belongs and leave.<\/p>\n Thomas could have hard time winning the case, said Thomas Harper, a Jacksonville-based labour lawyer who writes a newsletter on Florida employment law.<\/p>\n “I wouldn’t think an employee has the right to insist (on saying Merry Christmas) unless that really is a tenet of their faith.<\/p>\n She would have to make a strong case that was part of her beliefs, if not, it becomes insubordination,” he said.<\/p>\n Harper said when it comes to holiday greetings, the smartest choice might be ignoring the season.<\/p>\n “The best option is just not to say anything,” he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Hello all, I should not be working on Christmas eve, rather enjoying my drink and relaxing. This article caught my eye, and I had to pass it on. I could spew a lot of my opinion here, but for now all I want to say is that this article is ‘interesting’ and ‘disturbing’ at the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[536,535,534],"tags":[615,737,626,592],"class_list":["post-389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-customer-service","category-esl-cultural-communications","category-professional-communications","tag-christmas","tag-greetings","tag-holiday","tag-small-talk"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.communicationcoach.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.communicationcoach.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.communicationcoach.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.communicationcoach.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.communicationcoach.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=389"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.communicationcoach.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":970,"href":"https:\/\/www.communicationcoach.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389\/revisions\/970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.communicationcoach.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.communicationcoach.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.communicationcoach.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nThis article caught my eye, and I had to pass it on. I could spew a lot of my opinion here, but for now all I want to say is that this article is ‘interesting’ and ‘disturbing’ at the same time, especially the last line. Sometimes I do not recognize the world that I live in. Anyway, if you like, read it and make up your own mind as to what the real <\/span>issue was.<\/p>\n
\n(Happy Holidays too!)<\/p>\n