Fish Bowl and Suits (The Conclusion)
If you’ve read the other devotions, you know that I took a new job in New Orleans, tore my family from everything we knew and was waiting on getting results of the exam I just took.
The company that hired me made arrangements to move our stuff and so when we left town, it was just us and my in laws going to set up our home in a townhouse we rented. On the day we arrived in New Orleans, I got a call from my Mom telling me the exam result letter had arrived. She opened it and told me my score - I passed and was elated.
Not only did this mean that I was getting a higher salary at my new company, but I met the requirements to be an Associate in the Society of Actuaries (ASA), my first professional designation.
At my new company, all actuaries at my rank and above where listed as officers of the company on their financial filings. It probably doesn’t sound like much to most people but there are usually only about 6 names or so on these public financial statements so if the stuff hits the fan, people are going to come looking for you.
Anyway, the expectation is that officers and Vice Presidents had to wear suits every day. This was not uncommon in the business world at that time so I bought ties and suits (and wore them, grumble, grumble). We had a conference room in our department called the “fish bowl.” It was called that because the room had the front facing wall made of glass so everyone could look in. This fit in with the corporate culture of every office door being open unless you needed to close it for a specific purpose. While they wanted to communicate transparency by both of these, it raised awareness, gossip, and conjecture, when the door closed.
Perception is another two sided sword. I’ve struggled against both perception requirements and tradition over my career. I’ve always felt that perception and tradition requirements can limit the efficiency of the activity (it can). Let’s say that I feel like ties choke me and I’m aware of them while I wear them (both true). Doesn’t that take some small part of my attention away from whatever I’m working on? On the other hand, especially when you meet someone for the first time, they make judgements of you based on your appearance that may take a very long time to change (if at all).
Because of this, I maintained my schizophrenic relationship with ties and suits the rest of my career.
“Now concerning food offered to idols: we know that ‘all of us possess knowledge.’ This “knowledge” puffs up, but love builds up. If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know. But if anyone loves God, he is known by God. Therefore, as to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that ‘an idol has no real existence,’ and that ‘there is no God but one.’ For although there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth—as indeed there are many “gods” and many “Lords”— yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist. However, not all possess this knowledge. But some, through former association with idols, eat food as really offered to an idol, and their conscience, being weak, is defiled. Food will not commend us to God. We are no worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do. But take care that this right of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak. For if anyone sees you who have knowledge eating in an idol’s temple, will he not be encouraged, if his conscience is weak, to eat food offered to idols? And so by your knowledge this weak person is destroyed, the brother for whom Christ died. Thus, sinning against your brothers and wounding their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ. Therefore, if food makes my brother stumble, I will never eat meat, lest I make my brother stumble.” - 1 Corinthians 8:1-13
“And Pharisees came up and in order to test him asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” He answered them, “What did Moses command you?” They said, “Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce and to send her away.” And Jesus said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment. But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” - Mark 10:2-9
“The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst they said to him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. Now in the Law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?” This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” And once more he bent down and wrote on the ground. But when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. Jesus stood up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.” - John 8:3-11
