Posts by SnakesInTheTower

this week marks the news of two "young" brothers i know being accepted to brooklyn bethel.. this pattern continues to demonstrate the current "human resources" policy of the current gb.

while telling those that have spent the best years of their life, "we need you in the field", they continue to bring in the healthy, unsuspecting young brothers so they can be used up with nothing to show for it late in life.. at last year's d.c. there was an interview with a brother that had been "sent back to the field" some 4 months prior to the convention.

what was so sad, is that the brother was clearly alone, and perhaps scared, in his new assignment in a remote rural area with a congregation of 40. he had been accepted to bethel after high school, never pioneered, and had been at bethel for 30 years!

SnakesInTheTower

I temped twice...once around 88...the other time around 96-97. Both times I had apps in for permanent...both times I withdrew them after the temp gig..... The first time I was at Brooklyn for 3 weeks...the second time for 4 weeks at Walkill....enough time to know I would hate hate HATE it. In retrospect, what a wise move...not going there....making it my "career".... I would probably be getting the boot right about now...and I would never have met the love of my life ......... **shudder**

MTS I thought would be good...then they tried to send me to some little hick town called in the middle of nowhere Kansas....I didnt go then some hick town in the middle of Illinois.... I didnt stay long... MTS was the first crack in my Theocratic Armor.... just the opposite effect of what they intended....

Bethel and MTS are NOT discussed around these parts. I cannot remember the last brother sucker to go from here.

Snakes ()

9

Anybody have a big Kingdom Ministry collection, 1979 1982

by besty in

somebody has asked me for help with getting these scans:.

*** kingdom ministry 2/1979 page 7 meetings to help us make disciples *** what is loyalty?.

*** kingdom ministry 8/1982 page 1 youths-serve jehovah with loyalty ***.

SnakesInTheTower

I dont remember who on the forum obtained my collection..but it went all the way back to those years I am fairly certain.

Snakes ()

28

Have you ever been on TELEVISION?

by BonaFide in

jw
friends

i sometimes try to put a non-witness topic out there, guess i need a break.. i was on tv once.

when i was a missionary i was filmed as i gave a talk at the assembly.

30 seconds max.. back here in the states, i auditioned for a reality tv show once, and i made it to the first round, but the show was never picked up.. and you?.

SnakesInTheTower

You dont want to see me on TV....I have the face for radio.

A project that I was part of back in 1983/84 was featured on one of the morning news shows...Good Morning America I think...

It was one of the first video yearbooks produced for a high school. The owners of the company appeared on the program.

Someone from the Washington Post did a piece on it and interviewed me over the phone... I had a brief quote/mention in that paper.

I found this link of a copy of an article...part of it is blocked out for some reason:

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=892&dat=19840827&id=ivEKAAAAIBAJ&sjid=708DAAAAIBAJ&pg=5275,5913224

i didnt realize it until I did the google search..the local paper just did an interview with them recently..

http://www.thetelegraph.com/articles/video-24296-godfrey-owner.html

I thought one thing in the article was funny...that a lot of students did not buy a copy because they did not have VCRs at home...LOL.. I think the one of the women still runs the business and has the video on DVD now...and probably a lot cheaper... just in time for my 25th class reunion. I just emailed the remaining owner to see if I can get a copy of that and my HS graduation... thats as close as I got to being on TV...

Snakes ()

95

I just heard of more organizational changes...........

by awildflower in

so a good friend of mine e-maild me today with this information.

aparently brother hurd says as of 2010 all the magazine printing and distribution will be moved to canada.

the only printing the us will do is the books.

SnakesInTheTower

right before I walked away for good in September 2007, the Society was sending almost all of their literatrash and ragazines via worldly carriers instead of WT trucking. I worked the local literature depot once a month for literatrash pick up for 15 plus years....

WT Trucking has been nearly eliminated..they just keep what is needed to truck between facilities in NY....The society started this whole thing when they eliminated their warehouse/depot down in Texas long ago when they eliminated food service at conventions. I knew the CO who used to run that op.

Then they were sending literature to the assembly halls via WT branded trucks with Bethelites.... they would send trucks out with litteratrash and return with various supplies needed for the NY complexes.... the eventual goal was to also send ragazines that way too for local congos to pick up. Then they scrapped that idea when the congos that were further out cried about having to drive 3-4 hours to an assembly hall or other depot.

Pretty soon the WT trucks quit coming and everything was coming common carrier.... the society would ship LTL (less than load...meaning less than full tractor trailers) onto local carriers...that would send them cross country via rail...then another local carrier would pick up the LTL (several pallets, never a full truck) to the depots..... even if the society has a full trailer to send to a single location, it is still cheaper to send it via local carriers/rail than use their own trucks. Literature, Bethelite personal effects, convention crap...all comes this way now.

Then a brother was brought in to do a business analysis of the Society's US operations......I think in the 90s/early 2000s..... and found out how inefficient the Society was....even with volunteer labor.... the last I had heard from my inside sources about 18 months ago (which are all gone now)...this is the business plan the society is using ...it was a 10-20 year plan.

