LOL @ Outlaw,
you don't know how many times I feel like kickin' my own A$$
you just don't know ( Wuz shakin' her head in shame )
Begging for money at Bethel
by life is to short 64 Replies latest jw friends
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Botzwana
I went for a temp assignment in 95. They put us out in the hot sun ALL day to grind badly poured concrete...to even it out. WHY they didn't do that as they were pouring I will never know! So I was drinking water all day long because of it. Some of the workers thought I wasn't doing my part because I took water breaks every 5 minutes. Then you had to RUN to lunch. NOT WALK...RUN! BUT...You had to have a frickin shower and change into meeting clothes first. I was praying for my two weeks to end. So when I got home the local congregation wanted to interview me...Except they FORGOT! It was at the last minute that they interviewed me and I said I hated it. The overseer got surprised...But then I answered then the next week it was ok. I was interviewed not with a microphone but standing up in a get together after being promised they would do it from the platform...So glad I didn't go back...
But before that experience Dad and I applied to Bethel. He had STUDIED with the best architect in the WORLD...Frank Lloyd Wright. That's right...My father was a student of the master. So he went up to Bethel and applied at the architecture office etc. The main architect at Bethel was so frickin jealous that they turned him down right there. My father had more qualifications in his pinky than the entire office and he couldn't get a job working for FREE for them. Dad brought his portfolio showing his masterpieces that he had designed etc. The YOUNG architects were amazed. It was like Elvis was in the building. The main jackass in charge though was trying to protect his fiefdom. Prick!
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leavingwt
The main architect at Bethel was so frickin jealous that they turned him down right there. My father had more qualifications in his pinky than the entire office and he couldn't get a job working for FREE for them. Dad brought his portfolio showing his masterpieces that he had designed etc. The YOUNG architects were amazed. It was like Elvis was in the building. The main jackass in charge though was trying to protect his fiefdom. Prick!
Sounds about right. Bethel told us young guys that EVEN if we discovered a BETTER way of doing anything in our jobs, not to tell them, because they weren't interested. This, of course, how the organization in general is run, also. It's run from the top, down.
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ziddina
"Bethel told us young guys that EVEN if we discovered a BETTER way of doing anything in our jobs, not to tell them, because they weren't interested. This, of course, how the organization in general is run, also. It's run from the top, down. ..."
That - right there - explains why the Gov.Bod hasn't fixed the problems within the Watchtower Society, that are driving out so many members...
I've wondered so many times, WHY the Gov.Bod doesn't just modify their teachings and demands upon the Rank&File... That would slow down the 'blood' loss of members from the Watchtower Society...
"If we old farts on the Gov.Bod didn't think of it, it ain't worth thinking of!!!" [Or, "it we didn't think of it, then it must have come from "Satan's" world, because WE're all spirit-inspired of "gawd"...]
Zid
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life is to short
Flipper I was I had been as smart as you. When we pioneered we just did not have the money to put in the box. I will never forget the time I went to pick up the magazines for the next day to use in service and the MS an older brother said loudly in front of everyone by the counter where is your money for them. I was speechless and just stammered that I would have it by the next meeting. The MS said then that is when you can pick up you magazines. I was blown away and I could not tell my husband as first he would not believe me and second he would have said they we can go with out food to get the magazines, I was working as much as I could we just were giving everything to field service and car gas. Looking back I am so upset that I let it happen, why did't I speak up and tell that MS off.
Botzwana and leavingwt You are both so right. I remember so many times in construction we did things that made no sense. There was the saying at Bethel that there is a right way to do things a wrong way and Bethel's way. It did not have to make sense but you just did it no questions acked because that was what Jehovah wanted.
There was a brother who was there when we first came to Bethel he had a lot of knowledge in his field and he worked in the 50 building, I do not remember what he did but he and his wife left because he just could not take it anymore. We had just gotten to Bethel and he was in our book study I was so blown away. This brother tried to keep his anger down but you could tell he was very upset. He was a so called heavy but I think he ticked someone off. They treated him horribly and when he left it took five or six brothers to do only a part of what he had been doing. Bethel really shot themselves in the foot over it but they would rather do that then change.
LITS
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WTWizard
They hounded me to go to Beth Hell. Yet, they exploit people and then throw them away because of some stupid infraction. Then they have the nerve to ask them to donate part of their meager allowance of $90 a month toward spreading the cancer elsewhere.
Here is the breakdown of how that $90 a month goes. You have a car, you are going to be spending money on gas and repairs. With gas at $3 a gallon (and it is higher in parts of New York City), $90 only buys 30 gallons of gas. If your car gets 20 MPG, which is reasonable in the city, you will only be traveling 600 miles a month on this amount of gas. How often do pio-sneers have to drive more than that within a month? Subway fares can be $1 per trip, and if you are looking at 8 trips to and from the Kingdumb Hell a month for boasting sessions, you are wasting $16 a month on that.
