by keyser soze 84 Replies latest jw friends
I used to be a window cleaner (washer for my American cousins).
I think the context is usually in the ironic sense of 'who are these nobody elders to judge me?'
I real life all people in authority are idiots no matter what their job. Judges might be Daddy's little rich kid pillocks, the police might be more corrupt than the criminals they enjoy being power trippers against (one of my rellies was a copper and he was a right bUstard).
All authority sucksfrom the small to the great.
Rant over.
i dropped out of high school and planned to years before i was 16 so i could pioneer. i also became a window cleaner some years later. both were related to having faith.
i had faith in the good news, i believe paul asks the question "who put faith in the thing heard from us?" (Romans 10) which i believe was a quote from isaiah. The good news of the *"times of the Gentiles ended in 1914 C.E. amid the first world war and that then Jehovah's "Servant" received a new elevation by being exalted to the throne of the Messianic kingdom"
i was good at art. in my last year of high school i had a lot of art classes and scheduled my time to go in the field service after school as my day was short. the art teacher gave me my own class room all year to work on my art project separate from the rest of the class. ( not a good idea for a 15 year old) i never finished it got a b. a science teacher asked me to paint a picture for her and wrote me a letter of thanks telling me i must nurture my talent and my english teacher asked me for an illustration that she had published. i later worked for a small publisher in the art dept. with 7 others doing illustrations etc. the opportunity came up to join another brother in window cleaning and i jumped at it. no more bad worldly associations.
i'd also been encouraged at one point in my late teens by a brother at the hall who was going to a very good art school to go as well i thought it was nuts i'd never finish with the end so close. my cousin also who was in england encouraged me to go an said he would help to get me in where he was going. i turned him down.
At the time some in the congregation were pursueing higher education i couldn't understand why if you believed the end was close.
*(Quote from book Man's Salvation out of world distress at hand! 1975 WTB&TS)
punkofnice - "All authority sucks from the small to the great."
And here's why: http://www.cracked.com/article_18777_5-scientific-reasons-powerful-people-will-always-suck.html
Agree,
I am guilty of laughing at the very funny posts by out-law and others. The reality is that the window-washer remark is a stereotype that I doubt very much fits reality. True, on average, JW's are less educated, but they compensate with good behaviour and work ethic that seems to be better than average. Therefore, it is possible that they are given greater responsibilities, more opportunities for training and advancement at their work place. So the window washer does not fit well even to Hispanic immigrants who tend to take low paying jobs. I happen to know this community well because I am one of them. I can tell you from personal experience that among immigrant Hispanic men, construction and technical work are the most common form of employment. Among women, the employment overwhelmingly is along the lines of baby sitting and house cleaning. In this regard, I suspect there's a lot of cash exchanging hands that go unreported to agencies responsible for collecting income tax, but that's a different thread altogether.
Even if statistics showed that JW's are more likely to be window washers than the average person, we should abstain from these derogatory remarks for the sake of avoiding turning off people who are starting to have doubts and are searching for answers in this site.
True, on average, JW's are less educated, but they compensate with good behaviour and work ethic that seems to be better than average
I have not observed the good work ethic that you refer to. JWs are no better, if not worse, than non-JWs. I know a number of JW employers who have stated that they don't like to hire JWs because their work ethic is not good. I have heard several JWs complain about other JWs on their jobs who have poor work ethic, are lazy, think they are owed something, etc.
If J.W witness work ethic is so great, why do i find most are such bad employees on the ministry? I mean isnt this to them the greatest and most important work being done in the universe?
I cleaned houses to support myself and my child and work my way through university
to a Bachelor of Arts from the University of California. I was considered "weak in the truth"
because I was going to university, my child and I were attending Kingdom Hall and I was regular
in service as well and still parents shunned me and my child because I had no husband, and I
was in university. I needed help, it was exhausting, the witnesses were the ones who were "snobs"
I have often spoken out on this forum that the majority of witnesses are high school grads at best.
Not to be mean, but to emphasize that personal development and using your inborn talents and skills
and encouraging your children to expand their lives through education is obviously and openly
discouraged by the WT. Education and a career is a protection. The jantor in a college works harder
than the professors, but at 55 or 65 the professor can retire with a large income from his pension
while the janitor labors on. Hard physical labor rarely has a great deal of protection in the way of
paid sabaticals, pensions ( teachers get 80% of their pay in retirement for life ) Janitors are not
considered worth that kind of support. The WT prefers to take up all your time, have you working
at jobs that exhaust you and to only be able to sit down at a meeting.
My janitor service, a new job (residential). While my crew was cleaning
I notice a school annual, my class. So I ask the customer did you attend
-----high school. She was my class mate (my graduating class 600-750 kids).
She pulled out the annual and said I remember you, you played basketball.
She and her husband are lawyers. My wife (ex) took this opportunity to tell
here how great our lives are being a JW.
Are you serious, I'm head deep in cleaning this woman toilet and you telling
her how great it is to be JW...
Dam, jam, I feel your pain. I was painting the inside of a million dollar condo a few years ago when the new owners walked in - a married couple younger than me. They were nice to me, but I could tell they thought I was a different breed - just a lowly painter. Yep, it's great to be a JW. Just think, if I hadn't been a JW, I might not have had the privilege of being a painter for those nice young folks.
Also, on another occasion, I was shampooing carpets in motel rooms. A teenaged girl came back to a room I was working on and said she was missing a $20.00 bill and thought she left it in the room. I helped her look for it, but we didn''t find it. She didn't outright accuse me of finding it and keeping it, but I could tell the suspicion was there. I was totally innocent. But nevertheless, I was just a lowly carpet cleaner, so I probably found it and kept it. I was a carpet clearner not because that's what I wanted to be or even because I made good money at it, but because of being a JW.
The jantor in a college works harder
than the professors, but at 55 or 65 the professor can retire with a large income from his pension
while the janitor labors on.
Well put!
Back when I left school, popular JW mythology had it that "you got paid more for unskilled work for than skilled work." (This was at a time when the borg was even stopping kids from entering into an apprenticeship, because "The End was too close"). However, it did not take me too long to observe thet, around the work place, skilled workers were pulling almost double the money I was getting, and expending about half the energy!
Bill.
