Early this morning I was feeling very positive, as I have done for days. Life is good on the whole, although naturally there are worries and sadnesses. Last night I discovered friends living closer to me than anybody else I know, and had a long catch-up chat. The road ahead was looking bathed in a springtime glow, in spite of the season.
Then I was shocked to be asked at work whether it had been my car in a pub and restaurant carpark on the way home the previous Friday. Of course it was, and I said so (my car is quite noticeable). A non-brethren colleague retired last week after fourteen years with the company, and the other non-brethren staff joined him for a drink and a general wishing of luck in his retirement, me included.
Apparently this was bad.
I was mystified and quite disturbed to be asked how such an activity fitted in to the brethren principles, and answered that I thought it was understood that there were many of those principles I had deliberately left behind me. It seems that saying so, and being seen to follow through with actual real behaviour, are two different things. More disturbing than that was that I had the feeling that it wouldn't have been so bad if it had been any other non-brethren I was socialising with, but the fact it had been work colleagues was a kind of betrayal of an unspoken apartheid. I had the distinct feeling of having been recatagorised from "us" to "them". Obviously I had always intended that, in a way, but it still wasn't a very nice feeling.
So, triggered by something as innocuous as that, it may be that my time as a comfortable honorary member of the brethren, treated with the same old familiarity and friendliness as before, is coming to an end. If I consort with non-brethren staff, I cannot occupy the same office as the brethren staff, and my desk must move. Because of that, my job role will have to alter as I will no longer be in the thick of the daily goings-on.
Actually, that's no bad thing. I hated joining the main office, anyway, as I don't work best surrounded by other people. What's more, the tasks that rely on me being among everybody else are the ones that most annoy me and stop the serious work getting done. And the alternative work area has prettier views.
Still, it leaves a bad taste, only slightly masked by the way that the remainder of the day carried on as cheerfully and normally as ever. I think wisdom would dictate that I begin speeding up the trawl for alternative work, and I will see what next week holds.
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4 comments:
Thank you Daryl,
This is quite revealing and a real eye-opener to me as it has probably been to yourself.
It really doesn't surprise me. I experienced the same sort of thing. The brethren don't really accept that someone totally leaves them. Months after I had left, my father asked me if I had the complete set of J.T.Jr's ministry, as he had found some spare books of it, and wanted to "top me up" if necessary. When I told him thanks but there really was no need becasue I don't read the ministry books any more (duh!!), there was a huge silence on the phone, and he told me it had broken his heart to hear me say that. He had honestly expected me to carry on reading the ministry books. (I never did when I was in, but he assumed I did.)
Brethren people seem only to hear their own narratives all the time and have no ability to 'read' other people. It can be very frustrating, but I suppose you just has to shrug away all their nonsense and not let it dominate your thinking.
It does seem that they and you have passed another milestone, Survivor. It won't hurt to start looking elsewhere for employment - I wish you well.
I have noticed something similar with excommunicated Roman Catholics. Some of them still seem to feel threatened by the Church or its priests, and I think that is because the priests expect them still to obey RC rules, and are not above using a bit of moral blackmail to make them feel guilty.
One way to react is to play them at their own game.
“How does such an activity fit in with the brethren’s principles?”
“It doesn’t. I’ve got better principles now.”
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