My wife and I joke about the differences in our own halls all the time. I swear she lived in a country club compared to my hall.
Just to give a couple of examples:
And this is from when I was growing up until I left home at 18.
Every single weekend was field service. Meeting one day, service sometimes after (50%) and the other day 100 % chance we were going out door to door. Hard core door to door too. Rain or shine, seriously.
In my home, it was not as if I could play sick. If I was throwing up last nights dinner as I was telling my parents I did not feel good, then maybe, but that never happened. So every weekend was the meeting and service the other day for sure. No weekends off ever!
Every meeting. Period. Again, if your guts were hanging out of your mouth from heaving all night, then one might have a pass. I remember being too sick to go to the meeting only once. If we were on a rare vacation, everything would be done to make sure that we went to the meeting. Bonus if we knew someone in the hall and could go out in service too. Oh joy.
My dad was an elder, and when he gave the talk in another hall, we had to attend the entire meeting. Now we had our meetings on Saturdays always, and of course everyone else had meetings on Sundays. So we would dutifully attend our meeting, to set the right example. Then on Sunday we would go to the other meeting. And get this: My dad would make us attend that Watchtower study too! Aaaaggghhh!!!
Any infraction, no matter how trivial, had to be brought before the elders. One time I lied about my homework being done in order to go on a small vacation. It was not done, and I was brought before the elders.
Now, before you say that it was my parents that were so wacked, this was the way the whole congregation was.
I belonged to several halls after that as an adult, and though none of them were as bad as the one I grew up in, they all had some elements of crap that is discussed here nearly every day.
But how extreme was my hall when you compare yours to it?