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Posted by: kilgravmaga ( )
Date: January 06, 2019 06:24AM

I was at a hell's own subreddit and found this post:

"
EverythingWasTaken6
38 points
·
13 hours ago
This reminds me of my very first day in a singles ward at good ol' ybu. My bishop gave a talk.

In it, he told a story about when he was a YM leader. They were at camp. He said there was this one boy "who was very different from the others- he probably had autism or something. He was special." He told us about how the boy really annoyed the other guys because he talked a bit too much.

On the night before they were going on a big hike, my now bishop and the other YM "decided it would be funny to play a little prank on this guy, so we filled his backpack with big rocks when he wasn't looking. All during the hike, the boy kept mentioning how much heavier his pack felt, and we couldn't help but giggle."

The boy didn't check his bag until the very end of the hike. "When he discovered the rocks, he looked like he was about to cry, so I told him it was only a prank and to take it easy." Apparently the boy didn't speak for the rest of the camp, much to my bishop and the others' delight.

He ended with "the moral of this story is, too many people go about their lives carrying extra rocks in their pack..." no mention of remorse whatsoever."

And when Romney was running for president I also read a story about how he pinned a boy down and forcefully cut his hair.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/mitt-romneys-prep-school-classmates-recall-pranks-but-also-troubling-incidents/2012/05/10/gIQA3WOKFU_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.306773395246

My own bishop told me a story about how a neighbor-friend of his would skip church because both his parents were working on Sunday. He and the other boys would throw rocks at his window to wake him up and get him to come to church. One Sunday the kid was just not waking up ( you can guess where this is going), so a larger rock was hurled through the window shattering it. The boys scattered and sleepy kid had to given an explanation to his parents as to how the window was broken. The kid showed up at church every Sunday after that. <<<Happy ending.>>>


These stories aren't uncommon and the people that did them don't seem to have any remorse. Is there a certain "F U follow the rules" personality that the church just loves? regardless of compassion?

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Posted by: slskipper ( )
Date: January 06, 2019 09:20AM

Yes.

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Posted by: laughing in provo ( )
Date: January 06, 2019 09:51AM

no but being rich helps a lot. it does not matter what sort of business you have, its the money that counts.

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Posted by: slskipper ( )
Date: January 06, 2019 12:37PM

There are lots of psychological studies indicating that success in business correlates with a lack of empathy for other people.

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Posted by: steele ( )
Date: January 06, 2019 10:06AM

Negative traits are common among leaders. Some leaders rise by building others, empowering, and leading effective teams. Many others attain their positions by a combination of good and bad traits. Stepping on others, undermining, etc. I have seen many of both kinds of leaders both in and out of Mormonism. The dark triad leaders end up destroying their organizations in the long run.


https://hbr.org/2015/11/why-bad-guys-win-at-work

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Posted by: 3X ( )
Date: January 06, 2019 10:40AM

"...too many people go about their lives carrying extra rocks in their pack."

My favorite metaphor for mormons as they trudge along the Treadmill to Zion, their backpacks loaded with rocks (or bricks).

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Posted by: CL2 ( )
Date: January 06, 2019 11:21AM

Too many of mormon leaders don't have it. Maybe bosses, too. I have had some WONDERFUL bosses, though, so I can't say that about all leaders, but mormon leaders? Yes!!!

My aunt had her husband become SP (after he found religion, he was independently wealthy) and she thought he was much more fun before he found religion, but he was pretty unfeeling. Her son was a bishop and she said he wasn't made up of good material to be a bishop. I had to deal with this cousin of mine while getting a TR to marry my gay husband and he didn't know about him being gay (I had been in a singles' ward in Logan and moved home to actually get away from my gay boyfriend--the leaders in Logan wanted me to marry him--well, I should say actually to get away from the whole experience--the leaders being a big part of that).

