Was you ever an attendent or had an attendent in the family?

by jayhawk1 21 Replies latest jw friends

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  jayhawk1

  I got to thinking about the Conventions and such today. Mainly I got to thinking about how structured it all is... namely the Attendent's job. Here is a guy... always a guy who is in charge of a section of seating. His job is to get up every so often and count people. He also tells the young and old alike where they are not allowed to sit. In the rare emergency, he might even be more like a bar bouncer (although usually much doughier in the mid section). They can be found in the parking lots telling people where to park their cars. At the end of the day they are like traffic cops directing people out of the parking lot. Sometimes an attendent might have been called upon to drive off Gary Buss from the vending machines. And my impression of them was they always acted like they was better than everybody else, because they had that little ribbon on that said "ATTENDENT."

  If you was an attendent, did you really feel like you was somehow better than everybody else. Kind of a "look at me" type of attitude.

  Any thoughts...
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  Arthur

  Yeah, I was an attendant several times. To tell you the truth, I never liked it. It was very stressful. I am a very laid-back and introverted type of person. I hated acting like a policeman. It just isn't in my nature.

  The part that was most stressful was enforcing the "First 3 Rows For the Elderly and Infirm" rule. Whenever I saw someone who didn't look "elderly", I had to go remind them of the rule. How exactly does one define "elderly"? Several times, people got really snotty and sarcastic with me.

  It was also very stressful to remind people to only save seats for themselves and their immediate family or car group. That is another area where people can get really testy.

  Of course, 80% of the friends were always well-behaved, decent, and cooperative. I just wish I could have had pepper spray for the other 20%. ( hee-hee )
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  TresHappy

  Us females were just left to sweat in panty hose!
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  jwcol

  Once I was able to be an attendant, it felt good to be "used". But I never viewed it as me being better than anyone. However, a lot of the guys I served with did.
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  Arthur

  Us females were just left to sweat in panty hose!

  And the sisters also had to wait in those huge long lines for the restroom while the brothers just got to stroll right in to the men's room without waiting. I always felt sorry for the sisters about that stuff.
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  jwfacts

  I was first an attendant at 14 for a circuit assembly, and I wasnt even baptised. I got to tell people where to sit and count them, and was instructed what to do in case of suspicious activity. I cant say i felt superior, but there was an element of pride having the Badge when none of my friends did.

  I loved being an attendant, as assemblies were so boring, and it was basically a license to wonder around whenever i felt like it.
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  jayhawk1

  When they had food service I helped make sandwiches before I was baptized. I also got to sit by a contribution box before I was baptized, until I was told 3 assemblies later that I had to be baptized in order to do it again. I was told I could help the janitorial team if I wanted to, which I did. But afterwards, I decided if I was good enough to be a janitor without being baptized, then I was also good enough to watch the contribution boxes as well. That was the last time I did any volunteer work at an assembly.
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  vitty

  It all the power ! Its just like being a milk monitor in kindergarden..............
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  wozadummy

  It was a good thing if kept in the perspective ,that is, to serve and assist and not to badger people.

  Some really humorous things would happen and some tragic if someone passed away at an assembly.

  I did this for years as part of the Security/Attendance department and there developed in the 80's here a real "cowboy" class who bought expensive radio gear like the cops and would walk around (should I say Strut) talking into their shoulder mikes etc. and the feedback from the R &F was of feeling watched and itimidated.

  One funny time was in '88 when we went interstate to the Melbourne Assembly and the cowboys here thought they had "Security" thing all right and thought they would show the Melbourne Brothers in Security how it's done....it was so embarrassing! One guy we called Bro. Gadjet took his bright red station wagon over there and fitted a massive SECURITY sign on the roof with large orange flashing lights, and he that many CB antenae on it that it looked like a porcupine!

  Caught him later one assembly day in the back of the wagon "monitoring" the assembly watching a football game on a portable TV.

  Another time we chased a pervert away who had an extendable mirror to look into the womens toilets, and another time a large Asian man chatting up sisters with more than a pure motive on his mind!

  Ah and then there was the crawling around under buildings with torches and mirrors looking for possible bomb threats in places no human had been for years.

  As I was in charge of the bomb squad I once at an assembly had to shut down the podium area as a suspicious suitcase had been found earlier and cleared as OK , but we were put on high alert. Things were a bit jumpy back then as one Australian Kingdom Hall had been bombed and with loss of life.When I routinely inspected the back of the podium a case was found that belonged to no-one there in attendance and the lunch break was nearly over .So I shut the area down and no-one could leave or come in till we resolved the matter with runners as we could not use our radios.

  Well who should barge his way through the security brothers but the District Overseer Franz Hoobler! Well he was not a happy man , me ,holding up his Assembly.

  If anyone knows this guy you'll know what I'm talking about - well he raved on and on and finally I just let fly as reason was not going to persuade this man. I told him to back off and he would be escorted off the back of the podium if he did'nt go of his own accord !

  By this time the department heads and local elder gods came and brought the owner of the case who was extremely embarrassed which diffused the situation as the cops were notified and all. Well that's my 15 minutes of fame and I thought I might get a severe reprimand but as it was no-one wanted to broach the subject after this ,but next assembly I was shifted to organising the food lines. I've never been sorry for doing my job at that time as the KH bombing was fresh and people mattered more to me than Franz Hooblers hurry to get the assembly program moving.

  Steve
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  DaCheech

  remember that even though we were "proud" and used this position to check out chicks..... we always had another attendant "higher in the power ladder" watching and continously remonding us of the things we were not doing.