I can easily see the Society consolidating magazines printing in one location, books in another. Health care has nothing to do with it as far as cost-savings. Layoffs do. Worldly corporations consolidate similar operations into a single location to benefit from efficiencies of scale. The local cable company has direct sales in one location, tech support in another, billing in another...etc... when it used to be they would have all of the ops in each location doing everything...

Brooklyn will soon go away....that WT sign means nothing. DUMBO didnt happen.... too much local objection over lack of street level retail....turning those blocks surrounding that proposed tower into a street level ghost town and even more properties with no taxes coming in.... the burrough residents want WT out and taxes coming back in.... the burrough taxpayers have to make up for what WT does not pay. Maybe their individual taxes will go down (or at least not rise so fast) if WT properties go back on the tax rolls because the overall tax burden will be spread out a bit more.

Ranapao (sp?) officials only had to look north (walkill and patterson) and south (brooklyn) to see what was coming and wisely vetoed WT coming to town.

So Plan C is what is being discussed now....use under utilized facilities in Canada....max out facilities at Walkill...keep the country club open at Patterson to keep the GB fat and happy..... and hunker down for the Big A....

(whatever happened to their Florida operations other than West Palm?)

just my thoughts.... in reality I only care because it makes an interesting case study for my business classes...lol WT can kiss my a$$ otherwise.

Snakes ()

5

Artifical sweeteners in your water.

by sammielee24 in

jw
friends

artificial sweeteners may contaminate water downstream of sewage treatment plants and even drinking watersciencedaily (june 18, 2009) sewage treatment plants fail to remove artificial sweeteners completely from waste water.

whats more, these pollutants contaminate waters downstream and may still be present in our drinking water.

thanks to their new robust analytical method, which simultaneously extracts and analyses seven commonly used artificial sweeteners, marco scheurer, heinz-jurgen brauch and frank thomas lange from the water technology center in karlsruhe, germany, were able to demonstrate the presence of several artificial sweeteners in waste water.. their findings are published online this week in springers journal analytical and bioanalytical chemistry.a range of artificial sweeteners are commonly used in food and drinks, as well as drugs and sanitary products.

SnakesInTheTower

and what about the hormones and other pharmaceuticals in our drinking water? Even if you are not flushing pills down the toilet, your body does not completely break down your prescriptions.... into the toilet and out into the sewer to the waste water treatment plant and on to the river, ocean, etc...

My step dad just retired as an operator at a waste treatment plant in S. Florida....the stories he tells...... makes you want to stop drinking water if that were possible....

....if we knew half of what is in our food and water we would be worried. I prefer, in this case, to remain blissfully unaware....because there is little I can do about it. Have to eat, drink, and breathe. I figure something will kill me sooner or later. lol

Snakes ()

76

Why did you pick your avator or username?

by cognac in

jw
friends

well, i picked my username because that's what i saw in front of me and i like the way it sounded.

no real story behind that.

i picked my avator because that's the way i felt.

SnakesInTheTower

ah...as some of the veterans know,.... my initial moniker was SankesInTheTower...it was a typo...I had entered late one night and got stuck with it...what I wanted was SnakesInTheTower..... and I didn't want to lose my entire posting history. At the kindness of the site owners, they made the correction... they won't do complete name changes (so don't ask...they would never get anything done otherwise..lol )....but in this case understood the typo and fixed it.

I got a lot of good natured kidding about Sanka coffee and such. Every so often someone will remind me of it....

The actual (and current) SnakesInTheTower had a two fold meaning. 1) I considered then and now that the GB were Snakes In the Watchtower. 2.) They would probably consider me a snake in their tower if they knew how I felt about them.

My original avatar was this snake:

(Just an image I pulled off Google... if I ever write my memoir...that's going to be the cover)

Some people were creeped out by it, and my demeanor had become calmer since I first signed up. On my way home from visiting purps and R.F. back in Oct 2007, I snapped this picture of an Arkansas sunset. This is my current avatar:

I like it. Threw a few people off for awhile. My writing style hasn't changed much... I still sign off the same....shortened from:

SnakesInTheTower (of the "{whatever I was thinking about}" Sheep Class) to just....

Snakes ()

(aka ...Rich)

89

Things that Annoy Me in Grocery Stores - How About You ?

by flipper in

jw
friends

i do a lot of the grocery shopping for my wife and myself as we live out in the mountains and i stop on the way home from working early morning hours.

there are some things that just drive me bat-$hit crazy sometimes .

i'll name a few- you carry it from there !

SnakesInTheTower

oh my goodness... do NOT get me started.

I worked retail in a discount chain from 1984-1991. (Anyone remember Venture? ..same chain as Caldor on the east coast ...both gone now)

I did janitorial for Target for 2 years for a contractor. Target is still my preferred retailer. Walmart is the spawn of the devil.

I have done merchandising for multiple companies in all of the big chains and some of the locals.. there are some very interesting secrets about how things are set up.... ever get the feeling they have moved things around just to mess with you? It's true. They are. You aren't paranoid.

I should write a book.

Snakes ()