Oh don't I know!
1. Moved to a small town. Congregation had 18 people in it, the territory was about 2 hours by 2 hours drive. I drove an hour to get to the hall. Frequently I was the only "brother" there besides the PO. Although not worthy of the "priveleges" when the whole crew was there, somehow I was worthy when they weren't. It was quite a dance, playing the music, saying the prayer, doing the microphones, and handing out literature at the meeting....
2. At one point I thought it was funny there was a minimum hour requirement to do stuff. I would go out for a few hours a month for real and just add time to the sheet to get over the national average and make up some magazine placements. Wait, maybe they figured it out because the elders just told me I needed to do more. So I did. I added a couple more hours, RVs, and placements. To do this successfully though I had to be sure to get the most rural territories, where you would spend more than an hour just driving TO the place. Let one of the zealots make a call in town first though, otherwise you couldn't count the time. Go to all five houses in that territory (takes a couple hours to do that)... and spend another couple hours driving home. Bingo!
3. Some JW "friends" asked me to fix their computer when they went out of town. I don't remember what was wrong but in the process of fixing it I discovered they had been emailing about ME to someone I didn't even know... talking smack! Not sure what to do about that find but knowing that I had to have "proof", I printed the email. When they came back and we chatted, I mentioned the find (not the print). They called a meeting with the PO for me reading their email. Dumbasses! They asked me to fix their email and it didn't take snooping to find! They tried to discredit me with the elders over invading their privacy until I mentioned the printed copy of the email. So I got in trouble for printing a copy, in trouble for "stealing" their paper! I was reproved and they made him an elder. Sheesh...
4. I was dirt poor, as in (minimal) food stamps, public insurance for my kids, and I could only afford to eat one meal a day to preserve food for the wife and kids. I worked full-time and in the tiny town there were no other jobs. This town was one that traveling speakers had to go through in order to get to the KH from where most of them lived. The much more well to-do JWs were either always going to other halls to give talks or had some excuse for not feeding the speaker. Wanting to be hospitable, I invited them to our house for lunch. It wasn't much, could be PB&J and water... but it was literally all I could do. In fact, it meant that I had to sacrifice a meal during the week to pull it off. After a while I think the word got out that our cong was barely feeding the speakers... and the elders stepped up. I did not get anything for that, chaps my ass....
Sorry for ranting but I had 10 years of promises of "priveleges" and watched hypocrisy in action on a weekly basis in some cases affecting me or my family in very personal ways.
samiam2b
