116 thoughts on ““The Floor Leader””

  2. Third!!!Yes. Well, close enough. Never a fundy nor did I go to a fundy school. I did however, have RAs (resident assistant) and they were pretty okay. But that was over a decade ago. Geez, I’m getting old or something. Definitely something.

  3. I see that title and all I can think of is “follow the leader.” I am a dork at 4:30 in the morning.

  4. So finally watched it. Yeah, can understand how this is cringe worthy and yet funny. I really liked the Klepto Filipino. And I really wanted to slap the floor leader. Sorry, I understand this is acting but the tone of voice and talking over people are so familiar to me and triggering though it has to do with past abuse by others and Not by a floor leader. But I still liked the klepto.

  5. I am so glad I never went to Fundy U. They really come into your room to check on you? I’ve been out of the fundies too long I’m starting to think stuff like this is weird.

    1. The one I went to had people who would check your car radio presets to make sure you didn’t have any worldly stations on your radio.

      1. Because, you know, you can’t possibly listen to a station that’s not set on a preset….

      2. They did that at my church. I figured out that if you push two preset buttons on the radio at the same time it would store a station there. All the main buttons were the “approved” stations. In my final years I kept my fundie stations on FM1 and stations like KLOVE and other contemporary stations on FM2. I called FM1 my “Fundie” button that I would hit driving down the street to the church.

        1. Wait, your CHURCH had somebody who came out to your car and checked your radio buttons?

          I’m shaking my head in disbelief.

        2. Yeah it was either the WoMoG (Wife of the MoG), or one of the self proclaimed youth leaders when I was younger. When I was a music director it was my “responsibility” then. I had a secret agreement with several that as long as they changed their stations before coming in the parking lot, they would not hear bout it in a sermon. I was being policed as well, so if I didn’t report someone my rear would have been on the line in staff meeting or publicly called out in a service. Probably the same situation occurs in the floor leader situation as well.

        3. Others would also check your radio while you were out soul winning as well. That’s when most of the tattle-telling occurred.

        4. un-f***ing-believable – how in the name of all that’s holy would anyone not consider that a cult? That level of control is mind-boggling.

          Then again, this site has shaken my fundy cred. And I though my own personal hell was bad.

      3. Same at our school. I just set all the presets to 2 clicks away (just in case they thought to try 1 away) from the stations I wanted.

    2. Yeah, (at least at PCC when I was there) they come to your room, not just daily, they come at least 3 times a day and sometimes more (morning room check, chapel check, and lights out check. Chapel check isn’t done on Saturdays, however Sundays has 2 church checks.

    3. In basic I was polishing my boots in the latrine in one of the stalls after lights out and was caught by our flight leader. I was a squad leader, therefore found myself in some hot water with the TI.

      FundyU was a piece of cake.

      B.R.O.

      1. Seriously…BOOTS!

        You know, those things you put on your feet and walk around in.

        1. Jack Schaap, you can pervert one of the most innocent of military activities.

          Darn you! (and I don’t mean what you do to socks)

        1. I am currently deployed and I am the dorm “mayor”. Same difference–nothing like babysitting a bunch of adults

        2. Yep, six inch squares. Fundy U can’t hold a candle to some of my military training experiences over the years. CATCH 22 can describe some of the nonsense though.

          Dorm “Mayor?” That’s a new expression for me. Guess it’s better that the barracks NAZI !

      3. Before my daughter left for Fundy U, she was lamenting some of the rules, especially the dress code. (We hadn’t figured out a lot of the unwritten rules yet.) I told her that the dress code and discipline were nothing compared to what I had in the Air Force, and that she would be a better person for it.

        Boy, was I wrong! No, the official (and unofficial) rules aren’t nearly as strict as the military, but the message behind them–if you don’t adhere to these rules you’re not really a Christian and therefore going to hell–is subtle and soul-scarring. When I picked her up from school for summer break, she was scared of her own shadow the whole time we were at the beach. I’ve since apologized to my daughter for pushing her to go to PCC and she’s now attending public U and loving young adult life.

