“As if You Have a Meeting, but with God”: Tech Workers and the Commensuration of Sacred Time

Modernist workplaces assumed a separation between work and private time, with religion ensconced in the latter. This separation is recently challenged by tech companies inviting workers to “bring their whole self” to work. Drawing on fieldwork in a tech corporation and nearly 100 interviews with observant Muslim and Jewish workers in Toronto, New York, and Tel Aviv, this paper explores how religious temporalities are reshaped when work time is flexible and religion is legitimate. While classic anthropology portrays religious time as a coherent framework for social synchronization, neoliberal emphasis on self-responsibility shifts sacred time into a realm of individual preference. Using the concept of commensurability, I analyze three techniques my interlocutors use to weave religious obligations into reconfigured work temporalities: framing religious time in labor terms (e.g., “meeting with God”), hierarchical scaling, and digital calendaring. This commensuration reflects a unique tech religiosity, turning the sacred from radical alterity into a category relational with global capitalism.