Hours of work, to get those talks right, and most people were not listening

free2beme

I remember one time I worked on a talk about a week. Looking up points, cross referencing ideas, and then I get up there and I just knew most people were either asleep mentally or not paying any attention. Who could blame them, I set in the front row doing microphones and I could hardly keep my eyes open. Yet I spent all that time, all those hours to get it right, and nothing ... except for the canned comment "I enjoyed your talk." I always wanted to ask, "... which part?" I never did though, as I know they just made that comment to be nice and didn't really remember it. Did you ever feel that way too, "Hours of work, to get those talks right, and most people were not listening?"

colorado5591

Maybe it was all in preparation for "All these years devoted to WBTS and hours in te ministry to convert the world and all I got was this lousy T shirt"

But I know how you feel because I was one of the ones sleeping through the talks

AuldSoul

Ah, quit yer whining! That was just training for boardroom presentations (that you would never get to give because you were too busy in the mailroom, or washing the windows, or waxing the floors).

doofdaddy

Yeah I remember but I was one of those who would actually listen to talks esp by elders.

After meetings I would say to my friends, "What did you think of that contradictory statement made by bro so and so?''

Inevitable answer, "Huh??"

luna2

I hate to say it, but I was usually pretty glassy eyed through most of the talks. I wasn't drawing pictures or doodling in the margins of my Watchtower (usually), but it seemed to go in one ear and out the other. I remember a sister asking me what I thought about a public talk one Sunday and I had to wrack my brain to recall what he'd even said...the mind-numbing Watchtower "study" had pretty much put me to sleep and just about erased most of my memory of what had come before.

I quit the TMS when I realized I could slap together a 5 min. skit in about an hour. Seemed pretty stupid to even bother when I was just going through the motions myself and I knew nobody was really paying any attention anyway.

Its kind of a shame that being more dramatic was discouraged by the brothers. I remember a sister and her partner who had props and costumes once...they did a good job and it woke everybody up. Too bad that doing anything interesting or different was frowned on.

blondie

WT ~~Conducto~~r Overseer: Sister Blondie, I enjoyed your comment.

Blondie: Oh, which one, I commented 3 times?

WTO: I get so nervous up there I forget everything once I step off the stage.

Blondie:

Undecided

I remember an experience a brother in the congregation mentioned once. He was assigned to give a talk at a small congregation out in the country with mostly old farts and it was in the afternoon after they had all eaten dinner. He noticed that several were asleep and finally it seemed they were all asleep so he just paused for a while and no one moved, so he just quietly folded up his notes and walked out the back door and left them all asleep. I thought it was so funny.

Ken P.

nilfun

he just quietly folded up his notes and walked out the back door and left them all asleep.

Lol!

willyloman

I gave a talk in another hall once and an old duffer came up to me afterwards, shook my hand, and said, "That was a nice talk, brother." He paused and then smiled and said, "It was about weddings, right?"

Of course it was not. But I got the joke. A year or two later, I was at the same KH (different talk). He came up afterwards. Same joke. I realized he used that on all the visiting speakers.

I'm sure his point was that no one's really paying that much attention.

xjwms

Funny thing about this subject...as I was just thinking the same thing.

I spent hours and hours on some talks

Some comments made to me were very good, others were ... OH WELL so oh well.

Hours of work, to get those talks right, and most people were not listening

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