Actually LongHairGal my 'How Sad' remarks are purely sarcasm and mockery towards the retired CO'S & their wives...their low living standards after retiring from the circuit work is their own damn fault!
CO retirement severance?
by road to nowhere 33 Replies latest jw friends
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Biahi
Their is a scripture about “counting the cost” before embarking on some action or other. These CO’s should have “counted the cost” before becoming a CO. Otherwise, they are “reaping what they sowed” , thinking the big J will provide.
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James Jack
I had a good friend who served in the traveling work, Don Wallace, for 40 years and he had to leave because of turning 70 years old. He told me that he gets $600 a month from the Branch. However, he saved all his money from the "green handshakes" and bought a house in cash.
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LongHairGal
BIAHI:
They hardly talked about ‘counting the cost’ years back when they were in a frenzy to get everybody to pioneer. I really think they only pull scriptures like this out when it suits them!
They didn’t give a hoot what hardships a person went through. I remember talking to an elder once about people who were suffering and he said “sometimes people suffer because they are just plain stupid”. (This told me what some JWs secretly think about certain people who pioneer.)
Well, he was a man and there is a double standard there. He had a good job and you’d NEVER see HIM pursuing poverty!! But yet this poverty/pioneering is what was held out to ME and other younger single women (mostly Baby Boomers).. Any older women pioneers then were married with a ‘worldly husband’ and a comfortable life. Any younger person who pioneered and ‘didn’t count the cost’ or took a gamble because ‘Armageddon was near’ and who did this for decades is in a serious predicament TODAY.. And almost ALL those older JWs who cheered them on are all Gone and not even around to help anybody!
This is the tragedy of it all and why I am so Glad today that I never fell for any of this!
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Biahi
I think most of the “young wans” who pioneered after high school only did it for a few months or years, no one could afford it. My cousin is in poverty today due to her poor choices to pioneer for YEARS. Her problem, not mine, I’m retiring in 2022. 😀👍🏻
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mickbobcat
Its sad that some people can be so controlled and brain washed they do what is the opposite of what is for their own best interest. Although I feel they have a large responsibility for following the cult, A large part of the blame must be on the cult itself. Those who benefit from the cult such as the GB and higher ups who do get taken care of in old age and have a sort of pension plan while others are just used till they have no more to give, are at the top of my list of those responsible. The cult IMO was never really super close or loving but what they had in that area has been lost over the years.
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DesirousOfChange
I had a good friend who served in the traveling work, Don Wallace, for 40 years and he had to leave because of turning 70 years old. He told me that he gets $600 a month from the Branch. However, he saved all his money from the "green handshakes" and bought a house in cash. ~ James Jack
That's an interesting story you share. How can you explain a guy who is serving the Cult in that high of position whom is supposedly believing and definitely espousing (to others) the concept that The End is "immanent" -- any day now -- but is storing up a shit-ton of CA$H? It seems obvious that he never really believed it. He was devising his "Plan B" all along -- just in case nothing happened. Clearly no real faith in Joe Hoover's promise!
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BluesBrother
I don’t think they last that long so as to retire, not these days anyway. In times past I knew some old ones, Ted Wright, Ken Wildig , Bill Newman etc.
Nowadays they seem to be young Pioneers and after a few years they come off the work, either the wife gets pregnant or ill health.... or something.
I never heard of a generous payout for them . I don’t think it exists.
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Jazzbo
They treat the retired COs really shabbily which is no surprise. The Congregations are supposed to take care of them. They use people up and throw them away without one second's remorse.
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Pete Zahut
Back around 2004 there was an elderly C.O. and his wife in our Congregation. He left the work at 70 because of health problems and was assigned to our congregation. They had no Social Security so he took a job as a school bus driver and his wife got a job as a perfume "sniper" at the mall, spraying people and handing out perfume samples.
They drove an old Ford Fiesta (death trap) and lived in an older flimsily built Mobile Home in a not so nice mobile home park. I used to help them fix things because he had no skills in terms of household repairs because he had been in the Circuit work since he was young. Consequently, their place was falling apart. She had to plug the garbage disposal into an extension cord and plug it into an outlet in another room because the switch didn't work. Their dining room light hadn't worked for years and the carpet was threadbare.
I'm pretty handy in all of the trades and she called me over there because someone had given her some used carpet and she wanted me to install it for them. I looked at the carpet pieces and there wasn't enough to do the job and besides that is was in bad shape. She began sobbing because it seems that one of he husband's old Gilead school buddies from back in the day had called and wanted to visit but he was too ashamed of their home to let him come. This used carpet was her only hope of making their home better.
It broke my heart to see this sweet old lady so upset about her husbands embarrassment. I was able to get them some new carpet and install it and they were thrilled. I got all the electrical problems solved and spiffed the place up for them. He came home from work and was like a little kid who just got a new toy. He was so happy with the new carpet and to be able to switch on lights that hadn't worked in years. They viewd ME as being sent by Jehovah. Little did they know that in my mind, I was condemning their beloved organization for letting this happen to this old couple while they lived in grandeur in New York City.
That being said, unless things have changed for the better, these folks are turned out once they are of no value to the organization. Theres an imaginary brotherhood that exists and it makes you feel warm and fuzzy when things are going ok. Once any real tangible help is needed for any length of time, you're on your own.