        2. I agree that the soul-damage can be crushing, going beyond the physical or the emotional and dealing with the spiritual. That message — you must conform or you’re not a good person and probably not saved, thus bound for a Christless eternity in torment — is a terrible burden, especially when combined with the cognitive dissonance of constantly singing hymns about joy and love and freedom yet living under fear and condemnation.

        3. Perhaps my perspective is skewed a little from being on staff at PCC for a decade, but I think PCC’s rules in some areas are actually much stricter than the military outside of basic training.

          Generally speaking, the military does not tell you what your spouse can or cannot wear in the privacy of your own home (even to bed), or where your children are allowed to go to college, or where they may choose to work off-base during the summer. The military does not tell you that you may not wear jeans or T-shirts to Walmart off-duty, or that you may not exercise on Sundays, or that your wife and daughter must wear skirts and hose everywhere they go, or require that they must do all PT in culottes. The military does not tell you which radio stations, TV programs, and movies you may watch and which will get you tossed on the street with 24 hours notice, nor does it prohibit you from attending theaters. The military does not tell you that you can’t use cooking sherry in the foods you cook at home; heck, the military will let you go to a bar off duty as long as you do not engage in conduct unbecoming. The military does not require you to abstain from hugging a friend or holding her/his hand while watching a sunset off duty, it does not mandate supervision by a superior officer in order to talk to your date, and it most certainly does not prohibit married couples from holding hands while walking on-base. The military does not tell you what church you must attend or track how often you attend it, or tell you what a bad person you are for holding philosophical or religious positions that it disagrees with.

          Military life can be infuriating at times, but outside of boot camp I don’t think the military ever reaches as deeply inside your psyche as PCC does, and I think it doesn’t muck you up as badly when it does so.

  7. Was this produced by PCC? Because if I were a prospective student and I watched this….

    1. I’m certain not by PCC, it seems to me that it was made @ PCC by students essentially recreating actual events, and those aren’t exaggerated at all, if anything it’s way toned down the level of threats floor leaders make at students

      1. Ah. That’s awful, btw. I went to a muuuuuuch more liberal Christian college, and while there were room checks (For neatness, for which I was actually grateful, because my roommate’s half of the room would’ve been awful had they not.) that was about as far as it went. I don’t think I would’ve lasted very long here.

  8. Yeah. State universities have Resident Assistants who fill the same role. Except they’re kept busy telling people to turn down their music and to stop smoking pot.

    1. Yeah, I’ve known a couple of RA’s, and they saw the position as less of a power trip and more of a constant source of frustration.

      1. Yes, exactly.
        And at my school, the RAs never told people when to go to bed or anything like that.

  9. I know we had hall monitors at Bob Jones but I can’t remember the names of a single one. I guess that goes to show the effect they had on my life.

    1. *name* of a single one. Also just for the record I was a fairly well behaved student. Wasn’t rebellious. Did my best to follow the rules. The problem was NOT with me.

  10. Lol. That was pretty funny. Of course, when I went, there were no cell phones allowed. I had two decent floor leaders that I remember. The rest were such complete tools; we used to mock them mercilessly, and not always behind their backs. I imagine it is not a fun job.

    1. I kept expecting the guy on the phone to his girlfriend to tell the RA that he was talking to his boyfriend… the RA probably would have passed out.

  11. At BJ we also had prayer captains and assistant prayer captains that reported to the hall monitor. I wasn’t recommended for APC at the end of my freshman year and that reflects poorly upon you and garners a one in one with the dorm sup with a warning that if you aren’t recommended for pc or APC the end of sophomore year, you will most likely be on spiritual probation. I also got 50 demerits for not turning in my roommate for a Steve Greene tape. 13 years ago I was going to a fundy church and increasingly be came uncomfortable with the cult like qualities and we eventually left fundy land. Looking back on my time at BJ, which was only two years, i am shocked that I listed two years. I was constantly getting demerits, Was deeply depressed, and miserable. And it was my choice to go. Uggh

      1. My junior year at BJU, my boyfriend loaned me a Steve Green tape. I LOVED it. I had been a good little Christian girl and hadn’t listened to CCM, having believed what I was told that it was shallow and worldly. Listening to that tape, though, I realized that Green’s lyrics were neither shallow nor worldly but were instead full of Scripture and commitment to Christ.

