Well, to round out the "staff" experience a little, I'll tell you what life was like in "WayBuilders" dept. (post Auditorium construction).
There were, geeze, I guess 8 or 10 of us in the department (and about twice that number in the architect office, lol). We would meet every morning for prayer and manifestations (naturally) and then have a little planning session of what we hoped to accomplish that day.
Usually there was far more help than there was work to do. And the work we did was usually trivial mantainence kind of stuff. Sticky doors, leaky faucets, cabinet doors that came off their hinges, that kind of crap. Whenever a "real" job came along, everyone was so eager to actually have something to do, we'd stand in line to take turns doing whatever it was.
The rest of the time we'd go to Adolph's for coffee (gawd, but that was the WORST coffee on earth) and maybe a doughnut or two. We'd drive around in one of the pick-ups and carry this or that back and forth to the OSC. I'd avoid the lunchroom at all costs. Usually I'd drive into St. Marys for a sandwich or go over to the cabinet shop (they had their own little world over there).
So for the most part it was a jerk-off job. Even at the ROA, the hours were long, but the work was light (and boring).
There were far too many meetings for my taste - but then, I'm not a meeting type of guy anyway.
Just a lot of wasted time.
It was also the first real look I had at so many of the TWI celebrities outside of the spotlight. Loy was still kinda shellshocked (this was '87 - '89), Don was always kindly, but terribly thin and sickly looking, and Howard, well, he was just Howard, a pretty non-descript, unimpressive guy. After getting a pretty good taste of TWI life and all the lazy lackies and hangers-on and the incredible WASTE of time and money and material that went on constantly, I finally concluded that the organization was just another corporation. Only difference between TWI and the dogfood plant in St.Marys was that the dogfood plant actually produced something.
I'm not saying Linda's exaggerating her experiences at all. I know there were several departments that worked their staff to death, but WayBuilders sure wasn't one of them.
Also unlike Linda, I NEVER grew to even like New Knoxville. Anything east of the Rockies is dogpoop, IMHO. Now you know...
Hahahah Geo., sounds like I was working in the wrong department!!
I always noticed that the Way Builders seemed to get a lot of slack on the mandatory meeting law. I was jealous. I think I'm retrospectively jealous even today.
Hey, as a native Oregonian, I must say I've grown to love Ohio. :P--> I didn't like New Knoxville at first, but I made some good friends there among the locals, and it grew on me. I regretted moving from New Knoxville more than I regretting leaving staff.
I used to love the place long ago...before the barn was painted red, before the EOB (which we later named the Empty Office Building), before the big crowds.
But by the time I was on staf it was WayWorld and I really hated the place. In my 4.5 yrs on staff i went to less than 10 SNS and even fewer Corps nights in the auditorium, though we used to sorta watch it in Dorothy Owens' trailer. It was on the TV, but we just taked straight through it. To me, the gauzy sense of unreality, even raw fakery, was palpable. I was appaled at the direction the Corpse had taken, even worse than when I was in.
We loved St. Marys, loved our house, loved our neighbors...some of whom we stayed in touch with till they died. But I hated WayWorld. We weren't doing a thing for God. Nothing. Some individuals were, but not Der Veg.
quote:Oh, I DOOO miss the tomatos. Just throw some seeds on the ground and jump back! It was insane how prolific they were in O-hi-o.
But in WA. they don't do that well. In western WA, anyway. We just don't get a long enough, hot enough summer.
I grew up in WA on the side of the Cascades. I remember going out every night and covering the tomatos and then uncovering them in the morning. I now live in the Califorinia Sacramento valley. There's big piles of tomatos at each curve in the road where they fall off the semi's. The fields are red this time of year. Never saw so many tomatos in my life.
quote:
--We worked a lot of hours at times--not always, I'll admit. I didn't mind when I had a good boss and felt I was doing it for the "good of the ministry." I'd done the same when I'd worked for the LA Free Press in the late 60s, only for LOTS less money.
My daughter was complaining last night about working 6 days a week. I was reminded that I once went 37 days without a day off working at HQ. And I hated those meetings too...
My workload at hq was straight 9-to-5 plus corps night and sns. Our dept was one of the best. We worked our a$$ off at the rock, but everyone else did too.
However, my wife worked in what was referred to as the snakepit, the bookstore. Emogene Allen was an extremely poor manager but somehow had gotten her fingers in everything to the point where if you wanted to get something done at hq, one way or the other, you'd have to deal with her. She was a classic meglomaniac, but she did not have the efficiency skills to carry it off. The result was an extremely inefficent dept. and disgruntled workers. Boy could I tell you stories...
