How Far Will You Go To Provide

[CaptainTux]

I will preface this by saying there is a purpose to my question, but I do not want to reveal it for it may taint your answers. No one here will be put on the spot. This is not a trap on the answers, but I fear if I do not hold my cards close, your answers may be tainted.

We are all sinners. We sin every day. My question is this..how far are you willing to go to provide for yourself or your family?

If you are a salesperson, will you lie a little to close a sale?

Will you take five bucks out of your pocket if your cash register is short as opposed to facing up to an error?

If you are a waiter or waitress, will you lie and say the clam chowder is good even though you have never had it?

Will you be pleasant to a customer who you would rather tell them how rude they are?

Will you laugh politely at a client's inappropriate joke or not stand for a conviction?

If you work in customer service for an insurance company, will you tell a woman on the phone her HMO's procedure for an abortion and what doctors are in her network?

Leave the vocation for a moment...would you steal food to feed your child?

Would you kill someone for thier provisions if there was no other way to feed your family?

I guess my question is this...how far will you go to make a dollar to provide for your family. Please give the honest answer as opposed to the right one. If you believe firmly that you would never sin vocationally or provisionally, I will take you at your word.

I will admit, I would lie to earn a living, but I would not willfully harm another person for my own needs. For my daughter's...I would like to think my answer is no...but I may harm to provide for her and worry about the guilt and penance later. How far am I willing to go for a paycheck? I am not sure.

[Guest MrsS]

I will answer you within the quote in a different color. Let me preface this with, I was inactive for 30 years ~ even so, I still lived as close to the 10 commandments as I could.

I will preface this by saying there is a purpose to my question, but I do not want to reveal it for it may taint your answers. No one here will be put on the spot. This is not a trap on the answers, but I fear if I do not hold my cards close, your answers may be tainted.

We are all sinners. We sin every day. My question is this..how far are you willing to go to provide for yourself or your family?

If you are a salesperson, will you lie a little to close a sale? I did, and I regretted it ~ that lie came back and kicked me in the butt big time. I never did it again. ~ worked in a hardware store.

Will you take five bucks out of your pocket if your cash register is short as opposed to facing up to an error? No, never. You may think that the error is yours, but the owner could have removed it to see how honest you are. ~ worked retail, bartending and owned own Tavern. I used to do that to my bartenders to check their honesty.

If you are a waiter or waitress, will you lie and say the clam chowder is good even though you have never had it? No, I would say: The cook says the chowder is excellent today ~ or I would say, the soup doesn't look all that great ~ would you prefer the chowder. NOTE: A GOOD waitperson, will take a taste of the soups so that s/he will be able to answer that honestly and knowledgeably. ~ was a waitress/hostess/bartender and cocktail waitress for 12 years. Owned my own Tavern for 8 years.

Will you be pleasant to a customer who you would rather tell them how rude they are? Yes, they are in fact paying you your wages! Also experience has taught me that the nicer you are especially if you are sincere, the nicer they will become. Almost doing it in a heart beat.

Will you laugh politely at a client's inappropriate joke or not stand for a conviction? If the joke is inappropriate, crude or downright nasty I ignore it. Passing quickly on to business. Mr. Jones, you were looking for the towel holders, they are right here. By laughing at it you are telling this person you have no scruples or standards. You don't have to be rude ~ just very politely switch to the business at hand. Treat the joke as though he had coughed and farted at the same time.

If you work in customer service for an insurance company, will you tell a woman on the phone her HMO's procedure for an abortion and what doctors are in her network? Yes, that is my job. I can not and will not force my beliefs onto another person.

Leave the vocation for a moment...would you steal food to feed your child? No, there are too many places where you can easily get assistance. Salvation Army, numerous Church soup kitchens, nearly every county in the US has commodities that you can get for free.

Would you kill someone for thier provisions if there was no other way to feed your family? No, my beliefs are deep. Killing is not an answer to this problem. Again, there are way too many places where you can get assistance to feed children.

