by Mandrake 14 Replies latest social humour
Of course I enjoyed the jobs. It made you important, one of the team, a player rather than a spectator... and of course it was all part of “sacred service “.
The troubles came later . I must have done them too well. Later on I had the Cong. Accounts Servant role (tedious paperwork in those pre electronic days) . Even later I became Congregation Secretary. That was hell....
Blues brother I get it. I was also secretary for a while. Taking on a velociraptor role at the end of the month, hunting people down for reports. Having so many crap things to do after the meeting while your wife seethed in the car waiting for you to finish. Other elders pontificating endlessly or the coordinator suddenly calling an emergency elders meeting to discuss some infringement of the rules which meant you got home at silly o’ clock.
New day, i took a turn as secretary myself. One time and one time only the CO chastised me for missing time. I explained that I tried and ran after people etc etc but cant force someone to call or text me back. He said he didnt care it was my job to make it happen no matter what....
from that day forward if someone did not turn in time i just averaged out their previous months and made it up. It was amazing that our congregation never had anyone inactive again.
Oh yeah!
When I was 18 (and still unbaptised) we moved. In the new congregation they quickly gave me some tasks such as manning sound dept. and roving the mics. In the old congregation such important spiritual privileges were strictly for baptised men, but in the new congregation every boy in good standing from age 15/16 and up could join in the fun. (I guess they tried to encourage the boys to participate and join the JW for real. And maybe one elder having a 16 year old unbaptised son played part in that).
Anyway, it was always good fun, standing at the back with the mics, chatting or joking with the other young bros.
Being a Watchtower reader was also a good thing, made the time pass much faster. Bonus points for not even having the right WT with me, let alone having ever seen it before, and still get praise from elders 'because you preprared the reading so well'.
For conventions it started with building the podium the day before convention started. Always good fun with the young crowd.
And during conventions tried to stack as many 'privileges' as possible.
So started with parking duty (for obviously no JW can find a parking spot all by themselves! I wonder how large worldly events ever manage parking with zero to none parking attendants???). Always very nice except in the pouring rain. But at least we got to enter the hall early and get nice seats.
The parking job also included a guard duty during the program. I always asked to have these halfway the afternoon. Otherwise I'd sleep anyway.
And I got lucky in that I also got to be an attendant for the main entrance, which meant another shift to get out of my chair. Preferably in the morning.
And so every convention day I was in my seat only half the time. Better than to sit and listen, even when full PIMI...
Yes. Yes. Some of the 'jobs' they would hand-out would make the 'time' move along faster. Like passing microphones or counting the attendance.
But yeah. Sheesh. I could imagine being Secretary would be Hell. I can't just imagine the time you would have to sacrifice for that 'job'.
