Setting goals as a missionary.

Some time ago I had a nice conversation with someone, and he reminded me of the absolute ricockulousness of setting goals as missionaries.

For those of you who don't know, or hoped to forget (tough shit, I'm bringing it up) every week the missionary and his bestest assigned missionary buddy friend would sit down and set some stupid ass goals. These goals would be about how many discussions the missionaries would teach (for the week) and how many baptisms (for the month) they would get. Why? Because that's what Jesus would do. And Jesus would also demand that these numbers be recorded up through the rank and file of the missionaries, and also how well the missionaries performed at their own goals. Jesus was a high achiever. He had read Stephen Covey and knew that in order to achieve great things, he had to set sub-goals that directly related to the main goal and then check the progress of the sub-goals in order to stay on track with the large goals.

Whew!!!

Now because Raptor Jesus is a snarky bastard, goal setting was NOT fun for his companion.

Start Scene: (a shitty apartment in a town off Frankfurt. Raptor Jesus emerges from the bathroom where he was going "potty" --jerking off).

Companion: Ok, Elder Jesus, we need to set our weekly goals.

RJ: Ok, let's get it over with.

C: Now, Elder, that's not the kind of attitude we should have. Setting goals is a great way to show our love of the Lord.

RJ: Whatever.

C: How many baptisms are we going to have this month?

RJ: 0

C: Elder, that's not very 'faithful.'

RJ: No, it's realistic.

C: Elder...

RJ: No, seriously. Are we teaching anyone?

C: No.

RJ: Ok, then. 0. We have to be teaching discussions in order to baptize people. If we don't teach discussions, we can't baptize people. So by having 0 discussions that we are teaching, that should lead to approximately 0 baptisms for the month.

C: But Elder you are missing the point.

RJ: Am I?

C: Yes. Where is your faith? The lord will bless us if we have faith, and setting these goals shows that we have faith. Now, how many baptisms are we going to have this month?

RJ: 80.

C: Elder.

RJ: What?

C: Is that a REASONABLE goal? We need to set reasonable goals.

(Even though Raptor Jesus's brain hadn't broken yet, he starts having flashbacks. His flashbacks take him to a particular movie called "Office Space" and a scene where a young Jennifer Aniston is arguing with her manager over how many pieces of "flair" she should be wearing on her work outfit.)

RJ: I said that Reasonable was 0.

C: But it's not faithful enough.

RJ: Then 80.

C: But that's not reasonable. We'll never baptize that many.

RJ: Now where's YOUR faith, elder?

C: Elder...

RJ: Fine. Three. Three baptisms this month.

C: Why three?

RJ's Brain: Are you fucking kidding me??? Three is the number I always pick you dumb asshole because it shuts you up. It's the mediocre number that seems "reasonable" to every other insane person out here even though we NEVER hit that number. NEVER. NOT EVER. WE ALWAYS BAPTIZE A TOTAL OF 0 PEOPLE PER MONTH. BUT WE ALWAYS SAY WE'LL BAPTIZE THREE!

RJ's Mouth: Fine, then. 2

C: No, 3 is good. I'll put down 3.

(End scene.)