April 2003 KM: ``Mind Your Manners in Public"

by Room 215 43 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  rebel

  I remember staying a hotel once, and some of the other JW families were really obnoxious. They would stock up their bags with EVERYTHING they could lay their hands on at breakfast (and I mean EVERYTHING), their children were rowdy and rude, and one sister was so loud with such a horrible laugh, she reminded me of Sybil from Fawlty Towers - only worse. I was so ashamed, as if it was my fault. I felt sick for the two nights we stayed there because I felt the hotel manager tarred all JWs with the same brush. A couple of the other JW families were nice, but the slobs made the entire weekend miserable for all of us.

  I am determined not to have to sit through another convention ever again, no matter how many threats are used. I don't respond to blackmail any longer and I just won't put myself through that hell on earth again.

  xxR
• 

  avengers

  Tonight Wine and Crackers.

  Let's scarf up. mmmmmmmmm
• 

  ozziepost

  Well, the dub leadership does constantly remind the R&F that they are a "theatrical spectacle" before the nations. Now, what type is that? A comedy perhaps? Or a melodrama even?
• 

  Maverick

  Dear Blondie: I used to list my name as Brother Profound on my lapel card. The PO was not amused, but I kept it on anyway. I got laughs from the duds that knew me and weird looks from everyone else.

  I was always amazed that God's people did not know how to act in public places. This is part of the fall-out from a high control closed society. Like private school children who run amuck on the weekends when they were out of their structured environment. Maverick
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  blondie

  I was always amazed that God's people did not know how to act in public places. This is part of the fall-out from a high control closed society. Like private school children who run amuck on the weekends when they were out of their structured environment

  This is very true, Maverick. Most JWs need a written rule before they will do something. The WTS is reaping what they have sown, creating a group of people that cannot or will not think or reason on it themselves.

  Blondie (thinking of mouthy JW kids at the pool without parental supervision)
• 

  happy man

  blondie.

  I now going to give you a reward, number ONE reward in wrongfinding about JWs.

  I must say this complaing on JW children was a littel to much blondie, what are you going to complian about next the way we walk or the way we wash oureselfs, I think you are going to find something ,I am waiting in exietment.

  I must say you are better on wrongfinding in the WT studie, seen 15 maj, something fore you to bite on.

  from your bad shadow HM
• 

  Matty

  HM, children that are forced to sit still through endless dreary talks at the convention may very well go bananas once they leave the stadium. It's a release of a pressure valve. I don't think Jehovah's Witnesses are on the whole badly behaved at convention hotels really any more than any other group, but so much play is made of them conducting themselves so well in comparison to "worldly" people in the pages of the Watchtower and the Kingdom Ministry, they can't possibly live up to that kind of build up!
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  blondie

  Don't worry, happy man. My comments about the bad behavior of JW children at hotels are the least of JW problems. Up till recently, I had a close contact in the ones that work with the hotels each year, trying to get rooms at a decent rate. He said it is getting harder every year because of the bad behavior of JWs and their children at the hotels. Many hotels don't want to do business with JWs any more.

  The sad thing is that other JWs who are behaving are afraid to say anything to the misbehaving JW families because they are so rude in response. No respect even to the elders who say something. "You can't tell us what to do, you aren't from our congregation." It was pretty embarrassing HM. I heard 2 couples say, "Oh, no, it's those JWs again. They think they own the pool." I have seen the manager often disregarded with extreme rudeness by brothers and sisters and their children.

  I have over 30 years of experience observing the rudeness of too many JWs. That is why the WTS has to constantly give them reminders. They wouldn't do it for 2 or 3 people in the circuit or the distrcit. They know the whole, cumulative effect from the brothers who handle rooming.

  Of course, non-JWs have been rude at the hotels I have stayed at. But then they don't advertise themselves as the only true followers of Christ, loving and kind in every way.

  Blondie
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  minimus

  I must ask, "Why does Happyman seem so unhappy with Blondie??? Blondie,why not appease Happyman and say some nice, positive things about the brothers and sisters? I'll start the ball rolling.....The "friends" put up nice plastic plants at the District Convention and the brothers build beautiful Kingdom Halls in Africa.....Now your turn.
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  Room 215

  Matty, Blondie, Happy Man, et al: Fairly or otherwise, the impression created by a reading of the KM article is that of an ill-bred, none too mannnerly rabble from the lower strata of society, unaccustomed to eating in table cloth restaurants and to traveling more than a day's journey beyond their homes, and for whom a hotel stay is a rare occurrence.

  We all know many well-mannered, well traveled and well-to-do JWs; but the recurrent admonitions to behave oneself, to control one's children, etc betrays the embarassing reality that a sizeable segment of their demographic needs to be reminded of such basic tenets of good manners as to call into question their assertions about being the only genuine Christians on the globe and exemplars of how regular Bible education in family and congregation ennobles the flock.