Posts by Jim

14

Should I attend a JW funeral?

by Flat_Accent in

i mean, i had respect for the guy, and it's obviously right to be there for the family and show support.

however, i can imagine what it will be like going back.

i was friendly with a lot of the older, tougher sisters, so i'm sure they'll get on my case.

Jim_TX

I had respect for the guy, and it's obviously right to be there for the family and show support.

I think that you have answered your own question. Don't worry about what others say or think. You are there to show respect for the fella and respect for the family.

But - like others have said, it's up to you.

I have gone to a funeral of my ex-father-in-law. It was held in a KH. I went, gave my respects to the family, signed the book, and left. I did not sit through the sermon that I knew they would give. Heck. The man wasn't even a JW. Not sure how they would've spun that one.

The point is - you can go - just speak to those that are important - ignore the rest - and leave... if that is what you want to do.

16

Minumim wage may go to $10 per hour...

by darthfader in

i understand the reasons for the desire to raise the minimum wage, but as a small business owner, i'll have to raise prices to keep my margins profitable.

a 30% hit is pretty substantial.. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/07/business/bill-pushes-for-increase-in-wages.html.

Jim_TX

The thing that bothers me about minimum wage going up is that it may raise the wages for those working at low wages, but it does nothing for those that may be working at just above minimum, or higher.

An example is the last time that they raised minimum to $7.25. My wife was hired at $7.25 per hour before the minimum wage was raised to that. She worked for 3 or 4 years at that rate. Then the minimum wage got changed. Now she works for minimum wage. No raise. No raise in sight, either.

The only way that she'll get a raise is when the minimum wage is raised again, and she'll get swept along with all of those other people making minimum wage.

Eventually, if it gets high enough, I'll be making minimum wage, too. That may take a while, but since the company that I work for does not give raises, it can happen.

24

Do you still say JEHOVAH when scared to chase away the demons?

by Greybeard in

jw
friends

i was scared stiff of the demons all of my life growing up as a jw.

you know the stories.

i am way more open minded now that i have been out for 3 years or so.

Jim_TX

HAHAHA That was too funny!

Do I still say jehovah?

No, but I say 'Satan, Satan, Satan' while shreeking and pointing to JWs - if they ever come to the door.

26

After twenty four years of loyal service, I am about to commit treason...

by CaptainSchmideo in

jw
friends

of a sort.. i have been with the same company for 24 years, and the last 5 have not been very enjoyable for me.

i like the owner of the company, but the management team is terrible, and the dept.

i work in (tech service) is demoralized.

Jim_TX

You aren't about to commit treason. Nope. You are about to move up in your career. That's all.

You may like your current employer, but from what you've written he evidently does not 'like' you enough to be considerate and give you periodic raises based upon performance reviews.

Also, from what I understand, you have not been hired - yet - by the new company. Take a deep breath and go through the interview process and see what they have to offer - if they offer. Then, if it looks good... take it.

It may be new territory, and out of your current comfort zone, but sometimes that is a good thing. It helps keep you on your toes. No doubt, you will do okay.

Good Luck!!! (It feels great being able to say that!)

Regards,

Jim TX

P.S. Keep us posted on what happens, please.

14

a grunt's bethel experience

by jnrtigbfxd0 in

this was pretty easy actually.

so what if i sit down for a second?

same in the air-conditioned room where we made the foreign language orders.

Jim_TX

Thank you for posting your experience. You may not feel that it is important, but it is. I enjoyed reading it.

I hope that you are doing well, and don't have too many nightmares of your experience.

28

Do JWs treat women like second-class citizens, like their husbands' property?

by matt2414 in

as an elder, i recall that the husband always had to be present on any judicial committee meeting involving his wife, but that the wife was not to be present on judicial committee meetings involving her husband.

has this changed?

if not, isn't that treating women as lesser persons than their husbands?.

Jim_TX

LongHailGal said: Interesting what you mentioned about that brother who said about the women: "where are they going to go. We're it." tell you where I went: I looked outside the religion for men to date! I saw what was around in the hall and there was nobody for a woman who was over 35 and had a brain in her head.

I saw the attitude of guys like what you mentioned. Some were lucky they had $20 dollars in their pocket and they weren't much to look at but some sister eventually settled for them. I wasn't one of those women.