        (I later married that boyfriend. He led me away from my KJVO stance too. Oh, the people you can meet at BJU! lol)

      2. I remember Bill Gothard telling stories about how he almost talked Steve Green into giving up the beat as well!

    2. The concept of “Spirtual Probation” makes the mind reel. Are they going to boot out your spirit if it doesn’t shape up?

      2. If you think about it, “Spiritual Probation” pretty much sums up the fundamentalist view of life and/or our standing with God, does it not?

  12. There was a group of students who attended a local church and had an accapella group called Men Of Calvary. Their music didn’t check either. So insane.

    1. Music check is a whole other topic altogether. I know at PCC some people would listen to artists that were broadcast on the radio, but their entire CD’s wouldn’t pass music check. The double standard hypocrisy for music check would probably make your head spin.

  13. I’m glad I never lived in the dorms. I was always in my friends room which was against the rules but never got caught.

    1. Here in the dorms you learn how to be in another guy’s room after lights out. We used to stay up til 1 or 2 in the morning playing video games, and sometimes networked on our computers. One time my friend paused the game and said, “RA just walked in.” I jumped in bed so fast, I hit the wall on the other side sliding in. I poked my head out the door and “got a drink of water” at the fountain and the RA in question had come down to my floor and was giving me the friendly-evil-eye that only an RA could give as he made sure I was just “getting water.”
      Good times; if you knew how to do it, you could get away with it, and even if you weren’t buddy-buddy with the enemy– er, paid Bojes.

  14. Ahh…the memories…

    I was an assistant dorm supervisor at my former fundy “college” for a year. I wasn’t super picky about the rules, but looking back, I wish I had been more concerned with the personal development of the dorm guys rather than following the letter-of-the-law most of the time.

    Because of my exalted position (in jest) of “being an example,” I was once called into the Dean’s office for a horrible infraction…my knee was too close to my girlfriend’s knee while we were sitting on a bench (our knees were about one inch apart).

    I’m thankful for the experience of leading other people and it has helped me to realize that people are more important than the rules.

  15. The girl floor leaders / hall monitors are actually worse, if you can imagine.

    Syrupy-sweet tone of voice, affectations of “concern,” awkward conversations regarding the fit of garments over large breasts (don’t want to cause anyone to “stumble” – or get whiplash from staring), pretending to get to know you & then sharing personal info with the dorm supe…

    1. Yes! a LOT worse….wonder if we can find someone to film a girl’s version of this video…I’ll volunteer to be the FL. lol

      1. I’ll have to see if I can get my wife to cough up any stories about her FL at BJU. She is still mostly fundy, though, and admitting some things is impossible for her.

        My daughter told me her ambition is to be in a traveling evangelistic ministry team like the Gaulkins, the Fraziers, the Pettits, the Coffeys and others. It was all I could do to hide my dismay. At the same time, she has decided that since that is what she wants to do, she doesn’t need to know history or science!

        “Ministry” is an excuse to be intellectually lazy.

        I get really concerned for my wife and daughter, still stuck in this stuff and attracted by the more cultish elements.

    2. The only time most of my floor leaders ever even spoke to me was when they were reminding me of some rule I was breaking. And I was generally a good kid who believed in the validity of most of the rules.

  16. My future wife & I were both back to campus early our last semester at the college. We arranged to meet up on campus to chat. The school had approved dating sites, but this was a week before school started. The indoor approved places were locked, and the only outdoor site was a courtyard that was pitch black and enclosed on 3 sides. We thought it prudent to find somewhere else, so we stood outside the library. A newly-minted, 19-year-old girl came along and told us that the front of the library wasn’t an approved dating site, we needed to leave immediately, and if she “caught” us again she would write us up. She’s now a pastor’s wife, which scares me more than a little.

      1. Heh heh. Ya gotta watch out for those newly minted girls. But you can smell ’em coming. The mint, you know.

      2. 🙂 gotta watch out for the person who posts before he reads over what he wrote!

        But I just had the strangest thing happen… After I posted that, I got on Facebook and had a PM from that girl’s best friend in college. It wasn’t related to what I wrote, but it freaked me out. I don’t keep in touch with anyone I went to college with, and haven’t heard from that person in at least 12 years. Kinda spooked me, to be honest!

