OK, here is what one Bethelite is saying about recently being "laid off": (and no this isn't a joke, hearsay, or rhetoric)
"Well, it's my decision, and you know... I just want to make myself available for whatever Jehovah wants me to do. Obviously he wants me to go out into the field - there's a great need out there, especially in the circuit work." Repeat. Repeat.
Whenever you talk to a Bethelite who is being asked to leave, they will always tell you it's "their decision." This is very sad, because they are saying this only because the higher-ups allow them to in order for them to save face. There is such stigma attached to a 'fallen Bethelite,' it's as if you were an angel and God sent you back down to Earth. Can you imagine how that angel would feel telling everyone it was "his decision"? Believe me, I've been in this situation. It might sound comical to some, but the whole institution of Bethel is oriented around making you humiliate yourself and then offering menial praise and small priveleges, thus building you up and maintaining control at the same time. It's not a new tactic, every military uses the same principles to train disciplined soldiers with maleable minds, enabling them to rationalize any action.
What you get in the end though, is one very dissapointed and dissalusioned ex-Bethelite who, for some reason, feels very empty and depressed after spending 5, 10, 15 years of their life serving at Jah's headquarters 'shoulder-to-shoulder' with the FDS. These are the ones who are going through the motions, keeping up appearances, focusing so much on good works that they no longer know the difference between works and faith.
These ex-Bethelites are trully pitiable, and I do feel sorry for most of them, watching them live the dream and then wake up from it.