Posted by:
pollythinks
(
)
Date: January 08, 2018 03:51PM
During my 'active' days, I drove to the L.A. temple to be a receptionist, four hours a day. I knew I couldn't stand being a traditional temple worker supervisor, watching all the stand-up, and sit down stuff, and helping get a patron's veil on correctly.
There was a man who checked all the temple cards for people coming in, and me (a female), just sitting on the other side of the counter ('for looks'), where people left the temple--but that was it. Sitting and saying good-by. (Can't give a female something important to do.) Then the 'greeting' man, brought over to me the paper tags which he pinned on the people coming in, so that I could match the cards with pins---he didn't like that job.
Temple rules said that females could wear skirts and a top, so long as they were white, and had long-sleeves and a high neck, and the skirt came below the knees. (A lot of disapproval stares at me over that one.)
The only outfit I could find to fill this demand was a very-slightly off-white skirt. This drove my supervisors mad, as my clothing fulfilled the required points, but my skirt was not quite white-enough for them.
Petty stuff.
Once, the men in charge of starting the session where busy talking with each other, instead of doing their job. I went over and reminded them that the sessions opening time was over-due (as their superiors had been fussing over this issue at the time)---and did they give me a dark, dirty, superior look---the nerve of a female telling a male what to do!
All workers had to attend a pre-job prayer meeting with a short religious message. The temple matron was in charge of this for the women. Then, it was decided by the temple's president, that men only should come in to deliver the woman's message. (I remember once, as even the temple presidents wife had no authority over anything, she --tearfully--said to me, "Then what is my purpose in being here?"
It's hard to forget such stuff. When they started assigning me to the job of folding white laundered socks together, it dawned on me that I had a lot more important things to do in my life than drive an hour away from home, and back (in heavy traffic), than sit and fold socks.
Also annoying as all-get-out: No Bibles were allowed in the temple anywhere, except ONE which was kept in the temple president's office. On the other hand, BofM's were placed in every spot a book could be laid in seating areas. (Regulars on this RfM site should know me well enough by now to know I complained about this to the temple president.)
This was the end of my temple service and attendance in general. Good riddance.