When I came to the New York Training Center in the summer of 1977, the carpet cleaning business was beginning to roll. It was fun at first, and I felt that it was all for Jesus. We worked seven days a week, often into the wee hours of the night, and sometimes there were jobs that we scheduled after 10 for some businesses. Sometimes we did not get a chance to go to the Diplomat meetings due to the length of the jobs. We were never given days off. I remember ST saying that if we made a certain money goal that we would get a day off, but that never happened.
One of the joys for me was when I would receive tips from the customers. It was troubling to me when at one of the so-called squirrel meetings, ST decided that we would have to give in the tip money from all of the jobs. I did not like this action one bit, for it was the only satisfaction I had, when I could go and eat a hot meal at a restaurant. Many times you had to eat on the run, or it was so late by the time you got home. So you felt guilty about using the tip money to get food for yourself. Once a customer said to me that if she gave me a tip that I had to use it on me and not give it to the church; she noticed that I was hesitant and she said that she was not going to give the business any extra money, not even a penny more. This place was worse than Communism.Another hair-brain scheme of ST's was when he had the idea, and I don't know where it came from but it did, and he had no problem trying wild schemes. He told us not to use two men on a job but that we should only send one person on each job. Well the problem with that strategy was that we did not bother changing the flyer that said clearly that two men would come to your place of business or residence. Many people began calling the office complaining about the shortage of manpower.