“Coming into the office this month” isn’t the same as “checking your emails”.  Heh for this not being kept in Discussion only. 

Sorry mate Krispy Kremes are the lawyers fuel.

What a spanner.

Speaking as a Muslim who is also fasting for Ramadan, this trainee sounds SO entitled. I myself have considered buying donuts for my floor during Ramadan whilst I am fasting. The world doesn’t stop for you because it’s Ramadan. You are entitled to request adjustments to your work day such as a place to break your fast and time to pray. You are not entitled to ask that everyone stop mentioning food altogether to make your fast easier. 

It’s also Lent which is just another flavour of fasting period. The whole point is that it’s not meant to be easy.  

"It genuinely makes me question whether I should even bother coming into the office this month if this is the attitude I’ll get”, said the Gen Z lawyer.

And everyone else wishes you didn't bother, given the attitude you display.

This trainee is pathetic. 

I fast and don’t expect anyone around me to do anything differently whilst I’m doing so. In a way it’s part of the challenge. If you can’t handle a few emails mentioning food, that’s just weak. 

He’s got a point. Stuffing your faces with donuts when others are taking a solemn vow of fasting is disrespectful. Firms have all posted about Ramadan Mubarak on their socials. They should walk the walk, and implement mandatory fasting in all offices. 

If he tried this in my firm I would've told that son to shove his fasting up where the sun don't shine. 

They better not be getting kept on or I'm sending Musk's goons to sort the firm out.

I understand where they are coming from, if I'm honest.

As someone who has given up mastu [ROF: that's enough of that, thank you]

Your religion, your choice. 

Now **** off, I'm too busy polishing off my third helping of pizza this arvo.

It’s Lent and I’ve given up coffee. My friendly colleagues offered to bring me back a free coffee from a client meeting.  cries in Ramadan

"making it feel like our struggle is being disregarded entirely"

It's less about making you feel that way and more about it actually being that way...

The whole point of self-sacrifice is that you do it yourself.

At a time when inclusion is supposed to matter in the workplace

It doesn't sound very inclusive to demand that everyone do what you do.

As someone who fasts in Ramadan and a lawyer who has worked in the Magic Circle, this guy is embarrassing. If the mere mention of food makes you struggle with your fast, you ain’t doing it right. Get a grip mate.

Moggles the bind.

*Whoops, can't think straight when I'm hungry.*

Whatever religion and whatever its fairy tales, it's entirely your own business, so please don't impose it on other people.

And people wonder why most non-lawyers have utter contempt for the diversity agenda and equalities law .  Good things are being undermined by Gen Z immaturity.

I also find it upsetting that people eat around me when I’m fasting for Ramadan. It’s also deeply offensive that women in the office aren’t veiled, that alcohol is available at client dinners, and worst of all that there are homosexuals  at the firm. Bring on the UK caliphate 2050 and let’s change things for the better! 

Need to know if the emails re food have always been at this level or if they have suddenly started or got more frequent as it is Ramadam.  Motive and evidence thereof is important context in this instance. 

"Good things are being undermined by Gen Z immaturity."

In a way I kind of feel sorry for the subject here. They're almost certainly quite young and have grown up in a world in which British society has adopted a habit of going through a yearly ceremony of corporates/universities/charities intoning 'Ramadan Mubarak' online to signal how progressive and inclusive they wanted you to think they are. I can see why they might think that British people actually care about the whole ceremony. 

On top of that they've probably grown up in an urban community where everyone took Ramadan very seriously indeed and thought that 'diversity' meant other communities including someone like them (rather than them including other communities). 

Put yourself in their position, this early workplace experience is probably their first ever experience of meeting people who think of Islam as a minority hobby with no long-standing history in the UK, in which they have little interest. People who think that Ramadan is at best a total irrelevance, and more likely that it's an alien festival which they see no value in (just as Muslims in the gulf states will see Christmas). 