I worked at hq just before my interim year with the 11th corpse during score week and roa.I had been one of the people developing and printing the corpse wedding pics from the emporia mass weddings.
I had a tooth go bad and it required a root canal. Nothing like being reamed out for taking time to go to rome city to have it temporarily fixed.
I ran a fever for most of that time while working in the darkroom and grew tired of the half assed system set up to do the prints.
I finally (when the boss wasn't looking) did batch processing like I had done for over 20 years at home. In two hours I did a couple days of work.
My overlord found out and rewarded my efficiency by reaming me out again. I told him that he was wrong and being senior corpse had not apparently increased his intelligence.
Needless to say my wishes of working on staff became an interim corpse 4th wow assignment to Arkansas...
Emogene's personal assistant was our roommate. She said Em had the soaps on every day and was not to be disturbed during certain hours. I knew she had a TV in her office, but I was appalled to find out she was spending her afternoons watching the soaps!
Emogene was very good at managing things. That's how she got to be in charge of so many things at HQ. She kept volunteering to do the work no one else wanted to do until she amassed enormous power to herself.
But she was horrible at dealing with people.
I was so excited to finally be on staff. It was something I had wanted to do for many years. However, at our first department meeting, she told all of the people assembled there that, "I thought I had been assigned the cream of the crop. Now I know I got the scum from the crik!"
I couldn't believe my ears. Talk about a wake up call. All my illusions about working at HQ were immediately dashed. And the year went downhill quickly from there.
Oh-- and the bookstore was notorious for having to work every Thursday night. It was mandatory. I remember having to use comet cleaner and a sponge to clean tiny little marks off the walls in the front bookstore storage closet! Very important work we did on Thursday nights........
And you can thank ME for having to sign out on those bathroom visits.
I got so fed up with her department that I walked out to the break room to blow off steam to our office manager. The poor guy was between a rock and a hard place. He knew how screwed up she was but he couldn't do a damn thing about it.
Em got so ....ed at me she started making us all sign in and out.
Yes, me and Catcup and another wonderful lady were the three partners in crime that year in the bookstore. We started lifting weights and got our aggressions out!
That year was truly a nightmare! Words cannot describe it. Emogene was basically an ignorant hick who had amassed too much power, had no clue how to use it, had a nice little sadistic streak, and kept her husband cowed. No one, not even VP dared go against Auntie Em. I later came to the conclusion she was a little nuts - something not right upstairs.
I almost quit twice. Before that, I had also been on Way Builders - yes, it was a nice cushy job. No one bothered our little crew and we had fun. After the hell that was the bookstore, I ended up in finance for 1 year. I only did that to prove to myself I was not crazy, possessed, or whatever she seemed to think I was. I had a great year there - also kind of cushy. Then I was outta there. Saw too many perks and advantages the leadership took and realized their disdain for most believers on the field. Very sad.
Well, I worked on staff at HQ the summer between my junior and senior years of college. Twas the summer of '78. It was alot of fun. The 7th corps were interim corps and there was 100 of them. There were 82 of us peon non-corps staffers including pets. :)-->
It was fun, and the barns were still white. Ah, youth! ( I was all of 19 at the time.) I left paradise to go wow and into the corps. Sometimes I wonder what woulda happened if I'da just stayed a staffer? Somehow I feel I squandered my youth...but then again, maybe not.
Too bad we don't get do-overs, ya know? Maybe I shoulda gone back to college and lived obliviously on as a well-rounded college grad...
Yeah, I got married in the corps wedding, and yeah, managed to finish school, but...isn't it all what we wrestle with? Was it a total waste of time, or not?
You know what the really sad thing is? Some of the nicest, most Christian people at HQ worked in the bookstore. What a pity they had to deal with "Big Red".
I recall just a few years ago calling up the Way bookstore on the phone trying to order some Aramaic materials, and being turned down because I was no longer on the list of obedient Waybots.
I tried to reason with the girl on the line, and when I asked her to talk to someone else there - whoa, I could detect the sudden quiver in her voice -she sounded scared $hitless. Then she got huffy ("No you can't talk to anyone else!") and promptly hung up.
Well at least now I understand (lol) - I wasn't aware of the extent of terror inflicted by the rabid "Emogene" she-beast.
I hope that poor girl no longer works in the bookstore. I really felt sorry for her.
Hey, "scared bookstore girl", if you're here - it's okay, I understand now.
