Can't get work after pioneering

by ekruks 35 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  Billy the Ex-Bethelite

  "Like many here, I was bought up as a JW, with full-time service (Bethel, pioneer) the only career option held out in front of me. I wanted to take a government loan and go to University, but was forced not to, labelled 'materialistic'."

  I'd done the pioneering and bethel for a total of 17 years. I started a business that wasn't doing particularly well, also because of all the JW restrictions on holidays, politics, etc. I sold out of that and went back to school.

  One thing I'd recommend is that you stop hating on yourself. You're suffering not because of some personal failing. You're suffering because you were obedient to WT. They made us big promises of how Jehovah would support us... but Jehovah isn't hiring. However, the government was quite willing to help me financially to go back to school. I did very well in school before, and have done very well since returning. Yes, it's been very stressful, but it's been very worth it. I started regaining a measure of self-respect very quickly.

  Once I started getting my self-esteem and making real plans for the future, the WT mind games lost power over me. With my history as a pioneer and bethelite, I could always take the "spiritual high ground" to any of the elders that hadn't really done anything substantial for the org like I did. Materialistic? I don't have a boat sitting in my yard (like one of the elders). I can't support a family (like most of the elders). Since when do I not deserve to eat full meals because I pioneered?

  Then I was able to start reversing the mind games on them. Nothing too major, but enough to keep them off my back. Then they decided to try to humble me by removing me as an elder because of some trivial matter. I didn't keep it confidential and the congregation was unhappy, and the next CO was like "WTH were they thinking?" That has made my fade easy, and it's made my dad really see the hypocracy up close. Mom is still in cog/dis mode, but she still loves me and tries to love the org.

  PM me if you think I can help you off-forum.
• 

  Theocratic Sedition

  Billy
• 

  EndofMysteries
• 

  ekruks

  Perfect1 - " as a teenager when we had breaks for coffee and donut I never had any money in my wallet"

  This sounds just like me - I would always feel ashamed of myself when all the other pioneers would be drinking their coffees and I wanted to be part of it, for the association, but would say I had a return visit to do, because I had no money. It was a real feeling of failiure, because I couldn't manage what they did. I wish now that I had claimed on the welfare state like I later realised they were doing, but it seems corrupt to me.

  Billy - "You're suffering not because of some personal failing."

  I would think there was something wrong with myself, because I couldn't make as much money as the other pioneers in the same amount of time - this was very stressful. Did this happen to anyone else?

  I couldn't help feeling like I'd failed, and zero self-respect, feeling I must have offended Jehovah because Matt 6:33 wasn't happening for me. I tried hard with the ministry, talks, meeting comments, spent my few pennies on cheap suits, but took years to become a servant and the elders would tell me I wasn't to ask why but wait on Jehovah - I don't think I'm alone there. Trying to clean windows, without any experience and little help from other window cleaning pioneers - did anyone help you guys start up? What did your parents think? Mine are happy if I pioneer and not worried if I was in a financial mess as Armageddon is soon - this really messes with my head!

  I struggle with the window cleaning, especially paperwork, because it has so many demoralising memories and it's damn embarrasing - drive up to a house and think of the one next door I lost because I was 2 weeks late because I was doing pre-convention work - year after year of not making ends meet, well, it's hard to think much of window cleaning. I'm wearing clothes from before I was pioneering - repaired lots, holes in socks, telling myself to be humble. When I see a brother with a flash new window cleaning van, well, I don't feel it can be the WT to blame as that brother is doing ok and I'm not pioneering now, so that "I'm some pathetic looser" feeling strikes again.

  Later I realised that they had different circumstances to me - some lived in parents' homes and when parents' died they got a free house and rented out the spare room, while others had a rich family member and others were a couple. Ironic was elders' kids who went to university then got a part-time job. All this telling me to stay single to pioneer as I could do more for Jehovah - married couples have two incomes, but same rent bill ! To think of all the trouble the brothers gave me for getting to know sisters.
• 

  fakesmile

  you are not alone...do what the WT does. fudge it. dont say "dropout window washer", say "self employeed pastor". get creative. tell them you worked for yourself for some years untill the downturn in the economy. focus on youre patience and ability to manage time. read a book about job interviews. once you are in, all you have to do is show up and make an effort, i found this part easy due to my childhood... being a robot at the hall and whatnot.
• 

  sherry123

  Rent the move "Conversations with God" it really helped me.
• 

  ekruks

  Thank you again guys!

  Job interviews - one slight problem here: no job references

  Fakesmile - that's what I have done, because people look down on window cleaners.... the idea being that someone does such a 'lowly' job if they can't get something better, i.e. dumb.... the problem is, they ask for a reference.... so I ask an elder to supply one? One flat out refused, telling me that pioneering is a real career. They don't like me wording pioneering in a way that means something to people outside the community, as you say "self-employed pastor" or I write 'volunteer minister of religion' - I list out the congregation/pioneer duties I had, mentioning what job tasks they are equivalent to.
• 

  Giordano

  I'll tell you about my uneducated nephew. Barely got out of high school (USA) came to live with me and my wife, went job hunting no success. He wanted to work with in auto repair....no real skills. I told him to find a place that changed oil, repaired and sold tires, did brakes and wheel alignment etc. He said "I don't know how to do any of that". I said thats ok because you won't ask to be paid. What you ask for is to learn how to do one of the simpler jobs and in return you'll sweep and clean. No one turns down free labor. In his first week he became a skilled lube and oil changer. He got that first job and a career that followed, he learned brakes and wheel alignment and within a year....... a trusted assistant manger. In one year he went from nothing to being decently paid. Job offers came in from other shops because of his skill set. He got there by giving up one week of pay. By the way that's just one business you probably pass by a hundred different business' that make good money. Before there was college there were apprentices. Think about it and good luck....you sound like your ready to make your own luck.
• 

  fakesmile

  send the call to a... nevermind. damm.
• 

  fakesmile

  dude. they have you by the danglies. giordano has a great idea tho.