Is my manager legally able to tell me I cannot mention that I celebrate Chanukah?

For the moment, forget about "pushing religion" and think of "being pleasant to the customer"

The incident last year, the customer said "Merry Christmas". You could have said "Thank you" or "Thank you. The same to you." (neither of which implies that you are X-ian). Instead you said something that the customer interpreted as being corrected. If the customer hadn't complained, I would have graded your response a C in customer relations. (As opposed to the A grade for the example). But since they complained, you get an F (for that one particular incident).

Its an unfortunate fact that, in customer relations, its not what you intend, its not what a reasonable customer would think, its what that specific customer (with their individual quirks) thinks at the time. Call it "correcting the customer" or call it "giving too much information about yourself", it annoyed a customer and therefore was the wrong thing to say.

I'm going into detail about silly little incident not to say that its your fault. You happened to deal with a touchy customer. It happens.

The fat heads at corporate took that incident and came up with a rule. Their thinking is that rules are easier to deal with than training employees. The rule isn't because they distrust you, its because they distrust your supervisor's ability to train people. (The two paragraph analysis I gave is the kind of training that could have improved your customer relation skills without writing a silly rule. (It would also work better face to face than on-line))

What to do this season? Follow the rule, its "holiday" until and unless the customer specifies which holiday. Are others doing differently? Who cares? What matters to you is whether the customer that you are dealing with is served well.

"Can you legally tell your employees they cannot say they celebrate chanukah or xmas?"

Telling the customer which holiday you celebrate? That's a bit too much information about yourself. I don't see how that would improve a customers experience and (as in the example from last year) might be a negative. No personal information = no chance of bad encounter. Yes personal information = small (but non-zero) chance of bad encounter. Its not a rule that is out of line.

You are there to provide friendly service, not to be their friend and share personal information.

I hope you have a happy Dec 8 - 16 as well as a wonderful 25th.

I just re-ready your post, apparently its your fat headed manager, not fat heads at corporate that came up with the rule. No real difference in my advice.

Joyous Solstice! :)

Freedom of speech and religion in the context you're talking about does not extend to the workplace! It's just a place of business. You represent the company not your personal beliefs. You're making far more out of this.

Do yourself a favor, just respond to the customer or anyone else at work with "have a happy holiday"! If a customer says have a "Merry Christmas", just say "Thank you, and you do the same"! You don't have to go into "thank you but i celebrate chanukah", no one cares! This is just business, nothing personal. Stop personalizing this, no one is trying to insult you or force their beliefs on you! All that counts is if your paycheck clears, that's it! You practice whatever you believe on your own time!

If you did not lose a nickel of wages over it, you will have trouble proving any loss financially as a result of the managers new "rule". Maybe it hurt your "feelings"...which some religious groups seem to get a lot of mileage out of these days...but you seem equally willing to take the chance of hurting the "feelings" of others around you...so there is always the moral equivelance argument...why do you feel you can hurt the feelings of others, yet want a "hurt feeling free" environment for yourself?

You might try asking her.."That's interesting..why would you make that rule?" and get more info before you go off half ******. You may learn something you did not know already.

Happy Chanakuh btw.

You can sue anyone for anything that you want in the USA but it's whether or not anything will come from it that's the kicker - but yeah if you have the resources I would say go for it. If not, then call the corporate office and talk to someone over her head

This is discrimination if you're not shoving your religion down anyone's throat and everyone us simply and politely wishing a happy whatever, if your boss is singling you out for your belief and not anyone else you could go as far as sueing them.