"Emogene was very good at managing things. That's how she got to be in charge of so many things at HQ. She kept volunteering to do the work no one else wanted to do until she amassed enormous power to herself.
But she was horrible at dealing with people"
Gee, what department at Deadquarters is more likely to deal with the public than the bookstore?! PERFECT place for someone without people skills. :-(
Yes, there were some very nice people who worked in the bookstore with us that year. Rich, the office manager was one of them. I enjoyed the late Dr. Flach, may he r.i.p. And there was a really nice, really funny guy named Jim.......................izzatchu?
I wished it was, but probably not. I was in A/V and most of my time in the bookstore was spent trying to keep the tape duplicating equipment running.
Minie, r.i.p. was my sweetheart. I also had a great time with Mike G. and all the intrim and apprentice corps that worked tape duplication. They were all great people.
We had a couple of really nice trips when HQ was looking at new tape duplication equipment. Once to look at possible systems, which included a tour of the K-Tel duplication facility and another to learn how to maintain the equipment that they ended up purchasing. We got to fly in the little Cessna, Acts 2 I think it was called, and stay at believers houses. It was a blast.
Not long before I got out, I remember talking with a friend on staff at headquarters. She never told me much, but when I said something to the effect that she must be "so blessed to be here and here da vord" her eyes rolled up in her head.
I have a friend who signed on to be there for one year and when it was up she wanted to leave. They told her that her agreement was for TWO YEARS and that she had to stay. Naturally, she stayed, miserable as she already was after one year, she got even worse during the second year. It was a shame to see her go downhill even further thinking she was doing what God would have her to do.
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George Aar
Well, to round out the "staff" experience a little, I'll tell you what life was like in "WayBuilders" dept. (post Auditorium construction).
There were, geeze, I guess 8 or 10 of us in the department (and about twice that number in the architect office, lol). We would meet every morning for prayer and manifestations (naturally) and then have a little planning session of what we hoped to accomplish that day.
Usually there was far more help than there was work to do. And the work we did was usually trivial mantainence kind of stuff. Sticky doors, leaky faucets, cabinet doors that came off their hinges, that kind of crap. Whenever a "real" job came along, everyone was so eager to actually have something to do, we'd stand in line to take turns doing whatever it was.
The rest of the time we'd go to Adolph's for coffee (gawd, but that was the WORST coffee on earth) and maybe a doughnut or two. We'd drive around in one of the pick-ups and carry this or that back and forth to the OSC. I'd avoid the lunchroom at all costs. Usually I'd drive into St. Marys for a sandwich or go over to the cabinet shop (they had their own little world over there).
So for the most part it was a jerk-off job. Even at the ROA, the hours were long, but the work was light (and boring).
There were far too many meetings for my taste - but then, I'm not a meeting type of guy anyway.
Just a lot of wasted time.
It was also the first real look I had at so many of the TWI celebrities outside of the spotlight. Loy was still kinda shellshocked (this was '87 - '89), Don was always kindly, but terribly thin and sickly looking, and Howard, well, he was just Howard, a pretty non-descript, unimpressive guy. After getting a pretty good taste of TWI life and all the lazy lackies and hangers-on and the incredible WASTE of time and money and material that went on constantly, I finally concluded that the organization was just another corporation. Only difference between TWI and the dogfood plant in St.Marys was that the dogfood plant actually produced something.
I'm not saying Linda's exaggerating her experiences at all. I know there were several departments that worked their staff to death, but WayBuilders sure wasn't one of them.
Also unlike Linda, I NEVER grew to even like New Knoxville. Anything east of the Rockies is dogpoop, IMHO. Now you know...
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Linda Z
Hahahah Geo., sounds like I was working in the wrong department!!
I always noticed that the Way Builders seemed to get a lot of slack on the mandatory meeting law. I was jealous. I think I'm retrospectively jealous even today.
Hey, as a native Oregonian, I must say I've grown to love Ohio.
:P--> I didn't like New Knoxville at first, but I made some good friends there among the locals, and it grew on me. I regretted moving from New Knoxville more than I regretting leaving staff.
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Watered Garden
Geo, not to derail this too awfully much, but I gotta admit, Snohomish is a lovely little town.
But NK aside, there are pretty little towns here in Buckeye Land, too. Honest. And I never grew a decent tomato all the time I lived in WA.
WG
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TheEvan
I used to love the place long ago...before the barn was painted red, before the EOB (which we later named the Empty Office Building), before the big crowds.