My brother was inactive since his teens. He went back after having a stroke in his 40s. He bought a suit and bought scriptures and my parents would drive him to Ogden to go to a singles ward and they'd go to the deaf ward (my grandparents were deaf). The bishop told my brother he had to go back to the family ward in Brigham. He never has gone back to church. The women in the singles' (or older single's ward) really liked my brother.

I have a disabled brother from birth and other things (like getting hit by a pickup on his bike at age 5). He went on a mission (cousin above was the bishop). The missionaries were horrible to him. He was a changed person when he walked off that plane. He's never recovered. It has been 31 years. I saw him and I started telling my 2-year-old son at the time he was NOT serving a mission.

Others on here including I believe exminion have stories about how leaders treated their kids.

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Posted by: babyloncansuckit ( )
Date: January 08, 2019 10:14AM

You make a two year hazing sound like a bad thing.

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Posted by: olderelder ( )
Date: January 06, 2019 01:54PM

Sociopaths are more common among successful people, with higher concentrations of them the higher up the ladder you look. Because having no conscience and not caring for others are assets in competitive environments. Sadly, assholes often win and nice guys usually do finish last. And asshole like to call themselves "leaders."

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Posted by: Bamboozled ( )
Date: January 07, 2019 09:33AM

Sadly, this has also been my observation.

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Posted by: messygoop ( )
Date: January 06, 2019 02:08PM

I think it helped to be uncaring and apathetic of others. This was especially true of leaders assigned to mentor/work with the youth. The leaders could be downright negligent in their duties of watching over the adolescents.

Many a times, a group of older scouts would grab/abduct and carry the smaller sized boy of the group and tie him up to a tree. Members of the troop would line up and throw pine cones at him for "target practice". The boy would suffer all sorts of cuts and bruises on his arms and legs.

What were the YM leaders doing?

Sitting in their cars while other parents (usually the dads) gossiped. They were oblivious to the mayhem until the kid being bullied screamed from the pain of being hit. Then the adult leaders would get riled up and punish the entire group. Even the lone boy unaware of what was going on received the punishment.

I recall another time when we scouts were cleaning up a small city park and a couple of boys had disappeared for most of the day. It wasn't until we were getting in the station wagon that Brother Blowhard noticed that there was more room in his car. So he nonchalantly asked who got lost. One boy said that Jake and Josh had wandered up to the railroad tracks. So we all got out and climbed up to the tracks. There were the missing boys tied up to the tracks (thankfully they were tied up to a rusty unused sidetrack and not the active mainline). The boys were unable to call for help because they had been gagged and hogtied. One boy had peed his pants.

Brother Blowhard thought it was "cute" that they had been tied up. He thought it was a good lesson because it taught the boys not to wander off without permission. He was not upset that it was another 3-4 boys that had lured them away from the park in the first place.

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Posted by: kilgravmaga ( )
Date: January 07, 2019 02:59AM

"He thought it was a good lesson because it taught the boys not to wander off without permission"

^I think this part is key to this whole thing. Its like they are given a checklist to follow. If someone does something off-script he deserves punishment. They put themselves in God's place to enforce "God's laws".

Isn't that sort of what a lot of bishops do? These guys actually see themselves as righteous judges in Israel, dolling out God's judgement.

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Posted by: GNPE ( )
Date: January 06, 2019 09:47PM

thin line between being 'strict' & cruel


just sayin'

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Posted by: Darla ( )
Date: January 06, 2019 11:52PM

It takes a very mean hearted person to say the things he said about trump when trump was running for president. That is not how a Christin would would get on TV and say the things he said. You can search for mitt on you tube badmouthing trump......Mitt Romney trump a con man full speech.....Willard is his real name and he is a waste of human flesh

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Posted by: Lot's Wife ( )
Date: January 07, 2019 03:13AM

Couldn't agree more.

Romney has said horrible things about others, including the handicapped, women bleeding from their "wherever," minorities who are rapists and terrorists, judges, etc., people from "shithole" countries. And then there is that bragging about sexually assaulting women. It's terrible stuff.

