Just interested in experiences any of you have had working for other witnesses or companies owned by witnesses. I heard mutterings occassionally from other witnesses they would never work for another witness. I myself worked for almost 10 years for a witness owned company. After moving to another state, I was having trouble finding a job in my area of expertise right away so I took a job as a part time delivery driver for a witness owned company. Regardless of anything I said, the owner was adamant in his refusal to believe I had ever done anything more than being a delivery driver. It took me a while to convince him otherwise and I slowly started moving into other departments full time.
I decided to work with this job as much as I could as no other job prospects were coming my way. After 3 years of pretty much no advancement, I had noticed in that time that the owner favored anyone who had a position in the congregation, I was just a lowly rank and file member. More than just a few times, he would hire ones that were other elders or circuit overseers, etc and move them into positions over me. Their only job experience it seems he needed was purely their position in the organization. There was one retired circuit overseer he hired to become assistant manager. That was the last straw and I let the owner know. This new guy was about the most arrogant, self-entitled person I ever met. He made no bones about the fact he was in charge now. I stood my ground and I guess the owner respected me for it as he made us co-managers. I found out later he was only humouring me.
I got in so many fights with this other guy, he was a real arsehole. He made a lot of enemies. Also every single person that ever worked there was driven to leave because it was so miserable working there. By the time I left, I was the only original worker there. There was a district overseer that was hired as general manager over me (I didn't really care as he really was much more qualified) and as soon as he took over, they fired several people to make room for several members of his very theocratic family. There was a constant drama going on all the time regarding problems between the owner, managers and workers. I eventually moved up to the front office as a department manager. The owner was related to a local circuit overseer who often came in. He was very effective in ignoring me and other lowly rank and file members and would only talk to the owner and manager or others who had positions. His wife once pointed out to me that she thought only elders or ministerial servants worked in the front office.
When I knew I was going to be disfellowshipped, I talked to the owner and told him if he thought about firing me, he should think about how that would affect my wife and son not just me. He promised there was nothing he would do and knew he couldn't legally even if he wanted. Even before it was announced, I walked into the office one morning with my usual "Good Morning". I got no response and obviously the shunning had started. It was hell going into work everyday and being TOTALLY ignored. I remember there were only two people who would say good morning to me or talk to me even if it was just regarding work. They had been through the same thing before at a point. Well once it was official the owner and manager made up some bogus reason to let me go, I did get a fair severance and had to sign off to get it stating I wouldn't try to sue them. I was told to wait outside while they got my last check together.
My severance check would be ready the next day and I was to text them before I got there so they could meet me outside to give it to me. Guess I was contagious. Anyway I was just wondering if anyone else had any good experiences to relate.