But by the time I was on staf it was WayWorld and I really hated the place. In my 4.5 yrs on staff i went to less than 10 SNS and even fewer Corps nights in the auditorium, though we used to sorta watch it in Dorothy Owens' trailer. It was on the TV, but we just taked straight through it. To me, the gauzy sense of unreality, even raw fakery, was palpable. I was appaled at the direction the Corpse had taken, even worse than when I was in.
We loved St. Marys, loved our house, loved our neighbors...some of whom we stayed in touch with till they died. But I hated WayWorld. We weren't doing a thing for God. Nothing. Some individuals were, but not Der Veg.
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George Aar
WG,
Oh, I DOOO miss the tomatos. Just throw some seeds on the ground and jump back! It was insane how prolific they were in O-hi-o.
But in WA. they don't do that well. In western WA, anyway. We just don't get a long enough, hot enough summer.
Oh well. I'll take the trade-off. Less than great tomatoes but I don't have to spend another minute in the midwest. Works for me...
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Jim
I grew up in WA on the side of the Cascades. I remember going out every night and covering the tomatos and then uncovering them in the morning. I now live in the Califorinia Sacramento valley. There's big piles of tomatos at each curve in the road where they fall off the semi's. The fields are red this time of year. Never saw so many tomatos in my life.
My daughter was complaining last night about working 6 days a week. I was reminded that I once went 37 days without a day off working at HQ. And I hated those meetings too...
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JustThinking
LindaZ,
Thank you! :-) Sure glad I passed on the "opportunity" to go on staff. Yikes. Bored or abused. What a choice!
JT
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Research Geek
My workload at hq was straight 9-to-5 plus corps night and sns. Our dept was one of the best. We worked our a$$ off at the rock, but everyone else did too.
However, my wife worked in what was referred to as the snakepit, the bookstore. Emogene Allen was an extremely poor manager but somehow had gotten her fingers in everything to the point where if you wanted to get something done at hq, one way or the other, you'd have to deal with her. She was a classic meglomaniac, but she did not have the efficiency skills to carry it off. The result was an extremely inefficent dept. and disgruntled workers. Boy could I tell you stories...
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Jim
Might of had something to do with the soap operas
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pjroberge
I worked at hq just before my interim year with the 11th corpse during score week and roa.I had been one of the people developing and printing the corpse wedding pics from the emporia mass weddings.
I had a tooth go bad and it required a root canal. Nothing like being reamed out for taking time to go to rome city to have it temporarily fixed.
I ran a fever for most of that time while working in the darkroom and grew tired of the half assed system set up to do the prints.
I finally (when the boss wasn't looking) did batch processing like I had done for over 20 years at home. In two hours I did a couple days of work.
My overlord found out and rewarded my efficiency by reaming me out again. I told him that he was wrong and being senior corpse had not apparently increased his intelligence.
Needless to say my wishes of working on staff became an interim corpse 4th wow assignment to Arkansas...
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Catcup
Soap Operas!
Emogene's personal assistant was our roommate. She said Em had the soaps on every day and was not to be disturbed during certain hours. I knew she had a TV in her office, but I was appalled to find out she was spending her afternoons watching the soaps!
Emogene was very good at managing things. That's how she got to be in charge of so many things at HQ. She kept volunteering to do the work no one else wanted to do until she amassed enormous power to herself.
But she was horrible at dealing with people.
I was so excited to finally be on staff. It was something I had wanted to do for many years. However, at our first department meeting, she told all of the people assembled there that, "I thought I had been assigned the cream of the crop. Now I know I got the scum from the crik!"
I couldn't believe my ears. Talk about a wake up call. All my illusions about working at HQ were immediately dashed. And the year went downhill quickly from there.
Oh-- and the bookstore was notorious for having to work every Thursday night. It was mandatory. I remember having to use comet cleaner and a sponge to clean tiny little marks off the walls in the front bookstore storage closet! Very important work we did on Thursday nights........
And you can thank ME for having to sign out on those bathroom visits.
I got so fed up with her department that I walked out to the break room to blow off steam to our office manager. The poor guy was between a rock and a hard place. He knew how screwed up she was but he couldn't do a damn thing about it.
Em got so ....ed at me she started making us all sign in and out.
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Sunesis
Yes, me and Catcup and another wonderful lady were the three partners in crime that year in the bookstore. We started lifting weights and got our aggressions out!
