Ex-elders: did you ever confront anyone on FAKE HOURS

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A few recent threads have been about faking hours in Field Service reports (for example, this one: http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/6/72429/1.ashx).

A number of posters said they would never actually go in service, but still magically get in their hours each month.

My question to you ex-elders: Did you ever confront someone on this? You might have had a hunch that the hours were fake; in those cases, did you ever say to the Brother/Sister that you thought they were faking the report?

willyloman

Once in 20 years. We made "an encouraging visit" to a whacky sister whose field service hours for several months looked like this: 1-1-60-1-1-1-60-1-1-1-1-60-1-1-1

Sixty, you will recall, used to be the Aux Pio number. It was brought up at an elder's meeting by the eagle-eyed secretary. There was no record of her ever handing in an application to Aux Pio, and in fact no one could ever recall seeing her at a meeting for field service. So two of us were assigned to go visit her.

In a nutshell: She didn't "feel worthy" to be a pioneer, auxiliary or otherwise. She got all her time in talking to her immediate neighbors. She didn't want to make a nuisance of herself, so she only did this every few months. The rest of the time, she got one hour in by reading bible stories to the child of a relative (she had no kids of her own).

Neither of us felt like condemning her. We left her with the thought that she might try to balance things out a bit. She thought that was a good idea. She didn't, though.

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Thanks for your insight, willyloman (by the way, how is Biff Loman???) ;)

This is as I suspected. There are no "checks and balances", no "auditing" of the hours handed in, even when it is OBVIOUS that the report is a fake. The balance sheet totals are invalid.

Which leads me to conclude:

Watchtower: the ENRON of World Religions.

Athanasius

No. In fact the subject of fake hours never came up at any of the elder's meetings that I attended. The CO never brought it up. In our congregation I think a lot of us padded our hours and there were probably some who handed in fake hours, but there was never any audits and nobody ever questioned a publisher's report card.

blondie

I know of a couple of cases where BOEs interrogated a brother and a sister about their time because they were not seen out in field service. Both times the publisher wrote to New York and the elder bodies were told to back off.

Hmmmmm.....

Blondie

caspian

No...I always tried to think well of people at first, it was only over time that cynicism took over.

but we never confronted anyone though.

new light

Great question!!

I know of a couple of cases where BOEs interrogated a brother and a sister about their time because they were not seen out in field service. Both times the publisher wrote to New York and the elder bodies were told to back off.

Wow, Blondie, just when I thought I had heard it all..... VERY interesting!

tazmaniac

I remember it being mentioned about a few of the wackier publishers but it was never brought up with the publisher. I think we were glad if it brought up the cong avg before the CO's visit.

Mary

I think I mentioned this in another post, but my thoughts and observations are that the elders don't give a crap if you actually go out in Service, just as long as you turn in a field service report. My aunt hasn't gone out in service in 20 years yet she still puts in a service report each and every month (I guess she's witnessing to her house plants). The elders know full well that she doesn't go out but they're happy to accept her time.

Now given the nosey and controlling nature of this religion, you may ask why they're so willing to turn a blind eye on this matter. After all, isn't that our whole purpose of living-------going out and preaching??

Some may not know it, but when attendence drops and service hours drop, the elders are raked over the coals by the CO. In many cases, they are told that it is THEIR fault that meeting attendence is low because they're "not making the meetings interesting enough" and service is low because they're not out there bugging "inactive ones" and "weak ones" to go out in service. They tell them this crap in Elder School. On the other hand, if your congregation is doing well, then the elders get the stamp of approval from the CO and he gets off their back.

Is it any wonder then that elders don't inquire too closely as to how many hours are real or fake? Who wants to risk having 20 people suddenly become "inactive" because you tell them that you think they're faking the hours? Try explaining that one to the CO........no matter what you say, it'll be YOUR fault that you now have 20 inactive publishers and if you don't do something about it, you might be removed as an elder.

Emma

My ex was an elder and I used to silently wonder how he got his hours in as we didn't go out in service much. I remember one time seeing his time slip and a bible study report as he was filling them out. I was astonished at the numbers and said so; we didn't have the family study he was reporting, either. I said something and he yelled at me to never question him again. So - I'm sure that's not uncommon and elders wouldn't finger anyone else for what they do.

Ex-elders: did you ever confront anyone on FAKE HOURS

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