RULES RULES RULES that made no sense at all. If you went to lunch, you could not wear your work clothes (unless your work was in an office). Now I'm not talking about going to bethel lunch, I'm talking if you went to burger king or Andy's Chinese Place or the like. You literally had to change into a dress shirt and slacks to get some Sweet and Sour Pork from a regular place!
Some of the GB was kind, some were not. I met Sydlik many times and he was kind on all but one of them, and that once, he was just short with me, maybe a bad day, so I have no problem with him. Jarecz was notrorious for his cruel demeanor. I was waiting for someone to pick me up to go to a Yankees game outside of 124 CH and was wearing nice jeans, a skater shirt with no real logo and tennis shoes and he looked at me like I was a satan worshipper.
Wheb you are new, you are scum. I had an overseer, AB who took notes of EVERYTHING. He timed how long you went to the bathroom and wrote it down. I went back to my locker to get a pencil for work and he wrote it down (you had to ask permission yes). Constantly yelling at you to go faster and be perfect. In my department they kept track of EVERY mistake you made. We gathered literature orders and were always rushing and sweating, and if you grabed 24 brochures instead of 25, it got written down and if you made more than two mistakes in a work period, you wre going to get your ass chewed. They tried to break you.
Home overseers, yup. You can only have three items on a piece of furniture, so a lamp, a plant, and a picture of your mom and that's about it. Anymore, and your home overseer calls you to your room and shows you from the book that its against policy. They spy on your stuff. I know plenty of guys who got kicked out for CD's, books, video games, ect. Not one of them left these items out, and their roomates didn't turn them it. Home overseers go through your stuff. I had a magazine subscription that I had for free, it went out of business, and they automatically upgraded me to some hip-hop magazine and soon as it came in, the mail room overseer called me and told me that they were going to cancel it if I planned on staying in bethel.
The GQ thing was real, pretty much as described, I knew 4 of the brooklyn guys involved and it absolutely destroyed them to go home ashamed for this.
You better have your ass in that breakfast seat at 7 on the dot or your gonna get a lecture.
There is no HR department. If you don't like the way stuff is going, there's the door. If you have an idea about how something should be done and you havent been there ten years, STFU, we have been doing it this way a long time, if there was a better way we would have thought about it already, how dare you question the arrangements JEHOVAH has put in place?
To many chiefs and not enough indians. So many overseers, constantly bugging you about everything you can imagine. If you want to change congregations, it requires an act of Congress, I mean the Branch Committee.
If you get in trouble (I did) your judicial committee is picked by them. Of my three brothers, one of them had never met me before, one had been my table head for 2 weeks, and one had known me for three months. Out of the hundreds of elders I knew at bethel, a major life issue that had to be decided was done by people who did not know me at all? Why would they show mercy when they can just say goodbye and never think about it again. I made a minor, minicule mistake, and I was treated like a nailed a GB members wife. Went back to my hall as a ordinary publisher, with everyone asking "why would you ever leave bethel? Its like paradise?"
The constant backsliding and changes to suit their needs. When you are new, they tell you bethel is the place to be and that you should never leave. You are guilt tripped if you mention you are considering leaving and told that there is NOTHING more important than bethel. My department head told me once when I told him I was considering leaving that my job was more important than anything I could ever do in the org outside of bethel, be it pioneering, elder, CO, whatever (yes he said this). Two years later they were extending the priveledge of pioneering to many "lifers" people who had been in bethel 30, 40, 50 years and telling them to pound sand.
When I asked for a job reference letter it said "puffthedragon worked here for five years, he was dilligent and punctual." the end. Glad I was so valued.
Don't think I was a screw-up either. I did go out and party hard, and it caught up with me, but I was a extremely hard worker and moved up in my department fast because I learned how to play by the rules and the politics but it destroyed me on the inside.
I was miserable, but felt trapped, you are programmed that it is shameful to leave for any reason, I wanted to quit at least once a month but just couldn't. When I came home, I was not a servant, but was still in good standing and could be on the school and such. People asked me if I missed it and would ever go back and were shocked when I said NO. The only thing I missed about it were my friends. I could write a book. My heart-rate is increasing just thinking about it, so maybe its time to stop for now.
About the dwelling manual, it is available online if you google it, I've seen it on ebay, and I still have mine. Don't know why I still keep it, maybe as a reminder to myself.
If anyone read this far, sorry for the rant.