That year was truly a nightmare! Words cannot describe it. Emogene was basically an ignorant hick who had amassed too much power, had no clue how to use it, had a nice little sadistic streak, and kept her husband cowed. No one, not even VP dared go against Auntie Em. I later came to the conclusion she was a little nuts - something not right upstairs.
I almost quit twice. Before that, I had also been on Way Builders - yes, it was a nice cushy job. No one bothered our little crew and we had fun. After the hell that was the bookstore, I ended up in finance for 1 year. I only did that to prove to myself I was not crazy, possessed, or whatever she seemed to think I was. I had a great year there - also kind of cushy. Then I was outta there. Saw too many perks and advantages the leadership took and realized their disdain for most believers on the field. Very sad.
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ex10
Well, I worked on staff at HQ the summer between my junior and senior years of college. Twas the summer of '78. It was alot of fun. The 7th corps were interim corps and there was 100 of them. There were 82 of us peon non-corps staffers including pets.
:)-->
It was fun, and the barns were still white. Ah, youth! ( I was all of 19 at the time.) I left paradise to go wow and into the corps. Sometimes I wonder what woulda happened if I'da just stayed a staffer? Somehow I feel I squandered my youth...but then again, maybe not.
Too bad we don't get do-overs, ya know? Maybe I shoulda gone back to college and lived obliviously on as a well-rounded college grad...
Yeah, I got married in the corps wedding, and yeah, managed to finish school, but...isn't it all what we wrestle with? Was it a total waste of time, or not?
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Jim
Sunesis and Catcup,
You know what the really sad thing is? Some of the nicest, most Christian people at HQ worked in the bookstore. What a pity they had to deal with "Big Red".
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TheInvisibleDan
I recall just a few years ago calling up the Way bookstore on the phone trying to order some Aramaic materials, and being turned down because I was no longer on the list of obedient Waybots.
I tried to reason with the girl on the line, and when I asked her to talk to someone else there - whoa, I could detect the sudden quiver in her voice -she sounded scared $hitless. Then she got huffy ("No you can't talk to anyone else!") and promptly hung up.
Well at least now I understand (lol) - I wasn't aware of the extent of terror inflicted by the rabid "Emogene" she-beast.
I hope that poor girl no longer works in the bookstore. I really felt sorry for her.
Hey, "scared bookstore girl", if you're here - it's okay, I understand now.
Danny
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A la prochaine
Dan,
Your writings are very enjoyable to read.
Thanks for being here.
little red.
:D-->
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TheInvisibleDan
You're very nice. Thank you.
Danny
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JustThinking
Catcup quote:
"Emogene was very good at managing things. That's how she got to be in charge of so many things at HQ. She kept volunteering to do the work no one else wanted to do until she amassed enormous power to herself.
But she was horrible at dealing with people"
Gee, what department at Deadquarters is more likely to deal with the public than the bookstore?! PERFECT place for someone without people skills. :-(
It's just incredible.
JT
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Jim
Even the full-of-himself Joe Coulter would roll over on his back in front of her. I've seen it happen.
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outandabout
Linda Z,
How ironic that the lady who was the most legalistic of them all, as well as being so awful to work for, ended up running the whole dang thing.
TWI must be a real barrel of laughs these days.
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Catcup
Jim--
Yes, there were some very nice people who worked in the bookstore with us that year. Rich, the office manager was one of them. I enjoyed the late Dr. Flach, may he r.i.p. And there was a really nice, really funny guy named Jim.......................izzatchu?
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Jim
I wished it was, but probably not. I was in A/V and most of my time in the bookstore was spent trying to keep the tape duplicating equipment running.
Minie, r.i.p. was my sweetheart. I also had a great time with Mike G. and all the intrim and apprentice corps that worked tape duplication. They were all great people.
We had a couple of really nice trips when HQ was looking at new tape duplication equipment. Once to look at possible systems, which included a tour of the K-Tel duplication facility and another to learn how to maintain the equipment that they ended up purchasing. We got to fly in the little Cessna, Acts 2 I think it was called, and stay at believers houses. It was a blast.
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Ham
Not long before I got out, I remember talking with a friend on staff at headquarters. She never told me much, but when I said something to the effect that she must be "so blessed to be here and here da vord" her eyes rolled up in her head.
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Belle
I have a friend who signed on to be there for one year and when it was up she wanted to leave. They told her that her agreement was for TWO YEARS and that she had to stay. Naturally, she stayed, miserable as she already was after one year, she got even worse during the second year. It was a shame to see her go downhill even further thinking she was doing what God would have her to do.
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