Field Service Hours

Mystery

My "JW" family came down for the "Thanksgiving" holiday. My mom & sister - my sisters family - my full time pioneer niece (17 years old).

We were sitting around playing CARDS and my niece was writing letters inbetween deals. My mom ask her what she was doing. She answered "I am writing letters to put into Watchtowers. I am behind on my time this month."

I was completely floored! She put in "three hours" while we were playing CARDS!!!!! I don't know about anyone else, but when I grew up as a JW we had to BE IN field service. Not playing cards and writing letters.

The following evening my niece ask my mother if she could count her time if she was on the internet talking to a possible JW? Apparently the girl she was talking to wasn't baptised yet, but she planned to be soon. My moms answer: Yes - if she isn't baptised you can count your time.

Is this really what "field service" has came to?

I really don't expect much response to this post but this has really bothered me since they left. Is everything about field service hours now? Then again - maybe it always was & I was just (at the time) to ignorant to know.

Something else that was VERY strange during their visit (4 days of staying at my house) - my sister ALWAYS bought liquor (she likes frozen drinks) during their visit (for the past 5 years) to my house. This time she didn't bring or ask for anything. I offered her a glass of wine and she looked at me like I had lost my mind! Is there a "new light" on drinking as well?

Just a personal account of my life with my JW family.

Euphemism

A lot of pioneers nowadays, especially young raised-in-the-borg pioneers, don't really seem to have much idea that field service is supposed to be about anything else but hours. Any why should they? The door-to-door work is a waste of time. In most English territories here in the US, no one has any studies. No one wants to actually talk to JWs, and so now the JWs aren't used to talking to people, either. Hours are the only objective they know.

asleif_dufansdottir

Good point, Euph. In our old cong there were almost no new converts (and only a few kids baptised) the whole time we were there. We thought it was just our territory...you always heard stories about people in other congs who had studies and made converts...

Guess that happening is an excellent reason that field service is only hours...like you said, what does it matter what you do when no one wants to listen anyway.

(still think that letter writing thing was a stretch, as is counting hours on the net!)

seattleniceguy

Geez, the absurd ways people would come up with to get their hours always blew me away. Here are my favorite methods:

Start service with a call 30 seconds from the hall that everyone knows will not be home, then go to the RV way out in the boonies that'll burn a good 45 minutes round trip. Maybe stop for a quick coffee after such hard work.
Never, ever spend too much time doing straight territory. Better to do a block and a half and then retreat to the safety of the car to burn the rest of the time driving in circles and maybe hit one or two RVs an hour.
Hand-write letters extremely slowly. Use a computer and a printer? Are you insane?!
Always have at least three people sit tight in the car while going on very long calls. Vanloads of seven people are best for RV mornings. Check out the math: If in the 2 hours of service you hit 12 houses, of which 6 are home, at which you spend an average of 5 minutes talking to the householder (generous figures, I'm sure you'll agree), that means that seven people got a combined total of 30 minutes productive time, or a little over 4 minutes apiece. That's an efficiency rate of just 4.2:120 = 3.5%. Woo hoo!
You don't have to stop your time for coffee breaks if you're just in and out.
Visiting people in hospitals and nursing homes is a great way to simultaneously escape the torture of actual service, keep the clock running, and put on a show of love!
If you're in a foreign language group, just drive in random directions all over the face of the earth. Pretend to almost stop if you see one of your target nationals on the street, but usually miss them. Watch the odometer spin. Get a Jiffy Lube frequent flyer card. You'll want that Shell station 10% discount, too.
Be sure to head back to the hall ten minutes early. Wouldn't want to be late for the end of service. Of course you can keep the time rolling until the car is in park in the KH parking lot. And it's ok to round up under 7 minutes.
Witnessing to non-baptized children of Witnesses is a time-honored technique that holds the promise of an easy audience and the convenience of preaching in normal clothes and while eating potato chips.
And who could possibly forget....stop at garage sales! Of course, you'll want to drop a tract on a table or at least say something to the householder. But then again, your fine dress and conduct in itself is a witness, is it not?

You know, it's funny, even in my most loyal Witness days, I always wondered what the effect of Star Trek-style teleportation would be on service. I actually remember thinking, "Geez, that would seriously suck. It'd be so hard to get any real time in!"

Maverick

The truly sad thing is the whole "field service" issues is a fraud! Show me anywhere if the Bible where anything like "counting time" is talked about! Now in business, production and productivity reports are a standard practice. Jesus got reports from the 70 he sent out but nowhere did he say to get a written record of your activity. Everything he did encourage had to do with a person and God, one on one. Not some printing company whose only act of "christianity" revolves around pushing printed material and making more converts to do the same. Maverick

blondie

A few years back, regular pioneers were taking an hour to write one letter then photocopying 30 copies and counting 30 hours!!!!

No lie, I wish I could find the comment in the publications on not to do this. I'll keep checking.

Letter writing and putting it in the magazines was considered a duplication by a CO I knew. He said they already had a letter from God, the magazine!

Blondie

Room 215

As I've said in previous threads on this subjecct, ``field service" has degenerated to an empty charade, a guilt-assuaging ``feed-good" exercise, or as an installment pre-payment on a dubbie's idyllic New World homestead.

I wish I knew just what percentage of the millions upon millions of Watchtower and Awake! magazines wind up in the trash or on a bonfire; what a tragic waste of natural and human resources!

Mystery

asleif_dufansdottir - Good point, Euph. In our old cong there were almost no new converts (and only a few kids baptised) the whole time we were there. We thought it was just our territory...you always heard stories about people in other congs who had studies and made converts...

It seems to be the same way in my families cong. I hear a lot of stories about the same people that were there when I was but nothing about new baptised publishers - except unfortunately my 3 nieces. Thank God they live 700+ miles away!

Thank you fo the insight on other field service hours.

drawcad_1

My hours would start when I got into the car to go to the Hall and would not end until I got back home, unless I went shopping or had errands that where not acomplished while I was out in field service. It is amazing how many bills can be paid while you are out. My idea was that I would not be going out unless I was in field service, so every minute was billable.

this one is too funny.

And who could possibly forget....stop at garage sales! Of course, you'll want to drop a tract on a table or at least say something to the householder. But then again, your fine dress and conduct in itself is a witness, is it not?

benext

The announcement is made to turn your TIME in. Rarely have I heard an announcement to turn in your field service REPORT. It's all about the hours.

Field Service Hours

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