This story is about a Malaysian who watched a colleague push back against unequal workplace policies , not out of spite, but for fairness.
The matsalleh in the office
Vladimir is a mat salleh I know. Atheist. He has lived and worked in Malaysia for about twenty years. Kuala Lumpur based, long enough that he is not a fresh expat anymore. He understands mamak culture. He has built a life here.
He is also clearly not local. Yoga, meditation, journaling. These are normal parts of his routine, not affectations. He is not trying to be anything. Just a guy with a job at a large multinational, working out of the Malaysian office.
His beliefs, or rather his lack of belief, only become relevant because of where he works. By his own estimate, about 90 percent of the office is Muslim. A majority of them observe daily prayers. When prayer time comes, many leave the office and walk to the nearby masjid. This happens on paid company time.
This is normal here. No one questions it.
Until one day, Vladimir did.
The question
Vladimir has anxiety and ADHD. He manages it with meditation and journaling. Yoga helps as well. He has never hidden this. It is not a secret or a performance.
So he went to his boss. A Muslim woman. Calm. Professional. He asked for the same time off that his colleagues were getting, so he could meditate, journal, or occasionally do yoga to manage his mental health.
To him, this was not about religion. It was about equal treatment. Same paid time. Different use.
His boss said no.
He was unhappy, but he dropped it. No shouting. No complaints. No escalation. He let it go.
An email
About a week later, an email arrived from HR. He was surprised. He was now allowed to take short breaks. Twenty minutes, up to two times a day, to meditate or journal. He was also allowed some flexibility with lunch, so he could attend yoga nearby.
This was in writing.
He replied politely, thanking HR. He did not question the change. He did not ask who approved it. He did not forward the email. He did not announce it to the office. He simply used the breaks.
He would leave quietly and return the same way. There was a small park near the office. A fountain. Covered pavilions under trees. He would sit, meditate, then go back to work calmer and more settled.
When it worked
The breaks helped him. A lot. With calm came clarity. He was more focused. More productive. His work improved. So did his mood. This went on for almost six months without incident.
No drama. No confrontation. Just a man sitting in a park, breathing, then returning to his desk.
When others noticed
Eventually, others noticed he was disappearing. Sometimes his lunch break was longer. He would add a short break so he could attend a yoga session at a nearby gym.
Some colleagues started asking HR for the same meditation breaks. Human Resources approved them. Once the precedent existed, refusal was difficult.
Most did not meditate. They went for coffee, a smoke or a vape. They treated it as extra paid downtime. Some used it to arrive late. Others used it to leave early.
Human resources pushed back
The meditation breaks were removed from everyone who was not actually meditating. Vladimir and a small number of others kept them, because they were using the breaks as approved. The rest lost access.
The mood in the office changed.
The backlash
People talked. Some said Vladimir was doing this out of resentment. Out of spite. A few framed it as hostility toward religion.
Vladimir rejected this completely. He never mentioned religion. Not once. He never framed it as prayer versus meditation. He framed it as time, policy, and fairness.
He is an atheist. Religion was never his argument.
He saw inequality
From Vladimir’s point of view, the imbalance was obvious. Some religious colleagues were regularly absent from their desks during paid hours for reasons unrelated to their work. Over the course of a day, this added up to significant paid time.
He was getting less than an hour.
He did not think that was fair. He also understood that this was how things worked, and that pushing further would not end well.
The compromise
Management implemented a universal short-break policy. Twenty minutes. Everyone. No labels. No religion. No requirement to justify how the time was used. Vladimir still gets his time for mental health. Everyone else gets the same.
Resentment followed. Those who were used to paid prayer time were unhappy with the change. Vladimir did not engage. He did not argue. He did not explain himself again.
He went back to the park. He meditated. In his words, “I choose to meditate the problem away instead of medicating it.”
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