You also have suit dry cleanings. I wonder how much they charge for a suit dry cleaning. Or, if they even do suit dry cleanings at Beth Hell. That could easily be $20 per suit dry cleaning in New York City (remember, it is more expensive in New York City than in other parts of the country, like rural Mississippi). Dry clean your suits 4 times during the month, you are out around $80. And there is wear and tear on suits--remember, they are supposed to be suit dress-up just to cross a fxxxing street! And these are not cheap--even a crap suit can be as much as $100 and last around 3-6 months in this environment.
You have other essentials. You get a bottle of shampoo, it will last about a month under the conditions they expect you to use it. One bottle of the cheapest shampoo available is $1--which may not even be acceptable to many people. The average bottle of shampoo costs $3 where I am. And, in New York City, taxes can easily add another 50 cents or $1 to that price. Toothpaste costs, for the cheapest brands, about $1 a tube that is supposed to last about a month when used as most people use them. A cheap toothbrush is another $1 or so (a better, more effective, one is $3 or 4). Deodorant is another $2 per tube of the cheapest I could find. (This usually lasts 2-3 months in this environment). Shoe polish can add another $2 or 3 a month for polishing your shoes. Razors are also expensive--if you use the cheapest disposables, a month's supply will cost about another $1. This can easily drain another $10 for toiletries per month.
As is, $90 is not even close to being enough, unless you live in Nigeria where the cost of living supports being able to live comfortably on 5 cents an hour. In New York City, you wouldn't be able to live a week. Even granted that meals and living quarters are accomodated, these other things are not. As for the "doctors(??)", I would rather be my own doctor for most circumstances and go to a real doctor in the event of emergencies. I probably know more about most medical situations and how to manage them myself (and can find out more online, using a variety of sources) than what those "doctors(??)" at Beth Hell know. Hell, I wouldn't even trust the Beth Hell "doctors(??)" to treat a stupid thing like a sniffles!
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Roski
Lots of pioneers are not better off. When my ex and I were special pioneering in a (missionary) assignment we had a house made of bush materials. The land had been donated by the local brothers and the house had been built by the previous pioneers and donated to the society - who charged us substantial rent.
I heard about a pioneer in Aust. that had been assigned to a remote congregation. His car had major trouble on the way so he called into bethel and they kindly got it going for him - then later sent him a bill for the work at normal mechanics rates.
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designs
Fortunately every Kingdom Hall has an EXIT sign.
How appropriate.
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lingno2
I want to share, one time more than a year now a D.O. approached me and he had a problem of no Tax Identity Number and ask me to process for a reason that he will have a transacton buying and selling properties. He is more than a sixty of age and to know that they don't have any insurance to expect for retirement. Lately i heard it was an assembly hall he buy together with 2 or 3 witful elders made that arrangement with only 300thousand and after a few weeks they made sold to 2.7 million....wow good bus. for retirement. I guess he just made his share for his retirement.
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dissed
I was part of the Towers remodeling crew and we had a saying. "If there is a harder way to do the job, we'll find it."
On being sick at Bethel...."If you don't work, you don't eat". That's what the Home Servant told us. So during a major Flu epidemic in the mid-seventies, I can clearly remember the Bethel nurse ordering many of us to the kitchen to do food prep. Too sick to do our regular job, but at least we could prep food? ...Uh??!!
You would think they knew about how sickness is spread, no? Or did the Bethel doctors miss that class in school?
Outlaw's slavery pictures? - We wish we had it that good. Physical abuse is nothing compared to the emotional and 'humiliating' figurative beating you recieved daily from incompetent, self-righteous overseers.
Back to the Towers...We were tearing apart walls, creating severe dust situations. Seldom were we given proper gear for protection. "Masks? You want more masks? What's wrong with the one's we gave you last week? Can't you just...shake it out and reuse it?" (actual quote)
But this is the type of mentality Bethel loves. After firmly rebuking my 'overseer' while at WT Farms. (If I had killed him, the police would have called it 'justifiable homicide') I was re-assigned to a new, more humbling job. Detail cleanning of the hog house. The work wasn't EVEN needed, just a busy job. After two weeks, I was thinking of leaving Jehovah's Hog House of God. But a friend in the Bethel office told me I was being tested or punished (depends how you look at things) for my 'insolence'. I was doing well, and soon would be rewarded for my good-uncomplaining-attiude. I stayed and did get a better job AND more importantly, an arm around my shoulder by the farm overseer, Bob Lang, saying how proud he was of how I handled the situation. They would not forget this.***
*** For more information on how Bethel humbles you see Ray Franz COC on how Ed Dunlap was treated (punished) for complaining (mentioning) how he was sick.