by Open mind 41 Replies latest watchtower bible
But my report is always a healthy 8-12 hours, 4 rvs, 10 mags.
I've seen a few remarks like this.. do you think maybe that's part of what gives the game away? Identical figures, month after month after month? I always used to mix mine up, never quite the same, in any column...
I forgot to mention that I had often heard the "Service Overseer" when getting reports together at the end of the month say,especially to elderly ones, who may not have been out at all.
"Just but a couple of hours down and a couple of magazines. just to show you're not inactive."
I knew of brothers who did no more than me yet would report up to 20 hours field service.
One brother would claim to place 40 magazines a month.
Then it was discovered all he was doing was just posting them through peoples doors.
Also look at it this way if two JWs out on the doors together, same doors, talk to same people etc.
They do an hour, yet each will report an hour each, making the one hour seem like two hours service.
Its not a true record of how many real hours were done preaching.
I've seen many methods of counting time. Mine was to start the moment I woke up on Saturday. Just thinking about going through neighborhoods bugging people was "work". So I counted it. And I didn't stop until I got back home, even if we ate lunch on the way. If I had to dress up, I was darn sure going to get credit for it. I figure there are as many methods of time counting as there are publishers.
erm.. how would they know?
I’ve been including the hours I spend at the TMS and service meeting, the time spent from the moment I step a foot out of my house and I get back from FS, shepherding call time, anything related to WTs work I now count as FS time. As a matter of fact, last month, I also included the time spent commenting on this board . I know of two elders that are “pioneers”, whom as I’ve been told by other pioneers, are hardly seen in field service…I wonder how they do their hours? Any clues guys?
I don’t feel the slightest ounce of guilt for doing this, none at all. I’m just waiting for a nice word of “abuse” from the C.O or another elder, any slight change in doctrine or a new scandal to play the “discouraged card” and start reporting 1 hour a month, drop my eldership and set my self free from the tower.
Let's be clear and truthful on this topic: Nearly all of the hours reported in the developed world are fake, false, a myth, a fraud.
How so?
Because there's almost no possible way to truthfully accumulate time spent in preaching in most areas, especially door to door. Get up on Saturday morning, pound on the first door at 9:30 am , end at 11:30 am. During that time, you spent 27 seconds talking to a person who said "I'm not interested" and shut the door.
Hours counted: 2
Time actually spent "preaching" to another living human: 27 seconds
Now, tell me, how on earth does anyone honestly get their time in?
metatron
Ahhhhhh the Love!
How they are going to enforce this is beyond me. First, I have heard of hounders turning in fake time slips in behalf of publishers that themselves didn't turn in anything. How can I possibly turn in an accurate time slip if I did zero, I turned in nothing, but Brother Hounder turns in a fake slip with my name on it with 10 or more hours?
Additionally, there are plenty of ways to cheat on field circus slips that are impossible to enforce. If your fake slip has only a few hours (or one), it is miserably difficult to enforce it. One written letter, a phone call, talking to someone in your checkout line, placing a waste of paper in the laundromat--and your hour is up. How are they going to know whether people are doing it or faking it?
Or, whether people show up for field circus and then dogging it. They will sometimes start their time, and then go wandering around the territory. I have counted an hour for being driven across town on a call that was not at home. Or, 2 1/2 hours of time counted to do 6 houses (no one home), warm up half an hour, wait for someone to run a bank errand, get gas, a coffee break, and then someone else's call. And the fake doorbell rings, door tapping instead of knocking, and doing doors where you know no one is home--how are they going to prevent this kind of dogging it "service" from being counted as service?
If one was to be strict in reporting field circus time, one would only count time actually knocking on doors or making disciples. If one is driving from one territory straight to the next at the maximum safe, reasonable, and prudent speed without wasting time, one could count that time--also, if one is walking reasonably briskly instead of puttering around. Calls could be counted (also, the time spent driving efficiently from one group of calls to another), but not if you are always standing there silently doing nothing or sitting in the car. Coffee and doughnut breaks could not be counted at all, and neither could time spent running other errands. If you talk to someone and "informal witless", you could only count the time actually spent talking rounded to the minute per incident, and rounded to the nearest (not the next higher) hour at the end of the month. And, I bet no one could actually successfully pio-sneer in the real world playing it that strict.
Years ago I remember a pioneer sister from Alaska who moved to our area with her family. She never failed to get her hours in even during the move. Wasn't hard. She would just place magazines at every gas station on the way and count the time in between. Even when settled in our territory, she would go out a little bit, then go home and when her children got home on the bus, she would continue counting her time while she had a Bible study with them, or so she said.
Come to think of it--wayyyy back when I pioneered, I would start my time by writing a letter (or at least get a paragraph done), then drive to the KH for the meeting for FS, then go in service, then stop my time when I got back home and finished the letter. I felt I was being honest, however, by deducting the actual time we were at the KH. Well...I had to be creative. Had to get 100 hours in back then.
Bonnie
The whole "reporting if time" thing was the final deal that broke the back of this camel.
How can any current JW think that it's a normal and correct part of worship?
I believe I always reported honestly, working out my time in 15-minute segments, until the day I woke up and realised what bullshit the reporting of hours was.
Thank God I woke up.