Romney should be ashamed.

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Posted by: ificouldhietokolob ( )
Date: January 07, 2019 09:03AM

But, wait, wasn't that...?

Oh, never mind.

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Posted by: [|] ( )
Date: January 07, 2019 06:51PM


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Posted by: sparty ( )
Date: January 07, 2019 08:56AM

If I would have been in the congregation during the first bishop's story - even at my most TBM - I would have gotten up and walked out. Yeah, some people go through life carrying extra rocks, but sometimes they have to carry them because some fucking asshole put them in their sleeping bag.

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Posted by: mel ( )
Date: January 07, 2019 06:26PM

Gee, sometimes I've regretted not belonging to a church with all its fun activities, when I was growing up.

thanks everyone, I don't regret that anymore!!!

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Posted by: Lot's Wife ( )
Date: January 07, 2019 07:35PM

The church with the fun activities, and with occasional bouts of unconditional love, does not exist any more.

After many years of life as a Jill Mormon, I tried to go back to see if it could work for my family. There's nothing left.

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Posted by: exminion ( )
Date: January 07, 2019 06:49PM

Well said, Sparty! That backpack story is a good allegory for being a Mormon!

I'm too angry to write, but every one of the thugs who abused my children were promoted to higher church positions! By "abuse," I mean grown men breaking into our house (while I at church early doing the music) and dragging my sons out of bed and onto the floor, and kicking them while they were on the floor, and forcing them to get dressed without showering, and kicking their butt (literally) on the stairs, and forcing them into the car, to drive them to church. When they got to church, they were taunted and humiliated for their bed-head appearance, and called names such as "slackers", and were kept hostage until sacrament meeting. This happened quite often, because my boys had two paper routes, and on Sundays the newspapers had to be delivered very early, and my boys would be so exhausted, would go back to bed were extra large and heavy. My boys always worked, but the other neighborhood Mormon kids did not. Their Mormon father had abandoned us, and I was still struggling to support us all. I had no prestige in the ward, and no "priesthood in the home" to protect us. We didn't need protection from the world--we needed protection from the Mormon goons!

I had no idea this was happening, because my sons were threatened not to tell. They were frightened. We had barely moved into the ward, and some of these men were strangers. I had no idea what was happening, until one day, I sat my children down and asked them, sincerely, why they didn't like church, and they told me about various incidences.

My daughter then told us that she had been molested at a church camp-out, while she was sleeping in her sleeping bag. She woke up, and screamed, and there were a lot of witnesses who heard her and saw what was happening. The perp was the bishop's son, an 18-year-old, and my little girl was 11. The bishop threatened the kids that if they told anyone about this, there would be no more ward youth activities, and the tattle-tale would be to blame. My daughter felt she would be to blame, and that the kids would hate her, if she told. She was also told that I would be upset, and would leave the church, and God would be upset, and we would lose any hope of being a "forever family in the hereafter."

I hated the bishop as much as I hated his son. The bishop had tried to hit on me, in his office, and had attempted this with two of my friends, too. We compared notes, and we would not be gaslighted into thinking we had misunderstood his advances. What a sick family they were. He was propmoted to Mission President, then Temple President, and he is now an Area Seventies, or whatever. He was a slimy little misfit, and ugly, but he had money. His pervert son went on a mission, came home and got married, was promoted to our ward's EQP, and later got in trouble for molesting his own daughters!

One of the thugs--a giant of a man--who broke into our house, broke in one time when I was home! My son had a paper due, and a test, and he refused to go to YM/YW "standards night", which was on a school night. He told them "no" about 6 times. The phone kept ringing, and I answered, and it was the thug. I told him that my son was NOT going to "standards night", and explained why. A few minutes later, I heard scuffling in the living room, and the thug was carrying my son towards the door. My son (age 13) was struggling and crying! I told him to leave my son alone! He didn't put him down, but kept going towards the door, saying that my son had to go to the activity. He actually was arguing with me, in my own house. Outraged, I yelled at him, "You are trespassing! Put him down! I'm calling the police!" The thug put him down, and ran out the door. A year or so later, he was promoted to Stake President.