I guess my question is this...how far will you go to make a dollar to provide for your family. Please give the honest answer as opposed to the right one. If you believe firmly that you would never sin vocationally or provisionally, I will take you at your word. I would work on Sunday. I would even work in a Casino or a bar if there were no other jobs and it meant putting a roof over my families head and food in their bellies. BUT as an active LDS member ~ I know that I can get help from the Church. We have the best Welfare Assistance on the face of the earth. You don't get something for nothing, and while you are getting help to feed, clothe, and shelter your family and yourself, you can also get training to get and keep a job. We also have some of the best Job Specialists there are too. Been there, done that and I thank God daily for that generous and lovenignly given help.

I will admit, I would lie to earn a living, but I would not willfully harm another person for my own needs. For my daughter's...I would like to think my answer is no...but I may harm to provide for her and worry about the guilt and penance later. How far am I willing to go for a paycheck? I am not sure.

Capt. Tux. when you lie, eventually that lie will come back at you ten fold. Do you just want a job for a few months? or long enough to get you established into a decent home with groceries every month? If someone was willing to knock some guy out to get his groceries, then why doesn't he just go to the state or county and sign up for food assistance? It is much, much easier for a family (single parent with children especially) to get food assistance, then it is for an elderly person to get it. I know, my poor neighbor nearly starved to death because she couldn't get more than $10.00 a month food assistance. I took her to the various commodities give aways, and I helped her out as much as I could too. I had her over for dinner three times a week, sometimes 4. I was constantly leaving 12 double roll packs of t.p. on her back porch, and putting bars of bath soap and toothpaste in her bathroom when I went to visit. I was getting help from the Church, so I guess I did lie when I checked the box for bath soap and toothpaste saying I needed it, when I really was getting it for her.

[CaptainTux]

Great reply MrsS. Your answers show me that there is no other way to get what I need without going into the truth of the matter.

Though it is not my main vocation, I am an actor. I have, for the last 21 years of my life acted, produced, directed, stage manages, etc many plays. I have been in a few films and tv as well in bit roles. It is a passion.

I am working with some people on a serious endeavor of an indie film. I am not comfortable revealing too much about the plot, but one of the principle characters is a stripper. To get a better understanding of the character and aspects of the project, I have been doing field research-with my significant others permission and full disclosure.

I am not getting lapdances. What I do is I go into the clubs, offer the ones that come to my table a drink of their choosing and tell them my motives and let them know I will understand if they have to leave the table to work the stage or meet a client.

During this time, I have been asked to leave clubs, told off, accused of violating privacy etc. I have found one place that has been welcoming to my quest and when I go, I can have two or three girls at my table at a time telling me aspects of thier life stories.

This has been a rude awakening for me and has been fascinating. There is no typical dancer. You have some that enjoy it, others that loathe it, some seem to be strung out or hoping for fame. There are many single moms that live in duplicity all the time. They cannot tell the clients about who they are...they are meat. They cannot tell their neighbors or the other parents in their kid's soccer team what they do. They cannot tell their own kids and families what they do. There seems to be a lot of theft of tips. So you cannot even have deep relationships with the co-workers.

I have found a few that are believers and have a hard time reconciling this. I even met a girl who goes to my church who works there. I am the only one that knows. It is far enough away that the odds are remote of someone from our church going there. She is in some fear about my knowing. Our kids are in Sunday school together, she gets along with my wife. She likes it at our church. She is afriad this discovery will lead to her having to leave.

I have assured her that I will tell no one and I do not intend to. I even feel nervous about it here, but I feel this is remote enough and my details vague enough to pull it off.

Where I live, welfare and quality medical care when poor is not as good as it is in other states and being a single mom is tough...especially with no college degree. I am not justifying. But I am finding it really hard to judge especially since I used to work in a casino.

I am not saying this is a healthy profession. But doggone it, some of these women were not what I expected...I am not sure what I expected. I will tell you it is not a 3k a week gig in most of these places. They pay to dance and have to meet at least that per day. Some days and some weeks they may operate in the hole.