        1. You don’t know that Darrell secretly reports all the worst posters here to the FEP? (Fundy Enforcement Police)?

      2. She certainly had all the “best” fundy female attributes, didn’t she? Always dressed “like a lady,” always had a sickly sweet voice, had a sadistic streak a mile wide and was always ready to destroy anyone who crossed her path.

        1. Right. A fundy “Dean of Women” or such. Maybe some Pastors’ wives? While some are worse than others, I note that no Pastor’s wife seems to allow herself to be unhappy or out of sorts. It always results in a Plastic appearance and an artificially sweet demeanor. Words and expressions don’t match.

          Funny thing is that almost everybody really thinks she loves them and has a kind heart.

  18. I attended a secular university from ’75-80. Our dorm RA my freshmen year bought the kegs for the guys on our floor to keep them quiet on the weekends (coed floor). You could float down the hall on the pot fumes emanating from some of the rooms. I stayed out of trouble and got into an apartment after a couple of years. Fast forward to 1981 and I’m in Bible school (not a super Fundy one) where I had to sign in/out of the dorm every time I left campus, had the dresses every day, no guys in the room, and room checks. I thought I was back in fifth grade! The other interesting thing, I was much more mature spiritually than the little hot house plants that had spent their entire lives in a “Christian” environment. I obeyed the rules, even the dumb ones, because I wanted to learn God’s Word and serve overseas. Thankfully, this institution has really adjusted to the 21st century with sensible guidelines and an emphasis on maturity and community.

    1. Yeah. I did state college before Fundy U. I wasn’t a rebel at Fundy U.

      Sign in lobby of WVU dorm when I went to visit friends:

      “Under age consumption of alcohol strictly forbidden at West Virginia University.

      And please, no kegs.”

  19. I had a CD by Yanni approved away HAC (yeah that Greek guy with a very long hair)
    But my Gold City CDs were not approved. (Four guys in suits & short haircuts)

  20. It seems the Fundy student social milieu was heavily regulated, no?

    I am so, so, so, so, so, so glad that I, and my progeny, are past this stage in our existence.

    I am also very glad I didn’t stumble over all of the large breasts. (in response to Dr. Jezebel 🙂

    1. I would think the only way one could stumble over breasts would be if their owner were lying on the floor, and we learned in this video that floor-reclining is not allowed (because it’s too “seductive”??).

  21. I didn’t have that problem either, but one of my best friends was a 44*J* before she had reduction surgery. Good thing she went to Evergreen State University and not a Fundy U…

  22. Really? A PCC student using the verb “to lay” instead of “to lie”? This was followed by using “whoever” instead of “whomever”.

    PCC must be hurting for students if they let in the riffraff.

    Now that I’ve got my Grammar Police and Judgment hats off, I think these kids did a great job, but I’ve got some questions. Was this really done at PCC? Do they really allow guys to wear tanks and have such long hair (check out the sideburns on the floor leader)?

      1. I wish there were a video of the filming.

        “Wait guys. The real monitor is coming!”

        “Hide the camera! Quick!”

        “Act natural now. Coast clear? Positions everyone! Action!”

        “Yeah, I have the flash drive and the camera is wiped. My brother will be here tomorrow to visit, and I will pass it off to him.”

        “No. Nobody knows. Not even my girlfriend. Yeah, we talked about the couple who was shipped off after making ‘eye babies’ in the snack shop.”

        “Hey guys. What about if we film a girl leaving the FL’s room? Of course not a real girl, but we could … okay … I guess it wasn’t such a good idea. But I thought after what happened last semester that … yeah … we have to keep it believable. People wouldn’t believe what really goes on around here!”

        “Yessir. You called me? Did I help make a film mocking the dormitory supervisors here at PCC? No! Tim and Greg and Antonio were in the film? Yeah, we hung out and studied together. Nosir. Well, yes, last year they were all laughing about something, but they didn’t tell me, and I figured it wasn’t my business to pry. They all graduated, didn’t they? Nosir. I don’t want anything in my life to bring disrepute to Pensacola. God has used this place in my life. Yessir. If I see any other secret jokes being shared, I will tell the FL right away. No? Oh, You. Okay. Thank you sir. 20 demerits for associating with bad students? Sir! Okay, I’d rather have 20 than 50. Thank you very much for the lesson, sir.”