Through the grapevine, I found out that this man had a police record. For anonymity, I can't go into any details, but there were articles in the newspaper archives, that I read. I had been dealing with someone very scary!

The third intruder became a bishop. All the kids knew that he beat his son. My son witnessed a very brutal beating, and would not go near that man. These are men who interviewed kids in their office, alone!

And we live in a "good" respectable neighborhood!

Two minutes after this conversation, I told the children that they never had to go to that horrible church again. We were crying, and then we cried for joy that it was OVER!

In the real world, my personal experiences with leaders has been very positive. I have know wonderful mentors, philanthropists, loving fathers (and mothers) who have been promoted in businesses of all kinds. Besides being ambitious, intelligent, educated, hard-working, they have all been KIND. Even if you accuse someone of boot-licking to get to the top, some amount of personal rapport, likeability, politeness, and integrity is required for this. I as an administrative assistant to a CEO in Silicon Valley, and the leaders there all were geniuses! They were also nice. If they lacked social skills, they would hire great vice-presidents who did have social skills. Good PR also had to be honest PR, because everyone was networked, and everyone knew everyone. No one would have gotten away with any of the despicable Mormon-type behavior.

Cruelty and dishonesty are not tolerated, in the businesses I'm familiar with. I am confused at politics, which seems to have gone rogue, and has become a different animal entirely, and the media has gone along with it.

Much of Mormon "leadership" is self-appointed, arrogant posing.

If you live long enough....

I was going to go into details, and you would be gob-smacked at what happened to these men's children. In my own life, my TBM nephew who stole money from me, my parents, my uncle, and others, was expelled from the bishopric. He never did work for Bill Gates, like he pretended. He never owned his own company, as he pretended. When we investigated, it never existed. He just took the investors' money and spent it on fancy cars and boats and travel for himself and his wife. They neglected their children. He was uneducated and arrogant, and and was soon parted from all the money he stole, and is now homeless. The Mormon relatives were too nice, but I immediately sued the idiot, on my own, and got most of our money back, before he spent it.

My handsome ex-brother-in-law was the bishop of our ward in California, and later stake president, and he was my ex-husband's business partner. Behind everyone's back, he set up my ex-husband with women. When their parents died, this business "leader" and Stake President had gained sole control of all the family businesses, and also of the entire estate, and he took it ALL. There was nothing left for my ex or their sister's family. Twenty years later, this crook has gambled and day-traded all of his money away, and is broke and living in his 5th wife's house.

If you look closely at the REALITY of these Mormon con-men leaders' families, they have not been adequately "led" at all, but have suffered enormous failures. Two of my ex-brother-in-law's children committed suicide. I think crooks pay the price. Look at what happened to Joseph Smith.

Sorry for the rant--I have experienced way too much Mormon cruelty and scum-baggery.

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Posted by: snowball ( )
Date: January 08, 2019 09:44AM

I think that it helps if you don't have any other kind of standing with the organization.

If you were like me and came from a family with a long and er...distinguished pedigree in Joseph Smith's...um...movement...then you get leadership positions foisted upon you whether you want it or not--because people assume you know the system and are well church broke. In such circumstances, being wealthy (or appearing so) or cruel is a plus. I guess that's why I never made AP or Elders quorum president--that's just as well.

For someone who is a first or second generation Mormon, fanatical obedience leading to cruelty or wealth are helpful ways for you to land a leadership role.

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Posted by: Amyjo ( )
Date: January 08, 2019 10:45AM

It may be the kinder, more sensitive types who are leaving in droves. Let the vindictive ones do each other in.

