Vacation Time! Going To A Regional?

by millie210 17 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  millie210

  This is the first year I have not been at a summer assembly.

  The friends here locally just got back from the Regional in our area.

  They mostly took their vacation time from work to attend.

  While they were gone I had an epiphany.....

  why is it that the rank and file take their summer vacation time to attend an assembly (we have all heard this hammered in from the platform) whereas the Governing Body attend as part of their "work".

  It cant be as simple as "well, they are giving talks" because there are many brothers that give talks from the rank and file also who have used up precious vacation hours and drug their entire family there plus give their parts.

  Or what about other brothers and sisters who volunteer and clean at the assembly. On vacation.

  So the pubs. travel at their own expense, pay for their own rooms and food, and give parts and it is supposed to be viewed as their vacation.

  The GB and C.O.s travel to the same assembly and stay in provided for accomadations, give a talk or two and they are "working".

  What is that about?

  I know the local C.O. is just getting ready to take his two week vacation in August before starting his new assignment.I know the Governing Body take vacations also.

  Has this dawned on the rest of you?

  It probably has.

  But for me I never gave it any thought until this moment.

  I dont think many of the rank and file have given it much thought either.
  
  
• 

  ToesUp

  Oh yeah...the CO's and GB are rock stars!

  Give us more, more, more. Think about this too. There are many wealthy Brothers and Sisters who own expensive homes on the beach, etc. You know they let these leaches "use" their expensive homes on their vacations. I'm sure they are fed well too. Looks like most of them could skip a couple of meals. Also...green handshakes!

  These people wouldn't know how to survive if they had to have a secular job and pay their own bills.

  Look at all the laid off Bethelites who had to go back home and learn to survive. If they didn't have family help them, they were screwed.

  This is an ALL TAKE cult. No give!!!!
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  Magnum

  I don't think I've ever really thought of that. Now I'm even more pi$$ed off. I think back to my JW days. I was in full-time service, had many assignments at conventions, having to be there early in the morn and stay long after the program was over. I had to use vacation time, pay for hotel rooms and meals, pay my transportation to and from, etc. And the big-shots do not have to use vacation time and they get their rooms and meals paid for?!?! Not fair!
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  FayeDunaway

  Going to the convention: pay for nice clothing that follows all the guidelines for how a witness should dress. Pay for the hotel that they tell you to stay at. Pay for the gas to get there. Bring all your own food (what other venue makes you do that?). Sit all day in often sweltering heat, listening to men drone, talk after talk. TRY to control your small kids, who do not naturally and should not sit all day without making noise. Get up and walk them around in uncomfortable shoes till they fall asleep. Eat the lunch you brought in the same uncomfortable chairs you have sat in all day. Highlight: getting a new boring publication to read, don't forget to donate for it. Donate toward the 'assembly expenses.' Drive back home. Wow wasn't that refreshing? Best assembly ever!
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  sir82

  I don't know, maybe 50 years ago, when conventions lasted 5 or even 8 days, and there were fewer venues (and so long-distance travel may have been required) it was necessary to use vacation time.

  But there hasn't been a convention longer than 3 days for the past 25+ years. You only need to take a Friday off, and the conventions are held in dozens of sites (in the US at least) so few have to travel more than a couple of hours.

  Is it fair to say the "rank and file take their vacation time to attend an assembly"? I think most US workers get more than 1 vacation day per year!
  
• 

  Magnum

  sir82, your point is well-taken. It's fair and reasonable.

  However, I did have to take vacation days. I almost always had to be at the convention site all day the day before (Thurs). I was also scheduled to work at my job on Saturdays. So I had to take three vacation days (Th, Fr, Sa).

  But, as already mentioned above, a major point is that many of us worked very hard at conventions, and we had to pay all our expenses - even those of us in full-time. Yet the GB and other big-shots had all their expenses paid for and they got wined and dined.
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  sir82

  Good point - for those who take it seriously & volunteer, there are extra days involved.

  Plus a lot of this volunteers actually attend a completely different RC so they can work during their own and not miss any of that "spiritual food".
  
• 

  OneEyedJoe

  To be fair, the life of a GB member is pretty much a non-stop vacation of living on manicured grounds (that they neither mow nor pay for) with all their needs met and plenty of trips to scenic locations world-wide. In comparison, trudging through 3 days of a convention is definitely hard work.
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  oppostate

  Has this dawned on the rest of you?
  It probably has.
  But for me I never gave it any thought until this moment.

  Actually I hadn't thought about it that way, and it does make a lot of sense that it's definitely an Animal Farm situation where some are more equal than others.

  In my twenties and early thirties as an overworked MS, and slaving daily to make ends meet, married and with a kid, whenever assemblies came up we'd use credit cards for hotels, meals, fuel, knowing that it would take us months of catching up to get them paid.

  Not only for "District" Conventions, but also for Assemblies which the two hour drive was tough if you were an attendant of worked in the cleaning dept, as a cleaning Captain, which as most MS's find out is a privilege without much privilege.

  It was always tough to get weekends when one of the pluses of being a JW worker is that you were willing to work part of the day on weekends and of course holidays. So asking your boss was always quite a discussion.

  Then when you came home on Saturday night, totally spent, sometimes stressed out because there was always stress during the whole experience if you volunteered in any way, and thought about getting up early on Monday to go to work it felt like an enormous test of will not to call in sick or dredge through the day half exhausted.

  Now my better judgement says take it easy don't volunteer for anything, be nice to everyone around and feel sorry for them. What's more, the venue we go to is only an hour away not two and a half, so it's a pleasant trip in the morning and afternoon if we take the back roads, shorter if we go the highway.

  We used to volunteer to make food for lunch at the conventions and assemblies. Now we bring our own or go out. Things have definitely changed and today's Witnesses do have it easier, but it's still not as easy as what the hierarchs experience, not spending a dime and getting all their needs looked after, spending the convention in cushy administration rooms and best comfy hotels in the evening. What a racket!
  

  
  

  
  
  
• 

  Saintbertholdt

  Hi oppostate,

  "but it's still not as easy as what the hierarchs experience, not spending a dime and getting all their needs looked after, spending the convention in cushy administration rooms and best comfy hotels in the evening. What a racket!"

  One could argue that the Watchtower hierarchy has cultivated their own "leisure class" lifestyle over the decades, and its a lifestyle which ordinary witnesses have come to implicitly expect the leadership to have.