Name: Renee Oberhart.
Where and when I was born: April 14, 1990, in Waterford, Wis.
Education: Bachelor’s degree in elementary education.
Family: Mom, Dad, brother (30) and sister (31).
How I came to work at FFRF: I saw an ad online. After looking into FFRF, I started thinking it would be a really good place to work and it would allow me to help people.
What I do here: I’m the part-time clerical assistant, so I make and send out prospect packets and new member packets, do laundry, shred papers, help with packaging merchandise, help with sending out thank yous, etc.
What I like best about it: My coworkers are super supportive and fun people. Our office environment is laid back, yet we all work really hard. I love that I feel like I’m contributing in a positive way to society.
What gets old about it: Paper cuts!
I spend a lot of time thinking about: Self improvement, health, and how to make the world a better place.
I spend little, if any, time thinking about: This is an interesting question because now I have to think about what I don’t usually think about! I suppose that I don’t think about sports very often.
My religious upbringing was: Catholic, which included Catholic school from preschool through eighth grade and church once or twice a week.
My doubts about religion started: When I got out of my small town and started college, I was exposed to a lot of new ideas. One of my first problems with Catholicism was that they don’t agree with gay people getting married. I thought people should be able to be happy and love who they wanted. In addition, I felt like everything we said and did in church was from memorization and I didn’t think through the actions and words when I did/said them. Because of this, I didn’t get anything out of church and I started to feel like religion was all about rules and what we shouldn’t do. Throughout college and afterwards, I began having more doubts like, “How do you know that your religion is the right one, and does everyone else go to hell because they guessed wrong?” It got hard to believe in a religion when so many parts of it are illogical.
Things I like: Playing piano, building things out of wood, my cat.
Things I smite: Cottage cheese, ignorance and lack of critical thinking.
In my golden years: I will be a cat lady.
If I could have any superpower, what would it be?: I would want to be able to experience how other people think and feel, emotionally and physically. Ideally, everyone would have these same capabilities, but we could turn them off when needed. More people would experience empathy, and hopefully not many would choose to permanently turn off this superpower.