As we get further into this project, I want less of the movie we are doing and I want to tell thier story. Their story I think is a story of a broken world with people doing things they may not like, but feel they need to do.

I do not know if this makes any sense.

Some of these girls have broken my heart and have broken Jen's as well. I am not sure I see them as the problem. I feel as if I am getting a new grasp of the woman brought before Jesus. Some say he may have written the man's name in the sand with the stick. No proof, but it is an interesting thought.

I don't know. I am not sure what I am asking here. I am not sure what I am saying. I guess it is hard to look down on someone when you know a little about them and I wonder if the rest of us are mere degrees away from them as opposed to the other side of the thermometer as we would like to believe we are.

[Guest MrsS]

I know what you mean. When I owned the Tavern, my then husband got the brilliant idea to have strippers once a month. It brought in the customers, and the money ~ but it also brought in trouble. The guys were awful to those gals, and to us (myself and my crew), and the "city fathers" didn't like it at all.

I got to know these women a bit. Not real well ~ most wouldn't let you get close. Some were so young and naive. Some were tough as nails. Mostly they treated it as though it was no different than what I was doing. Except I had my clothes on and kept them on. In Oregon ~ they can't strip to the buff, so they had pasties on. Never did have the nerve to ask how they kept them on. Oh, the round ones I figured out, it was the triangles that puzzled me

Before I met my first husband, I thought of going into prostitution. The money was good ~ or so I thought. Then I happened upon a real prostitute. I was in down town Seattle, eating in Kress's. This gal sat next to me at the counter. The waitress sneered at her and called her a hooker. The gal just laughed and said ~ Of course I am, at least I am honest about it. So I struck up a conversation with her. She told me to not go into the business. The money wasn't really there, only heart ache and pain. I asked her why she didn't get out of it. She told me to shut up and eat my lunch. I did ask her how old she was. She was 30 and she looked 50. So sad. So, I didn't go into that profession. I never thought of stripping ~ never heard of it then.

Back to the dancers at my Tavern. They were treated like they were low lifes. The male strippers we had were treated much nicer, and they were better educated than the women. For them it was more of a lark ~ than a necessity. Oddly enough the "city fathers" didn't get all bent out of shape over the male strippers as they did over the female strippers. They should have, their wives were in there acting like real fools.

Even when I was inactive ~ I wouldn't have stripped. I was never comfortable in my own skin. Even when I was 5'3", 115 lbs and 24 years old. I felt old, fat and out of step with everything. Now I am 54, seriously overweight, and very comfortable in my own skin.

[CaptainTux]

You are a most fascinating individual MrsS. The piece of meat and being treated low bugs me.

BTW, in my state, topless is allowed, but g string is on....unless you decide to drop your liquor license.

The place that allows me to come in and be nosy is actually good to the girls. They take security and privacy of the dancers seriously. The owner even has dormotory housing for those that have nowhere to live. They have strict rules while living there..no drugs, no men, etc. I am sure that is as much for liability as it is for nobility, but I found it to be the exception to the rule.

We live in a broken world. It is hard for me to be high and mighty.

I will be honest...I do wanna tell the naive ones..."Get out. Go to college. Get married, get fat, have kids." The older ones...I want to understand. I also am humbled for I see myself as only a few degrees off. We are all broken and at times...Machiavellian.

[CaptainTux]

Amusing side note. I am a believer that if you look at a woman with lust, you may have as well committed the deed. I have a firm ground rule. When I look at one with naughty thoughts, I leave. So far my shortest visit was about 2 minutes and the longest one was 2 and a quarter hours. That long stretch was my last visit. Some of them have gotten to know about the rule. While we talk there are always 3 girls on the stage. I have been warned when one or two dancers are doing something dangerous by the ones that know about my rule. They just look at me and say..."please keep your eyes on mine or at the bar until this song is over."

