I found out today that one of our Dayjob clients requires our support team to sign off on all interactions with the closing salutation, “Have a Blessed day”. Like, we’re contractually obligated to do it. It was an offhand comment that someone made at the end of a meeting as we were clearing the room, and I said that I kinda like that.

A few people scoffed, likely at the religiosity of it. I’m a hard-core RC kid, so the offering of blessings to people, from ‘bless you’ to sneezy strangers in public spaces, to well-wishes to RC (or other religious) friends and loved ones, is very natural to me. But even if you edit for religion, signing off interactions with a sentiment of good thoughts for someone is a dead easy way to brighten someone’s day, even a little. I mean, everyone on my team wishes each other a good night/weekend/vacation as we leave the office at the end of the day, so it’s not like they’re not inclined to the sentiment. Just, perhaps, the semantics.

Compelling someone to offer a spiritual closing seems like a weird requirement, even to the kids on the GodSquad, and even in the sampling of my peers as we walked back to our office space, people didn’t seem to like the imposed religion of it. Since then, I’ve been thinking about this. I certainly offer different holiday salutations based on what will be meaningful for my Catholic peeps, or my Jewish friends around Rosh Hashana or High Holiday. Or Yule, or Samhain, or Holi, or whatever other celebration is afoot. Dayjob client makes every day a celebration for them. And really, whether the origin of your belief is God or Allah, Jehovah or Buddha, Lord Shivah or Krishna or Ganesha, the Flying Spaghetti Monster or the Universe, or the divine within you, yourself, wishing someone a blessed day just seems like a lovely thing to do.

When I was a kid, I went to Catholic school, and I didn’t know that there were any belief systems except mine until I was invited to Hanukkah at a family friend’s house. I received a copy of Little Women, and we ate latkes and lit the menorah to Jewish prayers, and then sang Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and the Dreidel song. I wasn’t sure what was going on, but 40 years later, I still remember that night, so it obviously had an impression.

When Connor was about the same age as I was on my introduction to Hanukkah, I was invited to a co-worker’s wedding. He was Sikh, and his wedding was at a temple in Toronto. I got a long scarf to wear as a chunni, and we all took off our shoes at the temple entrance, and we celebrated my friend’s wedding. It was delightful.

I used the language of the people in whose space I was a guest, and I feel like that’s what is happening for Dayjob Client, too. So have a blessed night, friends, whatever that means to you.