  23. Oh how times have changed. When I went to BJU:
    We had no computers. We used typewriters.
    There were no cell phones.
    It was easier to keep us on the straight and narrow. I clearly remember my hall monitor, Bruce McAllister, studying while seated at his desk in the dorm lobby, monitoring quiet hour on first floor of Bibb Graves. It was 1975.

    1. I loved my electric typewriter: it could remember a line at a time so you could go back and change something as long as you didn’t hit “enter”! lol

      My husband had a roommate who came from a wealthy family who had a computer, but he was one of the only ones who had one. He fixed it to play movies but somehow hooked it up to the door so if the door was opened suddenly (as hall monitors could do), the computer automatically switched to a different screen.

      No cell phones in our day either. It was a big deal to send or receive those letters across campus.

      1. PW, have they discontinued the campus mail system? I always enjoyed receiving a perfumed envelope from the other side of campus. Gosh, if they’re using email to ask out dates, they’re missing a lot. Seriously.

        1. I don’t know if they still have it. It was fun to see all the creativity poured into those missives!

        3. We’re talking about Job Bones U., right? Yep, we still have night mail, but it’s used sparingly. Mostly it’s pranks or very serious letters (about 10% of usage).

      2. I can’t imagine that they still have the across campus mail system.

        BJg, those perfumed letters were greatly anticipated! One very good friend sent her’s laced with White Shoulders. Very nice. (my wife found those in my archives and promply disgarded them accordingly!) Email can’t possibly have the same effect.

        1. I hadn’t thought of those notes for years, but looking back, they represented the best of BJU, youthful romance. I walked by a perfume counter a few weeks ago and caught the aroma of a perfume from decades ago that had misted a note…it is true, the sense of smell is closely tied to memory. You are right, BRO, email is a very poor substitute.

        2. OK this topic & comments by BJg & BRO have jolted my memories of dealing w/ Hall Monitors, letters to ladies that were labored over & perfumed notes received – the infamous Note System. You all have forced out of ‘lurker-land’ & into the open – (Uncle Bob’s class of 1979 – one of the suspect science majors…).
          Ahhh, good times – well at least interesting ones!

        3. Great business idea: Figure out how to send scents through the Internet.
          The profit potential is almost unlimited– and not just from selling to weirdos on porno sites, though that would be very lucrative in itself.

  24. Ahhh, the dorm room in Johnston at BJU.

    Well, I was a freshman at age 24. Lived off campus with a roommate the first few months until he smashed my moped (and himself) in an accident. Without a roommate, I couldn’t afford the rent.

    To be more precise, I could afford the rent. What I couldn’t afford was my full-time job as a hotel night auditor where they paid me for 40 hours per week but had me working 55-60 hours per week under the guise that my work was just too slow. I “should” have been able to do the job, they said. Yeah, right. And with a full load of classes I was falling asleep at the wheel.

    So, I took the opportunity to move into the dorms. Put what little savings I had toward it.

    Now at 24, I was more mature than most any of the kids in the dorms. I didn’t cause any trouble (well, mostly), but it was a bit galling to be under the same strict rules as the kids. My dorm room leader was a bit uncomfortable with me being so much older than he was. The hall leader … I can’t remember him, except that when a person complained about undeserved write-ups, he got inundated with petty write-ups. Evidently wanting fair treatment and consideration racks up the demerits!

    But it wasn’t dull the year and a half I was in the dorms. One of my roommates got shipped in the middle of the night. We were instructed not to talk to him as he packed up. No one would say why he was going. Finally the word came through the grapevine that he and a girl had found an unmonitored, fairly unobservable place on campus. She got pregnant.

    I liked campus mail. I sent cards with hershey kisses to the girl who would eventually become my wife (she never told me she didn’t like the candy!). One other event with campus mail is clear in my mind. A boy had sent a girl an invitation to a date. She took a paper punch and punched the invitation full of holes and sent it back to him. Literally “shot him down.” Even the envelope was punched full of holes.