I have found eye contact and the exit light to be good places to look, but I am amused that people who get paid to be ogled are trying to keep me from ogling.

I dunno, I think it is funny.

[Sugarbay]

Back to the topic a bit. I believe we have been told to have a food storage for more reasons that just feeding our family in hard times

When the economy finally grinds to a halt there will be people doing just as Tux is talking about. If we follow what we are told to do, then we minimize the chance that we will be put in a position to kill, steal, etc. for ourselves and families. I do know this, that if anyone were to attack a family member, or some guy on the street for what he has, and they want, I will vigorously defend that person. My family, of course would be defended with a weapon of my choosing and to my death, if needs be. I hope that it never comes to that.

There are people all over this world that feel they have no other options than to do degrading things to make a living. For them I am sorry that they dont have the truth. Me personally, I was in the music world for a while and I found that I was not able to present myself as something less than my Father's daughter, to the public. But I was already a member of the church.

We have several actors in this area, and a few that are LDS and it is refreshing to know that as talented as they may be, they do not compromise their beliefs for a buck. That has to be difficult when you know that you have the talent, and Hollywood knows you have the talent but you choose to serve the Lord and do as he would have you do. One man, who has to remain nameless, told me that it is tough enough going through life pretending you are someone else all the time let alone shove your beliefs on the back burner in order to make a living at it.

Would I steal? My immediate response is to say "no", but I can't say "never" because I am not there yet. That will be a test of my faith and obedience. But in my heart of hearts I know that I would pray and always ask my Father in heaven what I should do in any situation in which I have no clue. When it comes to stealing I think I will just have to go without.

This is a good subject. A thoughtful topic. Thank you, CT.

P.S. I might steal a good NY cheesecake, though...

[miztrniceguy]

how far would i go?.....hmmmm....

After being a retail manager for around 20 years i have finally gotten out of it. I have found a position that doesn't require me to work on Sundays. So many times over the years I was taken advantage of because I said I would work Sundays "in an emergency", and having it turn into every Sunday. This by a GM who was LDS, too. When I quit my job as a c-store manager, I was off work 3 months, partly because I decided I would not consider a job that included Sundays. Now that I am there every week, I have recently become a Sunday School teacher. I enjoy it, but find it difficult sometimes not to stray from the lesson to give these 16 yr olds some life lessons.

Overall, I did not like having to work on Sunday. When I was inactive it didnt bother me. After returning to church, I accepted it as necessary as this was what i did...i was a retail manager so long, and i dont have any kind of a trade or degree.

I feel blessed that i have finally found something with good pay and lots of potential that gives me enough time for my family. It's nice having 40 hr weeks instead of 70-80, and still make a decent wage and great benefits.

As for the part about stealing food, etc....I know i have recources available, and hope I am never in that position. I will say that getting married and having kids changes a lot of what somone would do .

Miztrniceguy

[CaptainTux]

P.S. I might steal a good NY cheesecake, though...

There has gotta be a loophole allowing that. Temporary insanity due to creamy deliciousness?

Seriously, thanks for a wonderful response.

So, lying at work, working on Sundays...how far away is that from lap dances?

If we are willing to sin for a paycheck...how much more pure are we?

If we are willing to lie to close a sale or willing to work as opposed to going to church and being with the family and work at casinos...are we really that superior?

[Palerider]

I sold cars for a few years......I know what everyone thinks of car salesman....I was also asked once how could I sell cars and be a member of the church....a non-member asked me that....I replied.....I have not lied to anyone to get a sale....if I knew something about a used car I would tell people I am not selling this car to you..etc. Maybe thats why I wasn't very good at it........My answer is I will not lie to customers and I still work with customers every day....just not in the car buisness.

[StrawberryFields]

We have been very blessed thus far and not needed to worry about the necessities of life.

One of my favorite pays of all times is Les Miserables. If someone I loved was going hungry I am not so sure I wouldn't steal a loaf of bread. I would take it up with my Father in Heaven and see how I would be judged.