Sunday, February 13, 2005

Postcards

Have you ever received one of JFJ's "personal" hand written postcards? Weren't you thrilled! Someone from Jews for Jesus took the time to write you personally to thank you for your support of Jews for Jesus or ask you how you were or invited you to an event or asked for prayer or told you they were thinking of you!

Wow....whoever sent you the note must think a lot of you! You are almost close buddies! Oh what a happy day to get a personal note from Jews for Jesus!!!

Did you know that the entire missionary staff of Jews for Jesus is required to write 60 postcards (yes that is SIX in the ten's column followed by a ZERO in the ones column) per week?

Come to think of it, I wonder if there is a punishment for not getting the 60 quota done? (Probably extra postcards!)

Your name was in a stack of what I remember was called NODs (notices of donation) and all this great info on your donation history is on the NOD and sometimes what you need prayer for too and your life history is there and the JFJ worker takes your NOD, addresses a beautiful and artistic JFJ postcard to you and writes you a personal note that he or she has also written to the same person over and over! Then, the writer of your note tears up the NOD with your name on it since you are "done."

There are at least two postcard meetings a week where JFJ people write postcards together and talk. The meetings are an hour long and it is very important to get at least twenty of these notes done during these meetings or the 60 a week goal will not be as fun to do.

Actually, before joining JFJ, I liked writing postcards to friends and relatives once in awhile. Today, I won't buy postcards. I won't write postcards. I won't mail out postcards. And....I don't read postcards (especially the ones that come from anyone in or close to JFJ!).


http://www.exjewsforjesus.org/

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

60 postcards a week multiplied by 50 weeks a year of writing postcards (I've deleted 2 weeks vacation that some of those workers get) means 3000 postcards are written a year per vocational staff worker. That is alot of postage and a lot of people who think they are special to JFJ.

Anonymous said...

I was fined "extra postcards" for trivial offenses... the supposed personal touch was a horrible production line.
My leader had "catchup cards" that he printed and it looked like the real thing.
A donor also received from me two postcards once, I had forgotten to put his "NOD" (notice of donation) to the bottom of the pile.
Nothing about this Jews for Jesus is very cutting edge any more, they are just an edge that cuts people who have the misfortune of joining them.

Anonymous said...

I was fined "extra postcards" for trivial offenses... the supposed personal touch was a horrible production line.
My leader had "catchup cards" that he printed and it looked like the real thing.
A donor also received from me two postcards once, I had forgotten to put his "NOD" (notice of donation) to the bottom of the pile.
Nothing about this Jews for Jesus is very cutting edge any more, they are just an edge that cuts people who have the misfortune of joining them.

Anonymous said...

Post Cards and Jews for Jesus:

When I was with Jews for Jesus there was a rule, pre-printed postcards with a generic message that left only a space for you to enter the donor's name and address were printed up for every major Jewish and Christian holiday. We could use those pre-printed cards which were also known as "catch-up cards" but they only counted as 3 pre-printed card for every real handwritten postcard.

During holidays, they often required us to increase the weekly postcard writing requirement from 60 a week to 80 or even 100.

We were encouraged to write extra postcards a month in advance of Christmas to first time donors and second time donors from the previous two years. The goal in doing so was to show the donor the "personal touch" and "encourage" them to give a gift for Christmas, thus increasing overall Jews for Jesus income. This is a big reason Jews for Jesus staff got a Christmas bonus.

Anonymous said...

After a couple years of writig Jews for Jesus donor postcards I was diagnosed with carpal tunnel syndrome. Even though I got a doctor's note to show it was a real diagnoses, I was still required to write 60 postcards a week.

Anonymous said...

I don't remember 60 postcards a week as much as I remember 80 or 100. That was more common for me. Our paycheck was often withheld if we did not produce the proper amount of cards. (The same would happen if we failed to submit a"witnessing report" which was a report of our activities for the month.)

What is not mentioned here, is that the branch leader had to read each and every postcard before they could get mailed. If he/she found one he/she did not like, you had to do them all over again!

OH, another thing that is not mentioned is that you could not count postcard writing time as part of your official time on the time log unless it was part of a postcard meeting or while travelling to some meeting or visit.

Anonymous said...

WOW...when did this previous commenter work with JFJ?