Ouch! That stings. I was one of them fellers trying to get a young JW-gal interested in me, with no success.

I remember several of the young gals who looked outside, and the next thing everyone knew, they were 'publicly reproved' or somesuch. Soon after, they were pregnant, and after that, they were married to the fellers that they found outside. No big deal, I suppose. They had to do what they had to do.

I guess I have to agree that I wasn't that much of a 'catch'. I was an awkward, single, poorly paid, young fella and had very few skills in the dating scene.

I finally gave up on trying to get one JW-gal interested, and found myself a non-JW gal. Well, then this JW-gal comes back. Turns out, she was trying to score a JW-fella that had gone off to Bethel. (I think that she was trying to marry 'up' in the borg.) He pretty much turned her down cold (and eventually married some other JW-gal), so that left her... boyfriendless - and no prospects, since I had quit bothering her and found someone else.

Well, long story short - I wound up marrying the JW-gal, and shouldn't have.

Anyway - to address the original topic - I never did mistreat - my JW-wife. She was an equal. Well, until later when she got all uppity and started treating me like crap, since she was all JW-holy, and I wasn't a JW anymore.

Divorce-time. (cue Hammer Time... nah nah nah nah nah ... you can't touch this...)

Regards,

Jim TX

31

How an original STAR TREK episode nearly cost me my first JW marriage in its first year...true story I find funny/sad

by oompa in

jw
friends

so i'm 21, just married, and raised in my fathers image and thank god he liked sci-fi...a genre i was able to escape to new worlds in.

he even took me to a trekkie covention when i was albout 12 at the greensboro coliseum and it was packed.

we had watched every episode over and over...i thought.

Jim_TX

I was a teen when Star Ttrek came into being. (The original Star Trek)

I watched most - if not all - of the episodes when they aired. It was awesome!

I remember that later, they started showing the reruns on afternoon TV. My older sister and younger brother were addicted. They had to watch every repeat. I liked to watch it too, but one day, I was bored, and so went and got my RF signal generator out from my work room. I hooked it up in the kitchen, well away from their eyes that might see it.

I carefully dialed the frequency dial until I found the correct frequency (or a harmonic thereof) for the TV station. It was classic! The network had just gone to a commercial break. Instead of seeing a commercial - or Star Trek, all they saw was first my interference all over the TV. Then the screen went blank - which was from the TV network.

I quickly turned off my RF generator so as to not be spotted and yelled at. My sister got up to adjust the TV, yelling at my brother that he had broken the TV or something. I made a hasty retreat, not telling them that I had anything to do with the loss of TV picture. After a few seconds, which seemed like hours, the network came back on, and Star Trek continued. <whew>

The last Star Trek movie was interesting. It seems that they have left it so that they can continue making Star Trek movies, because they have pretty much changed the future. Nothing that happened has happened. So they can start over. I'm not sure how that will work out.

27

I have decided to become rich...and have told all my JW employees...and this really rambles otwo!

by oompa in

jw
friends

well its been a few years since my two oldest and key employees/inlaws testified against me for actually doing interesting and thorough research about things i had legitimate questions about....and was foolish or wise enough to share it with my friends and family lmao!

and its been over a year since i was read out as a da apostate...(and kinda vocal about it so i am pretty much the anti-christ poster child around here).... maybe it is another thread but i cant believe these guys have not quit and they said they might due to bad conscience and pressure from elders/others...we are talking 10 to 20+ year employees and one husband wife team in that group...but also an elders wife part time of only a few years (all of whom i still love btw)...a superfine pioneer and her ms husband who is mr big in rbc stuff...and most have zero retirement except for what i have funded the past 12 years...i have had a pretty good business for a long time with never any real goal of making a lot of money because that was for sure a forbidden goal...and i did not want to look materialistic lmao!!!!!!.

but now with concerns about forever funding my own health care insurance as i always have, and losing half my assets in divorce and paying alimony for the next decade...it dawned on me that i can and should focus on growing the heck out of my biz as i think me and all my employees are gonna need a lot more money than they now have... if we want to stay in the usa anyway.... so i had a meeting and told everone there was a reason for our recent growth...and why for the first time in my life i am actually excited about it getting huge instead of being afraid of that...and how for personal reasons i never really thought about the need for a big retirement fund or saving for heath care at all until my late thirties probably...but that i have decided i am going to make a bunch more money now and am focusing on that for the first time ever...and that they need to make a bunch more money too believe it or not...now they have been very excited and into their jobs and how well they are doing them...so i shared my plans with them and said they can all stay on board and enjoy the fruits of our own hard labors...or they can get the hell off the bus...nobody has turned in their notice.