They were brough up being told that this was all terribly important, so it must be a culture shock to learn that most people around them don't care, and that on top of that a majority of them think it's a weird modern habit for people to mention it all.

Ramadan is quite easy this year as the days are not long  - eat an early breakfast and dinner and all you do is skip lunch - harden the **** up.

Just wait till the drinks trolly comes round at 5pm...

I think Anonymous 07 March 25 08:33 has it right. The world doesn't stop just for my own religious rituals, especially not in a Christian/secular country like the UK.

I worked in Islamic countries for several years and as a guest / non-Muslim in an Islamic country, you follow the laws, rules and customs there, which includes not eating in front of your fasting colleagues or making their fast more difficult (especially as anything that someone may consider disrespectful from an Islamic angle quickly gets you in trouble in those places).

But that chap works in the UK, for an international law firm - the entitlement is bizarre.

"said the Gen Z lawyer" lool.

We had an American in our office who observed Ramadan, while the rest of us were stuffing our faces. Nobody had any issues whatsoever. In fact, some of us wondered if a spot of fasting might not help shed a few pounds, just as I as a very lapsed Christian still see some benefit in giving up crap and booze for Lent etc. But that was in the 1990s when people were still adults, and used banter and kindness to accommodate cultural differences, instead of whining like toddlers.

The professionally offended strike again

Someone's hangry.

The world doesn’t stop just because it’s Ramadan. Stop expecting the entire firm to revolve around you.

Appalling racism here. 

Not immediately doing what this trainee asked is blatant Islamophobia. 

The transgressors and anyone who disagreed or objected should have been fired on the spot, without provision of a reference, for good measure. Any decent HR dept would agree that that was reasonable and proportionate.

Those are the rules now. Did you all not get the memo?

Get this man a snickers 

This was a hard read as a muslim whos also fasking and has worked in many sectors whilst doing so. Majority of muslims dont care foranyone else eating. 

I don't appreciate everyone grouping muslims together though. The blatant islamphobia is appalling and you'd think people here had the necessary critical thinking to do and think otherwise.  

It's also Lent (not that our Mayor, PM or King seem to have noticed). Looking forward to everyone tiptoeing around me.

"I don't appreciate everyone grouping muslims together though. "

Isn't that kind of your fault for grouping yourselves together under the same title in the first place though? Given that you all choose to call yourself Muslims, believe the same holy book, pray together at the same 5 times a day, and adopt the same religious festivals as one another at the same times of year. It's kind of groupy.

If you didn't want people to group you personally as an individual together with the other Muslims then you could maybe do something like say "I am not a Muslim" and perhaps do something like having a separate not-Ramadan at a different time. So that it was a bit clearer than you were different and shouldn't be grouped with the others. Do you feel me?

Without that kind of thing it's quite hard for those of us looking in from the outside to distinguish between the Muslims and the Not-The-Same-As-The-Other-Muslims-I-Just-Believe-The-Same-Religion-As-Thems and to not group them together.

You see our dilemma, I hope?

These comments are clearly islamaphobic. I wonder if this response would be matched if it was about a Hindu asking not to be served beef or a Jewish employee refusing to work past sun set on a Friday. 

I used to live in China where the deal was really really clear.  You live by our (China) laws and fit in around our (Chinese) culture Mr British man - and as long as you do that’s fine.  If you don’t like these laws, don’t like the culture, there is the exit door right there - it’s called Beijing Capital Airport.  

In the West we create problems for ourselves by pretending to be nicer / more liberal than we are, which produces entitled Gen Z scenarios like this, which is confronting.  And then you get Trump / Farage and all the rest.  



 

"I wonder if this response would be matched if it was about a Hindu asking not to be served beef"

Sorry, which paragraph was the bit where someone tried to serve them pork in? I must have missed it when I read this story the first time round.

He lives in an atheist/Christian nation. When I went to Iran they brought head gear for me to put on at the airport. When in Rome do as the Romans do etc.