    The guys were outraged, and a whole lot of them made notes as if she had written to them, and they “sent them back” full of hole punches — and notes that they would never date her. I think she left shortly after that.

    There was the ever-present push to go out on ministry-related weekend events. I didn’t. I was there to study, and I wasn’t going to be a pastor. But there were plenty of attempts to make me feel guilty.

    Had I not gotten married after my sophomore year, my non-participation in such things might have kept me from being allowed to return. Had I known at the time that there were spiritual “checklists” being kept on people in the dorms, I might not have wanted to return! But moving off campus and having work off campus took that sort of pressure off.

    People were too focused on the rules, and petty ones at that. There was no privacy. There was no respect for others. No one was assumed to be old enough to make his or her own choices or decisions. If you didn’t feel well, you couldn’t miss class unless you went to the campus hospital (Barge). They spied on your music. They checked hair length. No individuality was allowed.

    And really, being IN the system, I didn’t think it was out of bounds or too onerous. I thought it was normal. Then again, there were less rules there than at my parents’ home! And the food at BJU was much more edible than what my mom or sister cooked. And in the van ride to church I got to talk to the girl who would become my wife. She was a graduating senior when I was an incoming freshmen, and I was still 3 years older than she was!

    My dorm experience was profitable — and not one I would want to repeat under any circumstances. But I got some good things out of it.

    1. …You all have forced ME out of ‘lurker-land’…

      George has attacked on my very first post!

      1. Welcome, Prof. (George is SO welcoming, isn’t he? Plus he got your comment put under rtgmath’s instead of your own too!)

  25. I don’t get the Asian guy. I was hoping for some kind of explanation toward the end. I see it ended like “Sol” with no resolution. Anyone care to interpret? I feel like I missed something.
    I went to TTU and we had a couple jerks for RA’s until the school started going downhill. We had one come back after curfew then come up to our room and give us demerits for having our window open after curfew. . . which he saw from the parking lot.

    1. I think it was the idea that the hall monitors ignored the major issues and focused on the petty.

    2. The thief was stealing all the furniture in the dorm, and the floor monitor paid absolutely no attention to it while writing people up for very petty offenses. That was the joke.

      Why they made a big deal about him being Filipino, I don’t know. Either that was some inside joke, or it was some kind of racial stereotype.

  26. Thanks. I was kind of hoping he’d return to his room and the kid would have stolen all of his stuff. . .or roundhouse kicked him. Either was good.

    1. Him returning to a room stripped of everything would have been a perfect ending for the story. It’s too bad they didn’t use that.

  27. So…I know one of the “actors” in the video…and yes, he is currently enrolled at PCC. Am I the only one who thinks that if the administration is made aware of this video that all involved may be expelled? I wonder…..

    1. Are you a student? Cause I know the guy who plays the floor leader too (oddly enough, I went to elementary school with him).

      I do hope that the admin doesn’t see this. Though hopefully all they’d get is a good dressing down by Dean Ohman and/or Grandpa Mullinix.

      1. No, I’m not a student…however, I did graduate from this particular Fundy U. The student I know in this mini film actually graduated high school from the Fundy church/school we recently escaped from…and he was their poster boy, so it’s interesting to see him in this light. And refreshing! lol

  28. This video is so unrealistic. Did nobody else notice that the floor leader completely forgot to give the first dude demerits for wearing a bracelet? The male dress code at Fundy U seems to be getting lax. 😉

  29. The whole time I was watching this, I thought, “Would students in a Fundy U be able to wear those ‘wife beater’ style tank tops?” I doubt it.

    1. Actually, “wife beater” tank tops might just be a requirement….lol

  30. At TTU mine wasn’t too bad. I had my fair share of demerits don’t get me wrong. I was expelled within 6 months… But she never found the puppy I found, the kittens I rescued or the pearl jam under the bed 😉 (the escape of the kitties was grand, lowering them down in a basket on a rope in the dark to the person enabling said escape) and we never got caught with the bikinis that we used when we would sneak into hotels swimming pools in the night! haha! For all the crazy rules I just couldn’t follow, I did have a few good times! 🙂

  31. Though I have been to a regular university as well, and the amount of intrusion into an adults life just wouldn’t even be thought about!

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