Be Honest: Did You ACTUALLY Report Accurate Field Service Time?

by minimus 80 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  under_believer

  this elder proceeds to tell me that if you subtract the 4 hrs he spent studying with his kids every month (which by the way he doubted also) then he was really only out in the field about 4 hrs a month.

  XBEHERE! That totally happened in our circuit. We had a fire-and-brimstone eating C.O., very old-school guy, and check out this insane policy that he enforced during his reign of terror:

  If any brother was nominated by the local body of elders to be appointed as a ministerial servant, the CO would look at his family situation and hours combined. If the brother had children, the CO would require MORE hours from him than from brothers who didn't have families. His reasoning? If a brother had children, obviously at least four of his hours were coming from studying with them. Those hours don't "count" for taking the lead in the congregation field service efforts. So for brothers with families, he'd require 14 hours a month, only 10 for brothers without families.

  Ironically, this meant that brothers with the extra burden of kids and family actually had even more burden piled on top of them to reach out for being an MS, not less.
• 

  juni

  Yes. I was honest in my report. We were told that we should take portions of hours for the current month (say you had 60 1/2) and bring it over to the next month. I followed the rules exactly and where did it get me? To the brink of suicide. But I got help.

  Juni
• 

  james_woods

  When I had to be "service auditor guy" during the old days of the rotation of elders, we were actively encouraged to "help the publishers bring up their time" by "encouraging incidental witnessing" and "don't forget to count you children's bible study", etc. As you can imagine, this mostly came from the circuit overseer - "a lot of the publishers are under-reporting their time because they just didn't think of all the casual conversations they have at their job, the grocery store, etc...".

  Right.

  The numbers themselves were of far more importance than whether anybody actually got converted.
• 

  minimus

  It "looks" better that a zillion hours of preaching occured by the Witnesses so that when Harm a geddon comes, it's not their fault.
• 

  done4good

  In the beginning I was anal about reporting time accurately, (the first 10 years or so). What always bothered me was the inconsistancy with the way it was done among the witnesses. Some would count an entire 45 minute "coffee" break, and some would subtract 5 minutes for quitting 5 minutes before noon. It just seemed equally stupid that someone could stop at a gas station on the way into the meeting for field service, drop off a tract to the attendant, and start his/her time a good 45 mins to an hour before anyone else got to the territory.

  Also, as far as it concernes pioneers, they are indeed allowed to count time for things that the ordinary publisher cannot count. For example, any work that a publisher performs on the Regional Building Commitee, can only report those hours as "additional activity" on thier field service slip, not field service. A pioneer, can count this work as field service. I was actually quite involved in that work in the 90's and it was this double standard that made me finally say F*CK IT, and just put whatever hours were neccesary to keep the BoE happy.

  One final note, I totally agree with the people that said people who take things seriously have the hardest fall when they leave the org.

  j
• 

  minimus

  When I finally left, I was understanding that things were not to be taken seriously at all. Elders had no holy spirit.
• 

  mouthy

  Well now !!!! Let me tell you guys!!!! I covered the hours you fudged. I used to do MY hours & because I KNEW some were fudging I used to do extra time & NOT put it in.... Knowing Jehovah saw what I was doing....

  DONT I MAKE YOU SICK???????
• 

  XBEHERE

  Its too bad that the bible nowhere indicates that you can "buy" life from god by doing all these works. Such a waste of time. If we had to work for every "free gift" that was offered to us it wouldnt be a gift would it......its amazing to me how the WT can mess up such basic and obvious bible teaching. Whats more amazing is that most of us bought it too, hook, line and sinker!
• 

  greendawn

  I was only active for about a year but during that time I was naive enough to write down the exact time that I was doing and never thought about adding even a little something.
  
  But it was beginning to get on my nerves: "why do I have to tell them the time I did that should be something very personal".
• 

  buffalosrfree

  I always counted from the time I left the hall, book study area or wherever for the meeting prior to field service, hey i was spending my time out there and it sure counted for me, i could care less what anyone else thought. I was very good in placing literature and in many respects enjoyed the field service and talking with people, i found it easier to agree with a householder about issues and didn't even remotely think i had the final say on anything in the bible like most witnesses do. In one particular area, i was the only witness allowed in there because i was easy to get along with and non confrontational, I placed many many books there as a lot of the children in that area were home schooled. Life how did it get here was always placed with be sure and check other books, encyclopedias etc to ensure whats there is correct because these weren't written by scholars of any sort just things quoted from some of them, but who really is the expert etc. that caveat always went with any literature I placed.