by Elsewhere 122 Replies latest jw friends
I would just like to add that you need not be in a bethel elders department for him to counsel you. You can easily be counseled by your table head, foot, home overseer, adjacent department overseer, and even if a bethel elder sees you goofing off in the locker room
table head? home overseer? locker room? I HAD NO IDEA Bethel was this intense! Sounds like one big fancy labor camp to me.
"table head? home overseer? locker room? I HAD NO IDEA Bethel was this intense! Sounds like one big fancy labor camp to me."
make no mistake about it, Bethel is an institution. There are a lot of rules not so much for the effectiveness, but simply in order to impose more regiment. Believe me, a lot of men get off on this stuff. Everything centers around the power structure. Even the smallest things are ordered and arranged to support the incremental hierarchy. It's just like the military: they break you down, then build you up, and in the process create a person who is eager to do whatever his superiors say.
For example, requisitions. In order to put a framed picture up on the wall you must retrieve a form from some obscure desk somewhere, fill it out, and place it in the mail system. Then you must leave your picture leaning against the wall directly under the place where you want it hung - you never know when someone is going to come into the room (after all, you arn't there and your door is left open during the day) and hang it using a Society-approved nail. Your requisition may not be filled for weeks, but you can't put your picture somewhere else, because what if the brother comes in and looks for it and can't find it - that is inconsiderate and unloving to your brothers and sisters. And that's just ONE requisition. Any alteration, no matter how small or trivial to the premises requires the form to be filled out.
So you got all this small stuff bugging the hell out of you, but also the glaring stares from Brother-50-year-old-virgin at the table when you talk about what you watched on TV last night. The hashbrowns and hard-boiled eggs are shitty, so you brought your Wheaties to tie you over. But of course, if you bring anything to the table you must be prepared to share it, because if you didn't it would be onloving and inconsiderate. So young Brother-straight-from-West-Virginia, reaches is oily hand over and pours himself a bowl of your Wheaties which happened to cost 3.75 at the commissary - your last few dollars and cents. Which means you have to ask the guy who drives you to the meeting for a loan so you can pay his gas fare. That makes you popular in a hurry.
Then, your'e at work, making Romano in the cheese room. Brother-hasn't-had-sex comes over and tells you to speed it up, because we don't have all day, nevermind its your first time doing the job. You forget to wear latex gloves while you grate 500 lbs of cheese in the machine and by the end of the day your hands smell like pigs + ass. That night, all the guys are complaining about the nasty smell in the car during the 1-hour trip to and from the meeting. So you spend the entire time with the window rolled half-way down, hanging your hands out the window so no one has to smell the pigs + ass scent of Romano cheese stains.
Then you get home at 11pm, and have to get up at 5:30 the next day. So you get out your blanket and pillow and stretch out on the floor because if you had a bed it would take up 60% of the livable space of your room. 7AM comes swiftly in WT Land, and you almost fall asleep sitting in front of your breakfast without being able to eat it, listening to some old 90-year-old go on about how Catholics are horrible and the world is one big Shit Stack reaching up to heaven and the end is so close you could almost smell the rotting bodies.
As you work your ass off at work, hurrying ever faster for Brother-never-got-laid, Brother Sponsored-by-outside-money comes by in his suit and walks around, staring at all the hard working young men. He never says anything, never does anything. In fact, you never seen him carry anything, either. He just looks at you with a blank stare. His forehead is big enough to land a 747 on, and his eyeballs are glazed over in a perpetual gaze, fixed on the immutable. All you know is that he wears Hermes ties and Bally shoes and drives a Cadilac. But there he is, showing up every day, walking around, watching everyone, and when he leaves he's always carrying something out, like a brick of cheese, a salad to go, a sausage, whatever.
Freaking hell, I could go on and on and on. Bethel sucks in so many different and absurd ways.
Very interesting, daniel p. Thanks for sharing.
Daniel P
I wish you would write a book, that is freakin' hilarious
Smells like a pig's ass, that's classic.
I used to think I wanted to go to "bethel." Then after a few visits, I knew I could never live under the regimen. I grew up in a military family with an abusive father and had more freedom than that.
I was shocked that you could only have 3(?) items on top of your dresser. I wondered what would happen if you had 4.
I knew that the housekeepers checked up on those who stayed home sick to make sure they were really sick................and they monitored how often sisters had their periods, can't have cramps 3 times a month.
I will say that I knew about Bethel elders from Bethelites who came from our area. If you had family or friends at Bethel, you, the rank and file knew about that arrangement.
Blondie
Freaking hell, I could go on and on and on.
Please do, thats some funny shit
daniel-p: You just rescued my day! I had such a good laugh.
Hey, dude, I'm RIGHT NOW living the stuff you described so wonderfully! Man, YOU should write the "Dwelling together" manual!!!!
To ALL OF YOU, friends: daniel-p wrote a very funny description that is so close to reality, I can't express my gratitude with words! He put in writing what I live EVERY f@#%g day of my life!
You know what REALLY cracks up your faith in this organization? It is not 607, 1914, or some other stupid doctrine: IT IS BETHEL structure and life. That put the last nail on my coffin of faith in the WTBT$ as an godly organization. It is a freaking mind control organization at every level and yes, lots of brothers get off at the power and control they exercise over the fucking life of others. An organization that has inner workings like these ones IS NOT NORMAL and NOT DIRECTED BY GOD! This is for sure.
I'm here, right now and this infuriates me...Aaarrrghhh, I want to scream at this shitty place!!!!
Tell them about:
Watchtower Study, Extra 'privileges' and duties, How you get assigned to those far away congos, .....
Sorry, if I've got carried away.....this gets me emotionall.
I should write more but I gotta go to school right now. Heh, if I would have know my stories would have went over so well I would have told them long ago. More later.
I wonder if the GB is starting to think longingly of a dictatorship to replace the elder arrangement. Perhaps they've been learning from Enron's mistakes.
Nina
I should write more but I gotta go to school right now. Heh, if I would have know my stories would have went over so well I would have told them long ago. More later.
Thanks for answering my question even further above. I also enjoyed your tales of Bethel life and your comments. When you get time please post some more. Tor