Jim_TX

Way to go! If you need to add employees... I can work... although I'm older than most. I just don't know what type of business you are into.

20

Has anybody given any thought for Calebs freind ?

by smiddy in

jw
friends

after all, this unidentified freind of caleb gives him a toy, which calebs mom finds objectionable , shouldn`t she just have said to caleb ,give it back to your freind ?

and not dump it in the trash can ?

what sort of a message does that send to caleb (or any other children who watch this video ) calebs mom should have acknowledged that his freind gave him a present, and it should be appreciated , not to disrespectfully throw it away in the trash can with no thought to the giver of the present.. smiddy.

Jim_TX

Who says that Caleb's friend is 'worldly'? Perhaps he is a fellow JW that Caleb associates with at school.

Perhaps his parents are not so nutso with the toss anything that is a 'wizard' in the trash bin.

Like others, I thought about little Caleb's friend. Even if it was a McDonald's Kid's Meal toy that only cost about $1.50, it is still rude to just toss it like it is a worthless piece of garbage.

Poor little Caleb has to go to school the next day and explain to his friend (JW or not), that he no longer has his Sparlock toy. It got tossed. When asked why, I also feel for Caleb having to explain his nutso beliefs about a 'magic' god in the sky that was 'sad' because Caleb was playing with the toy.

Caleb's mom's next step is to isolate Caleb from all of his 'wordly' friends at school. She will either insist that Caleb not have any wordly friends (bad association), or she may take him out of school - and home school little Caleb, thinking that she is an expert teacher, and use her WTBTS books to instruct poor Caleb who will get a poor education. When he gets old enough, he will accompany his father to work, as an assistant in the window washing trade. If he's lucky, he will have learned to spell his name and write it in script before he gets pulled from the public school system, so he can sign his paychecks when he gets older.

I hated going to school and being the oddball that didn't celebrate anything. No Christmas. No Thanksgiving. No Easter. No Valentine's Day. No Halloween. Most of the teacher's classwork was coloring a picture for the seasons and holidays. I could never color anything the other kiddos were coloring. The teacher had to dig through her box of papers and come up with something 'neutral' that I could color.

aaarrrggghhh!!!!! <goes running from room>

27

Do women like being checked out?

by MC RubberMallet in

before, when men looked at a woman, they were fresh.. nowadays, when they don't look, they're gay.. i know each woman is different, so answers will vary, but in today's world, women react a lot differently to things that were once distasteful.. so which one is it?.

fyi - i don't do that enlongated creepy guy stare..

Jim_TX

I tend to notice nice looking women - but not just the young ones. Older (not ancient) ladies can look better than younger ones.

My wife does not mind if I look and notice. In fact, if she sees a nice-looking gal, she will usually say, "Hey! You missed that one!"

I don't do the 'leer' (or try not to), as that is not polite.

I _will_ tell a woman that I think that she looks nice, if she is near, but I won't make a big deal out of it. Most gals say, "Thank you", and continue on.

I remember long ago - when I was married to my first wife, her mother made a statement that was kind of funny. She said, "The only reason men sit at the counters at restaurants is so that they can oogle the waitresses." Of course, she never worked a day in her life, much less was a waitress.

Of course... I always sit at the counter at the local coffee shop - mainly because I stay for hours, and do not want to take up space in a booth.

So, when leaving for my weekend morning coffee, I kiss my wife and tell her, "Bye! I'm going to go oogle the waitresses."

She will usually respond with, "Okay. Have fun."

We both know that I know all of the waitresses, and don't even spend any time 'oogling'. I'm too busy reading or scribling notes in my idea notebook.

The regular waitress usually keeps pouring the coffee, and then orders my morning taco whenever she chooses, without even bothering me. Now, that's service!

Jim_TX

Posts by Jim_TX