by Julia Orwell 46 Replies latest jw friends
The last year that I pioneered I did not once actually put in the required 90 hours. I used to go and meet the group then my then wife and I would go off to do rvs. Which meant going to a coffee shop or shopping or whatever. Sometimes I would go fishing. I always wrote own 90+ hrs though!
What a fool I was to waste so many of the best years of my life on something so utterly devoid of meaning or worth.
I used to be rigidly honest with my report, even taking off the coffee break time etc
This made it embarassing for one Elder, our "Book Study" overseer as it was then, he had accompanied me out in the service every time for a month, not doing any more or less than me, yet my report was so much lower than his.
He tried to tell me to bump it up a bit, as I was an M.S, saying, "well look how long you are away from home each time you go out" etc, but I replied "I thought we only reported from the first door to the last". He wafffled some more about how my report should reflect the effort I am expending.
Eventually , just before I stopped FS all together , I stopped caring about it being accurate, but it wasn't overly inflated, I just stopped writing down the details, so took an eduacted guess.
We had some Elders that hardly showed their face in the DtoD work, but reported 10 or 14 hours a month, mainly "informal witnessing" apparently, yea right.
Sure, I do that. I started as diligent, stop watch by the minute. First door I took until the last. Then I figured that I was being penalized if someone else got the first door and was in for a long time so I started counting at the first house the car took. Then there are so many that have the "call next to the Hall" to get their time started. It just seems so fake. But in my last year of pioneering, I didn't even add up all of the hours and was less than the 1000. I decided that it was not important. There was this group of sisters that would go out together and stop and break for hours.
With there so much talk about obedience, I decided what if one is disobedient and didn't turn in FS reports. So I stopped. When the CO came, the secretary said to me that he didn't have my reports but knew that I was out as he saw me. So I just made up numbers to give him. The next visit I did the same thing.
Many would say it is dishonest. But it is not like it is a time clock and we are getting paid. Back in the Day, time was important because pioneers got meal tickets and literature discounts, but now that is not there. What do pioneers and Aux's get? meetings with the CO?
Do people really think that Jehovah notices or cares? Think about it!!!!!! Jehovah pays attention and is going to punish people for exaggerating their hours on FS report but hurricanes and tornadoes destroy towns and people go around and shoot many, does Jehovah know or care or do anything about that?
I was honest for a while then thought about it when RBC kept stating in coded language when asked about counting time for that. So I concluded that if your doing anything for the Borg it should be counted as time spent in "sacred service". I then started counting service time from wake up to back home undressing. If I worked on anything related to CONg activities it was an automatic hour.
Aint I just the worst? : o
I never really lied so much as I "borrowed" from the next month. And then the next month I'd go out in service an extra day and then not report it so that I'd feel justified that I had "borrowed" from the previous month. Then as I started to fade and realized that this was all a bunch of BS.....I just didn't care anymore. I kept turning in time to the point where I would have to pioneer one month and not report it just for it all to even out. Then I realized that since I was still turning in time.....the elders kept wanting to give me "privileges" like lawn mowing and weed pulling. So I stopped turning in time. I still remember the presiding overseer's last ditch effort to get me to go back in service. "OSTS - You will never be allowed to help clean the kingdom hall or mow the lawn again". My still beating heart was ripped from my chest when he told me that.
I was 'creative' based on 'pioneer(TM)' experience.
I would add hours to account for all the 'witnessing(TM)' I'd forgotten to report.
In the end I put any old crap on the report. Why not? The CoBE was a lying b#stard. He'd turn up to piously 'lead(TM)' the 'group to the field(TM)'. Then he'd go missing. We were told he used to go home still counting his 'time(TM)' because he was named as a 'hospital liaison(TM)' dude.
Lying, fooling themselves
Time starts when you try to contact the first person, phone or knock on door, right?
Time stops when you leave the territory and go home, right?
I learned from the older pioneers that it starts when you call someone from home before getting to the group (usually never home), it keeps counting until you call that person when you walk in your door; travel time, coffee breaks, are not taken out if one person in the group gives a tract or "witnesses" to the serving staff.
The other pioneers wasted so much time that my "conscience" bothered me if I counted all that time and I would never make my time if I went out in service with them and was honest on my slip.
I had service overseers beg me to "make up" time when I was a publisher and knew some that put time down for you when you said you had none.
When you have no quotas to make, I suppose the pressure to fudge your time was not as necessary.
This is awesome.
A great example of how Pharasaic WT is. They invent the 'law' of reporting time. Then give a bunch of 'guidelines' as to how to do it. Then, because it doesn't make sense in real life, people make up their own ways of doing it. People are getting so tired of this BS
When I reg. aux. pioneered, I often used to 'borrow' a couple of hours or so from next month's time to bump it up to the 60. That meant I'd start the new month with a shortfall ... which I'd usually have to make up by 'borrowing' a couple of hours from next month's time ... which meant another shortfall ... I gave up aux-ing. After I woke up and my FS began to drop off and I also stopped counting time, hubby wrote my slips.
I am shocked.
