now Fark, THAT was a funny one!
Privileges, are they really?
by JH 16 Replies latest jw friends
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Hapgood
That's why I was glad that I was a female when I was a JW. I'm very shy, despise any type of public speaking and I sure would have hated to have the "privileges" that males have. I could handle the "privilege" of cleaning the toilets, but the "privilege" of public speaking ugh, no thank you!
Hapgood
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stillajwexelder
btw I was asked to hold a microphone yesterday and I refused - I politely said no thank you
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blacksheep
btw I was asked to hold a microphone yesterday and I refused - I politely said no thank you Yeah, I fell for that old "wanna hold a microphone" bit before.
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Scully
Do you all remember the part of the Tom Sawyer story about how he was punished for misbehaving by having to whitewash a fence, but didn't want to do it himself?? He conned all his friends by telling them about how great and fabulous it was to paint that fence, and that it wasn't just anybody who could paint that fence, and pretty soon all his friends were clamouring and paying him to show him their talent at painting the fence, doing Tom's work for free and Tom was down by the fishin' hole doing what he really wanted to do instead of painting the fence.
Same dealie-o as WTS Privileges?.
How Good a Job Can You Do? 09 Jul 03 - http://www.toolshed.com/blog/SocialCommentary/WorkPlay.html,v I'm reading Mark Twain's classic novel Tom Sawyer to my son as a bedtime story, and right after the classic "whitewashing" scene where Tom tricks his friends into painting his fence, the author notes:
If [Tom Sawyer] had been a great and wise philosopher, like the writer of this book, he would now have comprehended that Work consists of whatever a body is OBLIGED to do, and that Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do. And this would help him to understand why constructing artificial flowers or performing on a tread-mill is work, while rolling ten-pins or climbing Mont Blanc is only amusement. There are wealthy gentlemen in England who drive four-horse passenger-coaches twenty or thirty miles on a daily line, in the summer, because the privilege costs them considerable money; but if they were offered wages for the service, that would turn it into work and then they would resign.
That's how Tom conned his friends into painting the fence for him; he made it sound like fun, not work. Instead of paying his friends to paint the fence (which would have been work) he extracted payment from his friends for the privilege of demonstrating their prowess with the paintbrush.
There's a couple of interesting observations here. First, as soon as you turn play into work, it's not fun anymore. Maybe this explains why some folks who code all day for pay go home and code all night for free on some Open Source project. Coding for free is more fun.
The other interesting aspect to Tom's con is craftsmanship. Tom sold the idea that not just anybody could paint a fence well. Maybe only one boy in a thousand, maybe two thousand, had the talent to do it well, he claimed.
So now there's some competition involved, both against Tom and against oneself. Suddenly we have a very different situation; the other kids jumped at the chance to prove themselves, to face a new and unknown challenge head-on.
They were posed the question "how good a job can you do?" and jumped to answer it with great fervor.
Don't we all tend to react that way? My favorite clients are those on an absolutely impossible deadline, with nothing else in the way. Just you and the code. It tests your mettle.
So ask yourself this afternoon, "how good a job can I do?" Forget about the fact that you're getting paid for it, that's work. Rise to the challenge of doing your very best work, no matter how mundane the task, and now it's play.
And it's fun again.
Love, Scully
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boa
blacksheep you said J has a
please-o-meter.
and I Laughed Out Loud for a while. Thanks for that.
Since I do not feel being part of the wts is no more a privilege than standing in front of a firing squad, the answer is obvious.
However, I agree with ignorance is strength that it is a good thing bringing true reward to assist others although I wouldn't call it a privilege, more like a noble endeavour which brings rewards to both the giver and receiver, whereas
The Random House Dictionary says of privelege: n 1. a special right or benefit enjoyed by a particular person or group and v.t. 2) to grant a privilege to
boa
who actually has 'privileges' at the hall since they don't know the 'real' me heh heh....yet.
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fraidycat9
Gotta call 'em privileges. I figured this one out long ago. That's why there's a Whitman's Sampler box full of 'em. Otherwise there would be nothing to take away and no 'tools' to use for punishment. They use the same type of psychology I use with my child. Child likes videos. Child misbehaves. Take away the privilege of looking at the videos for a set period of time. Child conforms. Gets videos back. How else are you gonna punish adults? Spank 'em?