Granted, I'm coming from a perspective of the most Mormon of Mormon places -- Utah County where I work.

On my immediate work team there are 8 males, average age of about 35. Of those 8, all have LDS backgrounds, and 7 served missions. Their current religious status is:

-- 1 went completely inactive a couple years ago. He is the one who did not serve a mission. He is the son of a former Stake President and is actually hiding his inactivity from his parents.

-- 4 expressing doubt or disbelief in the Church (me included). All four served on missions, but have serious issues with the doctrine and history. They attend for family reasons.

-- 1 who does not express doubt, but has expressed complaints about the workload the Church expects. I would not be surprised if he is a closet doubter as well.

-- 2 who openly seem to support the Church and have given no expressions of doubt or complaints.

I found it interesting that only 25% in my anecdotal group seem to be on solid ground from the Church's perspective.

I'm curious if others in heavily LDS locations are experiencing the same.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/01/2017 11:18PM by paulk.

I work in Utah county. Of the 17 people in my office:

1 closet NOM (me)
12 hard core TBM men
1 TBM female
2 nevermos
1 possibly gay male (not that there's anything wrong with that), not Mormon

I don't currently have any.
At my job at a much bigger company a few years ago, there were a few (this is SoCal, where they're certainly a minority). One was the head of our QA dept. He was annoyingly TBM -- the kind of guy who would walk by my office that was in a different building from him, see me sitting there reading my e-mail having a cup of coffee, and just loud enough to be heard, say "tsk, tsk." He'd complain when we were in "crunch mode" trying to finish and ship a product, which meant Sunday work, that we were all "Sabbath breakers."

One of the VPs asked me about my time in France, and when I explained it was a mormon mission, he asked about "all the weird stuff that goes on in the temple." So I taught showed him the grips and penalties, and he half-memorized part of the final password at the veil. Then he marched over to our mormon QA head, stuck out his hand to congratulate him for finishing a project, and gave him the "grip" at the veil and said, "Health in your navel, marrow in your bones!"

I thought the mormon was going to blow a blood vessel in his head. The other VP thought it was hilarious. I laughed a bit, but mostly found it sad that he considered such nonsense "sacred."

Just to provide a "control specimen": brought up in the UK and living in France for the last 33 years, I've never met a practising mormon. The only former mormons I've met have been people from this board - to whom I wave a friendly hand.

In Utah, it may feel like the whole world is mormon, but it isn't!

Tom in Paris

Edited to add:

When are you coming over, IfIcouldhietoKolob?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/02/2017 09:37AM by Soft Machine.

(waves back -- Hi, Tom!)

My wife and I are trying to figure out if we can pull off a "spring break" trip to Paris. It's our goal to do so. That would be April 17-24 timeframe (that's when our local school gets the break). Fingers crossed for Springtime in Paris! I'll let you know if we can do it, coffee/Pernod on the Champs Elysee is my treat :)

Looking forward to it. Hope it comes off :-)

Only other option is summer, and I'd rather not do that -- all the Parisians will have fled the city! We'll know in the next few weeks.

In case you're interested in a layover...just a thought...

I'm in Salt Lake City but work in an environment that is considered typically liberal: in academia. In my small group there are two good mormons but I wouldn't call them TBM. One attended a small celebration in a place that served alcohol and had no problem with it. Another one is mormon but he and the wife drank a lot. I found this out at that same celebration. One is like me, exmormon. The rest are nevermos. This is for a group of about 15.

Over the last 3.5 years I have worked with some 5 ex-Mormons (one previously here on RfM), and only 1 active Mormon. I met another active Mormon guy here in the Air Force, but do not work with him. (He was wearing a military T-shirt under his uniform, and I could see that it was an odd mesh fabric. So I said, "Are you LDS?" He was shocked and said, "Yeah! How did you know?" I'm still jealous that today's military Mormons don't have to wear an extra T-shirt over garments like I had to.)

One of the great advantages of fleeing Zion after college was that I never had any variety of Mormon coworkers.

I work with two Mor ons and they are both two of the most
despicable humans that ever walked the earth. They serve as live onsite Courtesy Officers at a HUD facility for elderly and disabled adults. They steal everything in the offices that's not nailed down! Paper goods from the facility kitchen and even the paper out of the copy machine. Paper towels and tissue from the janitors closet. They lie and make outrageous allegations about other staff and try to be on power trips. We in administration would like to fire them and the only reason we havent is because no one else wants there job . Very difficult position to fill.
Ooh I forgot to mention they have problems with personal care and wearing clean clothing . I would never ever hire another Mor on!

I work in a large factory type setting in southern utah. I've been in the church long enough I can recognize who they are but the topic doesn't come up Alot.had a few managers tell me they spent 2 years in a certain area usually a tell tell sign.

I work at a government office in downtown Salt Lake. I'm pretty sure most of the people in my department aren't LDS (based on the way they dress, what they drink, and occasionally from conversations), but there are still a handful where I'm not sure (because they've never talked about religion one way or another).

On my team, my supervisor is, but she seems a little relaxed about it. She's frequently carrying around a Starbucks cup, though I'm pretty sure she just gets herbal tea (at the very least, she isn't bothered by the "appearance of evil"). There are three other women on the team that are definitely not and one where I'm not sure.

The other team in my department has two that are definitely LDS, one ex-mormon, one guy who I'm pretty sure is, one who I'm not sure at all (she's never given any indication) and three who definitely aren't.

My boss definitely isn't, but I think she has some connections (like some of her extended family is, or maybe she's ex-mormon). Her secretary is either ex-mormon or nevermo. Of the other two people on the administrative team, one definitely is (cause she's talked about her kids going on missions) and the other most definitely is not.

So of the 18 people in my department, that's only 4 who definitely are and maybe as many as 7. Less than half anyway you look at it.

I work with very few Mormons. Of those who are, all are RMs but this really never gets in the way of working well together .Actually they are better workers than the lazy non Mormons I suffer with daily. I guess a mission does give a person a work ethic.

Luckily, none of my co-workers are Mormon...and I don't think most of them have ever met a Mormon besides me. I've only ever had to work with one Mormon throughout my career. He was an ass...the only colleague I've ever had yell at me.

I have no Mormon coworkers that I know of. I have one JW, and she only mentions church in passing. I have a great respect for her, if not her religion. Last year I sent a JW kid to her when we were on a holiday-related event, and they formed a bond. I feel sorry for the JW kids. They long to do the same things that the other kids are doing.

I work in Utah for the Department of Defense. As a rule, our office mostly hires young Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, as such, very few coworkers are Mormon. Most are young kids right out of the military from other places and are totally shocked by Mormon culture. Many, though are very sheltered from Mormon culture due to their lifestyle and the fact they tend to avoid Mormons quite successfully.

One coworker is a retired NYPD detective who relocated to Utah due to scenery, joined the Church and became very TBM, he left the Church almost immediately afterwards after attending the temple and discovering the cult aspects of the faith. Him and I endlessly entertain the nevermos with tales of the temple and other weirdness.

We had a wonderful supervisor who was devout LDS. He could be awkward sometimes and sometimes got overbearing but was a great guy. We had another guy who claimed to be active Mormon but was so foul mouthed I find that difficult to believe.

I did work in a department that had more Mormons. They were very difficult and were trying to convert young Air Force active duty airmen in our office. One airmen, a young kid who had just come to Utah from Pennsylvania was being bothered by them so I told him to just ask their temple name and that will shut them up. After several conversations with the more aggressive Mormons, the airmen asked them their temple names and it shut them right up.

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I've never had a Mormon co-worker, thank goodness.