Great leadership isn't cruel. That's why there's a dearth of great leadership @ the helm of TSCC.

Moronic leadership is cruel. Despotic leadership is cruel.

Not great leadership.

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Posted by: Cathy ( )
Date: January 08, 2019 11:31AM

Very interesting thread.

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Posted by: Human ( )
Date: January 08, 2019 01:48PM

Those stories bring back memories.

As Michael Kay, voice of the Yankees, often says, “there are lots of things we use to say and do that you just can’t do and say anymore.”

I was a kid laughing at the kid with the rocks in his knapsack. I was the kid with the kid throwing rocks at the other kid’s window. I tripped kids in the school hallway and laughed when the kid’s books and binders went flying everywhere. It was funny. We were kids.

Of course I got my own, too. Frosh week grade seven, I ran faster than my friend who was caught, pinned-down and gaunch-pulled so hard his underwear was ripped right off him. Another friend had dog shit shoved down his pants. Grade niners spent the rest of the year laughingly asking him if he shit his pants today when we past them down the halls. Those halls were scary.

A Principle’s announcemount denoucing frosh week only came at the end of the week, after a kid’s mom complained because her kid had NEET rubbed into his head. We hated that kid because hating him made you okay with the grade niners. Grade eighters didn’t count, they weren’t allowed to frosh us and would be beaten if they did.

I got off lucky in grade seven. The worst that happened was I hid under a car in an alley after buddy and I were chased for what felt like forever. We shivered in fright for an hour. We held our breaths and prayed to Heavenly Father (buddy was mormon, too).

That’s just the first week of grade seven. These were the days when gym teachers threw red, rubber utility balls at our heads if we failed to pay proper attention. These were the days when adults condoned hazing (we called it froshing) as part of every boy’s “growing pains”. I joined up for wrestling, basketball and track & field, each of which had their own hazing initiations, condoned and sort of ‘watched-over’ by the coach. “Don’t sweat it, kid, you’ll get your turn soon enough.” Of course, when grade nine came along we fulfilled the tradition with extra imaginative cruelty. Pity the lonely grade sevener!

After initiation, you’re in. This meant we could bully the weaklings who didn’t join a sport. And we did. And it was funny. We laughed and we bullied and we had a great ol’ time. It was 1979, our pants were still flared at the ends and bullying was almost winked at by the supervising adults.


Did we, those of us that grew up in this jock-centred culture, grow up and use this mentality to get ahead? Yes, yes we did.

At some point, though, you grow out of it. I grew out of it early, in my mid-twenties. Others later. And still others haven’t yet, but there’s still time.

The dark truth that I’ve noticed after 30+ years of work life is that the later you grow out of it the higher you rise in places of authority. To be a manager, a manager of people, is to be a dick; the harder your dick the more you can get others to get shit done, on time. Male or female, doesn’t matter. There are plenty of females with dicks much harder than the dick in me, that’s for goddamn sure. The point is: to be a manager, don’t answer Machiavelli’s proverbial question, whether it is better to be loved or feared to be a good ruler, with any sort of misty-eyed HR bullshit. There’s bullshit and there’s the real world, don’t confuse the two.

Anyway, there’s a slice of my living on this planet. I don’t condone it; I’m merely saying it.


Here’s the kicker: I found Mormonism to be a refuge from this harshness, actually, a gentler version of the world around me. Was the jock-mentality prevalent? Yes, to be sure. But it seemed gentler, more humour-based than cruelty-based, and somehow more fair more just.

Human

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Posted by: exminion ( )
Date: January 10, 2019 12:49AM

Then there's the work environment in your office--a world which you helped create, Human. So glad I never shared an office with you.

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Posted by: Human ( )
Date: January 10, 2019 01:54AM

exminion Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Then there's the work environment in your
> office--a world which you helped create, Human.

Indeed. A world you do not know.


> So glad I never shared an office with you.

Office? No. I don’t know about working in offices.

You presume too much.

Human

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