Virtually everybody above the rank of elder is/was a pioneer.
You can't become a C.O. or D.O. without pioneering.
Bethelites (even sisters who marry in) were pioneers.
The administration is full of pioneers that worked their way up.
Missionaries and senior overseers at all branches were
pioneers. The Governing Body can appoint any "anointed"
ones to their own rank, but they choose high officials who proved
their loyalty. High officials were virtually all PIONEERS before they
found a better job in the organization.
That's a serious problem.
A C.O. who managed to pioneer along with his wife, must have
had private income or had a totally sacrificial life. He must have
had reasonable health along with his wife in order to do this.
Most never had children.
About the only exception is the retired elder who starts pioneering
then became a C.O.. As years go by, these are fewer and fewer.
The Borg chooses younger healthier folks. The average C.O.
cannot relate to the stressed family member or the unhealthy ones
who miss meetings.
Many C.O.'s know that there is no retirement fund for them. They
will often stick to the work until they are on death's door, then hope
a circuit will care for them. I knew a C.O. that took half of every green
handshake and saved it. I don't know his tax liability. I am picturing a
Buick with the trunk stuffed with hundred-dollar bills, so nothing gets claimed.
Maybe he followed some obscure tax laws and deposited it in the bank.
Can he relate to folks that never get money from the congregations?
Can he understand that some mentally unstable ones NEVER get invited
to Sister Hospitality's home for a meal? He automatically relates to the
pioneers that sacrifice everything to keep selling magazines.
My point is that the C.O. or D.O. who has nothing to fall back on, simply
keeps working up the WT ladder. They want the room at Bethel or at least
at the Convention Hall. Once these guys get higher up, they think everyone
should be able to follow the same examples.
Further up the ladder, all the way into the Governing Body, these guys have
already wasted their lives slaving for WTS. That's a bunch of cognitive
dissonance for these leaders. No wonder they can't admit they are EVER
wrong.
This organization made up almost entirely of pioneers (beyond the local congs.)
is full of folks that think the evangelizing work is the measuring stick of everything.
They think spirituality equals pioneering. They think a useless door-to-door work
is so vital.
A ten-hours-per-month publisher can make elder, but he ain't hardly worth trotting
out on to the platform at a convention. A pioneer though, especially pioneer brothers
who keep their wives out in the pioneer service- that's a shining star.
You can see how this is going to cause the WTS to drag on with worn-out thinking
and cause it's upper levels to stay HIGH AND MIGHTY and look down on the rest of
them.