I read the book of Jonah on a whim recently, and damned if I didn’t like it. You know the one, where Jonah gets swallowed by a whale (or fish. Who cares?).

Yahweh actually wasn’t a dick this time, lets the city he was going to smite off with a warning.

As usual, there was a pretty big “or else” if Ninevah (modern day Mosul, Iraq) didn’t get its shit together, but he gave ‘em a chance. He didn’t just explode them like he did Sodom and Gomorrah.

In this story, the employee is the bad guy. He refused to relay the ultimatum IN CASE they repented. He wanted to seem them to get zapped.
I started thinking about Yahweh and Jonah as an employer/employee relationship and the story got funny to me. I could see it from both sides.

If I’m Yahweh, Jonah has got to be the worst employee ever. What. A. Whiny. Bitch. He hates the Ninevites so much he’d rather die than give do a simple job and pass a message along.

If I’m Jonah, this is a story about the worst job ever. You get one shitty assignment too many and you’re not allowed to quit.

Don’t report to work, God sends a storm after you. Try to drown yourself. He sends a giant fish to swallow you and spit you out at the job site. You’re not even allowed to die.
When I was a newspaper editor I used to joke that if I died, they’d put a laptop in the casket and make me finish the next edition before I could lay down.
I also got a kick out of the Ninevah repenting so hard even the animals had to fast and wear burlap sacks. That’s some serious compliance. I guess they could tell Jonah was in a really bad mood.