Watchtower Door to Door Work...what an incredible waste of time. (page 2)

Broken Promises

There was nothing more annoying than a really good discussion with your fellow JW being interrupted by the householder opening the door.

punkofnice

I think they have what we used to call the 'pioneer walk'. Take time not to cover the terror-try. Make those hours count then fake the report anyway!

Vanderhoven7

Yes, and besides being a waste of time preaching the WT non-gospel; door to door preaching was never commanded or even mentioned in scripture.

Everything is about wasting their time. Within the day, I have seen plenty of time wasted. I would get to the group about 10 minutes early, and someone would always be parked out there with a van, usually still running with at least one other person in it. So much for no one showing up. They would pretend not to notice as I would get into the group at that time. Then, at 9:00, they would walk into the group. We would start the group, and soon after someone else shows up. It never failed to happen that someone else would come in 15 or 20 minutes late, dragging themselves into the group, and often several people. We would drag out into the parking lot at around 9:30, usually with confusion about who is going with who.

Then, once in the territory, we would be driving quite slowly. The speed limit, here in miles an hour, is usually 30 in the city. They would be driving maybe 35-40 km/h instead--as if they were in another country. They get to the door, and from that point on they might be walking 2-3 km/h at most, wasting time gabbing around. And ringing the door bell--how often do they insist that we must wait a whole minute, try again, and wait another whole minute. I hated giving them the chance to come to the door--that is one time a UPS ring-and-dash would help both me and the householder. Then they would waste maybe half an hour warming up in temperatures around 5 o C, or I would be sitting in the car for half an hour while someone else is in on a call. Either way, time is wasted.

I have also seen plenty of wasted time going to the next territory. Usually, we finish one section of one territory and then start calls (never finishing a whole territory and then moving back to not at homes or the next territory). That usually results in half an hour of time wasted--I liked the time it wastes when it is around -15 C out or colder (working on 2 or 3 doors, waste half an hour, repeat). Then, upon finding a call, we would be driving maybe 25 km/h or less (sometimes as low as 10 km/h) while hunting for the house. Sometimes when I would know where the street or house is, I would keep my big mouth shut and let them waste time driving right past it.

Then there is a bigger time waste. When a territory is finished, you hand it in. Usually, it takes the equivalent of 15 publisher hours to get the door to door part done, plus around 20-30 more to work the not at homes to death. Then the territory is handed back in, and put at the bottom of the stack. After the territories are all done, they are recycled--and the whole process starts anew. The previous working doesn't even successfully reduce the amount of work left for next time. So what if they get 5 or 6 calls in the previous working? Those are not noted on the territory, and it is easy to hit someone else's call if that person is not present in that group. And usually such calls have a lifetime of 2-3 months before they either disappear or move out of the territory. At which point, you have to start with a full territory.

To me, that leaves no sense of accomplishment. I cannot simply work my way through a territory and then be finished with that territory. Rather, I have to go back into the territory, often at a pace dictated by others working the same territory. There is no such thing as speeding up and finishing the territory so we can run out of work. Instead, we have to work at their pace. And there is no finishing. Not once have I even successfully reduced the amount of work to be done next time. Which renders the whole thing a complete waste.

steve2

The witnessess in my area must be the exception then...they are out there in force...its actually getting saturated with them

Hell, where do you live? Surely this would be the exception in any of the western countries? The last time I felt the earth heave under the wait of too-many witnesses door-knocking was in the count down to the great tribulation in the early to mid 1970s.

Ding

I wonder why the WTS counts hours spent as opposed to number of doors reached or people actually contacted.

DavinciCodeBreaker

punkofnice where I'm from they called it the "pioneer shuffle".

sd-7

We would drag out into the parking lot at around 9:30, usually with confusion about who is going with who.

LOL @ wt wizard--if you replace '9:30' with '10:00', that was about my experience. I actually rather enjoyed--and was simultaneously terrified by--encountering actual people out there. There were, on occasion, some very interesting folks. It was tiring, and I wondered how the Society expected normal people to do a full day of that, much less a full weekend, and still have time and energy to study, spend time with family, oh yeah, and work.

But certainly the vast majority of the time people either weren't home or just didn't bother coming to the door. I mean, given how we'd show up in the neighborhood like a fleet of Star Destroyers, I can imagine they wanted to hide. That crap is intimidating even to someone who's familiar with it. You feel like you're being invaded.

I admit...I missed a lot of good '90s Saturday morning cartoons. I was mighty thankful when my folks got me a VCR for graduating high school. I could finally tape it all and fall asleep over a KFC meal while watching it. Ah, the memories...

--sd-7

Watchtower Door to Door Work...what an incredible waste of time.