My first post: Pet Peeves from my JW past

by BarHarborBarbara 35 Replies latest jw friends

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  LongHairGal

  BarHarborBarbara:

  Welcome to the forum! I love your post and you point out so many things I agree with. I especially relate to you mentioning particular bias against single women.

  I had no intention of quitting my decent job to "pioneer" and pursue poverty. I also noticed that the poverty they are preaching is not for them, just some other fool. My critics? Mostly older married women with a cushy life and "worldly" husband working 40+ years to provide them with it. Imagine that? But, yet these hypocrites were criticizing me. These nervy people also thought they were going to target single women to do favors. Needless to say, I ran from all of them.

  You are also right on about there being so many JW women that even guys who were downright unattractive might have some desperate woman wanting them. Only in JW-land!

  So great to be out of that place!
• 

  jgnat

  Sharp observations! Love it.
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  Shanagirl

  BHBarbara, I ablsolutely loved your first post!!! You are soooooo right! It really puts these wierdos into perspective. I hope they read this about themselves to see how pathetic they really are.

  Shana
• 

  Vidiot

  My biggest pet peeve...

  ...feeling like I was unable to come to (what would otherwise be a perfectly reasonable) conclusion, simply because I was hamstrung by WT ideology.
• 

  Giordano

  Welcome to the forum!

  My pet peeve was that as a witness I always felt like I was playing on a losing team.

  Another was why are we knocking on door's when religions have grown through T.V.Now the internet.

  A pet Peeve...... what's the rush to get Baptized...... Jesus waited until he was 30!

  As a pioneer I always wanted to carry another line to capitalize on my efforts. "Ok your not interested in the Watchtower.... to tell you the truth neither am I but looky here in this second case I have a great line of Amway products...all on sale!"
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  Divergent

  My observations & personal opinions:
  
  Taking care of the earth - Not an issue where I'm at
  
  Higher education - I'm from Asia, where higher education is viewed as very important & highly valued. Many here ignore the counsel & proceed with it anyway. Almost all young ones in my cong have some form of higher education
  
  Debates - Seldom, less self-righteous ones here
  
  Elders turning a blind eye - Haven't experienced that
  
  Geography - We ain't so dumb
  
  Bias against single people - There are many single ones here, so less bias
  
  Desire to pioneer - Didn't have it either. Also have quite an independant spirit =)
  
  Service - Our field service here is mostly door to door, so we do not have car groups much except when going on RV's. Based on your description, it can definitely be said that service is more organized here
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  Divergent

  Anyway, my pet peeve - no matter what you do, there's always more to do. Publisher? Why not auxilary pioneer? Auxilary pioneering on 30-hour requirement? Why not try 50 hours? Auxilary pioneering on 50 hours? Why not regular auxilary pioneer? Regular auxilary pioneering? Why not regular pioneer? Regular pioneering? Why not work towards becoming a special pioneer? And the list goes on and on...
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  cultBgone

  Welcome, BHBarbara! Great post and most everyone here has experienced that craziness. I thought the "service" arrangements got weirder and weirder the longer I stayed in.

  Here's a not-unusual scenario based on fact: The only "return visit" for the group of four just happens to live on the extreme other side of the territory (oh wait we didn't call and of course they are not home) requiring a 45-minute (yes, indeed) drive followed by a 30-minute break rv because we left another tract with the regular waitress and then someone had to get back to the hall so there's another 45-minute drive (chip in that gas money, folks) and then, whoops, the only two people staying out happen to be of the opposite sex so they can't ride together...but now it's lunch time so they drive separate cars to lunch but leave a tract (time still rolling) and then both go visit an old couple suffering from dementia (carefully disguised as interested return visits, do you count one or two?) and then hey, let's call it a day wait, one of them texts their "study" who occasionally comes to the hall so there's another rv and then they finally split up and one drives 30 minutes home and pulls phone numbers from whitepages.com to do phone witnessing and that takes an hour.

  Final "service" tally: 6 hours claimed, 5 return visits made, 4 tracts placed in bathrooms and on counters, 3 dollars in gas donations, 2 meals eaten, and 1 good pioneer day.
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  Still Totally ADD

  Welcome to the bright side Barbara. You went out just enough to hate it. LOL I hated FS because I did not like bothering someone on Sat. morning. I wish after a hard week at work I could stay home and rest. Great first post. Keep up the good work. Now for your next post we want more information. LOL Just kidding. Thank you for coming on board. Still Totally ADD
• 

  Phaedra

  Welcome, BarHarborBarbara! Thanks for sharing your experiences.

  I was even GLAD because it meant less time facing a door and trying to explain why I was invading their space and putting the householder on the spot for their personal convictions.

  That SO describes how I felt about d2d work!

  Funny you mention car groups. I remember as a young teen at a circuit assembly, there was a scenario onstage during one of the talks that depicted four sisters in a car group. The four chairs on stage were arraged like car seats. As the sisters sat and gabbed in the car on the way to the territory, one of them started bemoaning how people in the territory just weren't interested and it felt like a waste of time, etc.

  The point of the skit was to not talk negative/voice discouragement, etc. in car groups because it wasn't uplifting.

  As impressionable as I was, my takeaways from that skit were:

  1. Since that was the first time I had EVER seen/heard someone being negative about service (hadn't ever been in a cargroup where people were misbehavin'), my eyes were open to people in the congregation who were not all happy/perfect in the org.
  2. Planted subconsciously was that it was not okay to express your true feelings in front of other JWs unless it was something positive and upbuilding. Which translated into personal reservations / feelings that went against the current = something wrong with you.

  Phae