It used to happen about once every three or four years. But now it seems to happen about three or four times a year. What is "it"? A tract blitz. That is, where the whole territory is supposed to be hit with a tract. The regular ministry is supposed to be suspended, and the publishers have three weeks to complete the territories by placing tracts at every door. Special not-at-homes are to be taken, separate from the regular ones, and they are to leave tracts in the doors after more than one attempt has been made to contact the householder.
There are serious problems with this approach. For starters, someone who was just hit on by the Witnesses and was not interested then is apt to be hit on again a few days later with this tract work. They are likely to be just as not interested this time through. And many people that are calls or on the Do Not Call list will be hit on with this work. And, what happens if this happens several times a year instead of only once every several years? That is going to pxxx off a lot of people.
Those doing the work have it even worse. There is absolutely no come and go with this kind of work. You have to just knock on the door, say the sentence or two that you have been programmed to say, and then leave the tract and hurry up and go to the next door. Absolutely no thinking is involved. And the Tower claims that people are happiest serving God--what kind of crap is that? People are actually happiest while using their brains to create some sort of value for mankind, not when doing this kind of stagnating, mindless work all day.
Children are hardest hit by this. They are supposed to be using their brains to develop. This stifles them from doing that, since they are just acting as mindless robots. At least when they are doing regular magazine or book work, there is a little thinking plus a bit more time between calls to daydream (which is the closest to thinking they actually get). With these tract blitzes, it is a race to get those tracts out. There are fewer and shorter breaks, and the pace is usually picked up leaving less time to do any kind of thinking. Doing this sort of work for hours at a time, day after day, stops them from developing and thinking, and hence learning.
Also, this displaces time spent on homework. An hour spent doing homework, while in today's schools is not integrated, is an hour spent learning something. Doing extra research in school often leads to more integrated learning. But this is not possible if every spare moment is wasted running around on these tract blitzes. Homework itself often gets left undone, and then the child is blamed for unfinished assignments. Usually the TV or internet (or Xbox 360) get curtailed, when in fact it is all those hours spent on the tract blitzes. And, when they try to cut back on service to make room for homework, the parents will get a call from Brother Hounder about how important the message is and that the homework should wait until after service (which never comes). And they never get to study. Flunked tests usually result (their being tired from the Theocraptic Misery "School(??)" doesn't help when the tests are on Friday, which they usually are).
These three week blitzes take away from everyone. During a blitz, they askexpect everyone to stay out extended hours. Projects at home suffer. People are more tired because they have to stay out later in service. They ask people that usually go in at noon to take a nap before work to instead stay out until just before they have to work, resulting in tiredness. This affects everyone negatively, since they are asked to be out on days that they usually don't go out on and to stay out later. They usually hype pioneering during a blitz as well. People then sign up under pressure, only to not make the time or to get sick trying.
All well and good, if the blitzes happen every 3 or 4 years since they will end and allow a more normal schedule to resume. But, what if the blitzes keep coming and never seem to end like they seem to be doing now? You get out of one blitz, having spent everything to reach the end, only to find out immediately that another one is about to follow. Projects that had been on hold for the first one have to wait even longer for the second, and beyond. Home improvement projects, which would have involved the weekend or a few weekends if taken care of promptly, will become major repair projects when neglected long enough. Brother Hounder will show up if the house needs painting or is dirty, but he will also show up if you take time off to paint or clean it while the never-ending tract blitzes are in progress. You have no way out.
And people get even more tired. They wear themselves out on one blitz, only to have another one shoved on them immediately. They don't get the chance to relax or recharge. And, once the colds and flu (and tuberculosis) starts, they are susceptible because they are worn out (not to mention that they have to go to the doors where the people suffer these illnesses). They are too tired at their regular job, so they lose them and lose a lot of pay (Welfare cases waiting to happen). Drivers are more likely to have accidents in this condition. And yet another blitz awaits them at the conclusion of this one.
This is no way to live. Children should not be continually spending all day, every day, doing such mindless work for hours at a time. I remember the video game craze of the early 1980s, and many parents worried about this when teenagers spent hours in the arcades playing video games. That was harmless and exercised the brain, helped in developing hand-eye coordination, and developed skills because those games demanded the skills if the players were to do well. True, they did not further education and many parents were worried that all that time would stop them from developing properly. However, that is nothing compared to the tract work--tract work demands no skills whatsoever and henceforth, is totally worthless in developing any skills. Plus they lose the education.
Any parents who were worried about the video games have every reason to worry about the hours spent on placing these tracts. An hour spent placing those tracts is just as wasted as an hour in the arcade. And you get absolutely nothing. No hand-eye coordination. No pattern recognition. No memorization of sequences. No nothing. And you don't run out of quarters--once you run out of tracts, it seems someone has another case of them. As for me, I think I will stick to video games--at least that way there is something demanded that will develop some skill. (I feel that my typing speed has been improved somewhat by playing Defender, which demands moving as fast as typing 100 words per minute in order to do well).