"These comments are clearly islamaphobic. I wonder if this response would be matched if it was about a Hindu asking not to be served beef or a Jewish employee refusing to work past sun set on a Friday."

What on earth are you talking about? No-one at the firm objected to the lawyer fasting. I don't think a Hindu would be getting upset about an email going round about burgers in the kitchen or an orthodox Jew about an after-work social on a Friday. 

@12.39: "These comments are clearly islamaphobic. I wonder if this response would be matched if it was about a Hindu asking not to be served beef or a Jewish employee refusing to work past sun set on a Friday."

You're so determined to be vicariously offended on his behalf that you've totally missed the point. He's not being asked / made to do anything. However, he's making / trying to make demands of other people.

What an idiot.  I give up something for Lent every year - alcohol, coffee, chocolate, whatever.  Not once have I thought that everyone in the office should stop mentioning those things around me.

I suppose this person also thinks that restaurants and street food outlets should close during the day as the smell makes them hungry when they're walking past? 

If the way you practice your faith - which at the end of the day remains a personal choice - requires you to put yourself through a demanding fast every day for a month then by all means be my guest. We live in a free society and you have every right to make that choice for yourself. 

However, asking others to accommodate you by changing what is everyday normal office behaviour is denying those others the very freedom to make their own choices that you enjoy and that allows you to practice your faith as you see fit.

Of course it would be different if the trainee's colleagues were purposely sending more food-related emails than average during Ramadan. There doesn't seem to be any suggestion of that so the trainee should just grow up and stop giving reasonable Gen Z lawyers and Muslims in general a bad name.

Well, I sure hope that he 'walks the walk' when anyone is dieting in the office ... surely, there must be a ban on any food mentions or display if anyone is dieting, fasting, has diabetes, is Gluten intolerant, is vegan, etc. Best just to ban any and all food and drink 24/7 all year round to appease the little dictator. Or maybe just leard to live with it ... radical idea, I know. 

"The Muslim trainee told RollOnFriday "

Why on earth did the trainee think that RoF would be an appropriate / sympathetic forum for this ecumenical matter?

Entitled. Enough said. 

"the trainee should just grow up and stop giving reasonable Gen Z lawyers and Muslims in general a bad name"

It's such a shame. Up until now both camps had kept such blemish free records. 

British Muslims in particular must be fuming that their unbroken record of seamlessly getting along with others has been marred in this way.

I regularly do 24 hour fasts. I’m not religious but I’d like to be less fat 👍🏼 If I’m in the office on fast days and people are scoffing cakes, I politely decline the cakes and get on with my day without whinging about it because it has literally nothing to do with me. 

I 100% advocate for this chap or chapess to be able to practice their religion unhindered but equally I would like to live my own life unhindered. So you do you, and we can make adjustments if you need certain things, and I’ll do me. Which may involve inhaling donuts on occasion. Asking me to stop inhaling donuts because of your religious beliefs is not ok with me because they are not my beliefs. Just like I would never inflict my beliefs on this person either. 

I’m not sure the trainee should be afforded the privilege of anonymity by ROF in these circumstances. Unless the anonymity is to protect the firm from the inevitable pile on that would follow it being named. 

Two minds about this 

I think workplaces should be sensitive to others choices and that's amplified when it's religious (because the individual may not feel they have a choice but to comply). So things like alcohol free socials and networking events during the day are just more inclusive. It wouldn't be difficult for this person's colleagues to not send the emails or not being the treats in - or perhaps offer the treats to break the fast etc. It's not obligatory but you know, not sending constant pictures of kids to group chats is just being aware some people might have suffered child loss and infertility.

A bit of thought goes a long way.

On the other hand, expecting all your colleagues to do something because you are (or even to change their behaviour for you) it's very entitled and shows this person probably isn't very team spirited 

If we consider an analogous situation in Iran where a Westerner asked the locals to change their behaviour/customs to comply with the Westerner's religion, and how well that would go, we can see how deranged this "Gen Z lawyer" is.