One thing Herbert Armstrong never took into consideration when he designed his opulent buildings was the upkeep of the facility. When the Ambassador Auditorium as built, no expense was spared on the materials used inside and outside the facility. Then, as the advancing opening night approached, corners were cut in the final details. As a result, the college and church had to spend hundreds and hundreds of man-hours, and millions of dollars in tithe money to maintain the monument to excess self-indulgence.
The same goes on today in Edmond Oklahoma where Gerald Flurry had to build his mini-me Herbert W Armstrong Auditorium. This opulent monstrosity is filled with the same mistakes Herbert made, though the building itself is on a much smaller scale because Flurry was unable to duplicate the Pasadena monument as excessively.
Flurry's boondoggle has ended up costing the church members millions in tithe money for upkeep just so Flurry's grand kids can have a stage to dance on or sing in a play that is based upon some Old Testament prophet, though NEVER EVER in a story about a New Testament character or even Jesus.
The PCG website has a long story up justifying the expense and the amount of time required to keep the auditorium clean. The PCG goes above board in trying to impress the non-believing community of Edmond. That extra work done to impress came about because PCG's god apparently "inspired" Wayne Turgeon to make PCG students work on Sunday. "Six days shalt though labor..." is the rallying cry of the indulged Flurry family members who get to take off as much time as they want and spend Sundays relaxing and doing family things while the lower caste students have to work.
Concerts
Although they are largely unseen, custodians play a part in Armstrong Auditorium’s Armstrong International Cultural Foundation Performing Arts series. The crew spends an average of eight manhours before a concert freshening the bathrooms, adding crispness to the vacuumed patterns in the royal purple carpet, and dusting the wood paneling so that arriving concertgoers see the auditorium at its best.
Once the concert has begun and the guests are almost all in the theater, the custodians emerge from the hallway on a mission, pushing their yellow carts laden with the tools of the trade: polishing cloths, paper towel restocks, toilet scrubbers, and other equipment. Four groups rapidly clean the four bathrooms on both levels with the objective of leaving them as pristine in the middle of the concert as they were before the first guest arrived. After the last note has been sung or played and guests have finished conversing with artists, staff members and each other and left for the night, the custodians reemerge to complete their mission with a final clean of vacuuming and mopping the main floor and the crumbs left behind from concessions in the balcony.Schedule
Students clean immediately after concerts and other auditorium events, such as the annual seven-day Feast of Tabernacles. Students clean every day immediately after services (waiting until after sunset on high days and Sabbaths).
During a regular week, Armstrong Auditorium is cleaned every day, with eight auditorium custodial staff spending an average of 34 manhours each week. The amount of time required has doubled with the opening of the Seals of Isaiah and King Hezekiah exhibit, which requires at least three hours to scrub bathrooms, vacuum carpets and dust wood.During the typical work week, the crew cleans the auditorium every Sunday morning. If they did not, “God’s house will be dirty for a whole day after the Sabbath,” said Lamberth. “I don’t believe He’d like that.”
Lamberth said that the way the cleaning schedule for the auditorium worked out was miraculous. Initially, custodians cleaned the building on Monday, rather than Sunday, the day after services. Yet working out conflicts in the schedule proved to be a struggle, and it was difficult to complete the work in time and preserve the students’ 20-hour work weeks while college was in session. Lamberth brought the situation to buildings and grounds department head Wayne Turgeon, who reminded him, “six days shall you work.” Lamberth built the suggestion into his new schedule.
Sadly, this story is written by the child of a family the PCG destroyed in order to get back at the father, a former minister. who tried to expose the spiritual abuse dealt out by Cal Culpepper.“After that, all the scheduling lined up,” and all of the work was completed within the students’ 20-hour work time frame. Lamberth said in regards to the decision to clean on Sundays, “I believe he was inspired.”
You can read the PCG story here: Custodial Crew Keeps Armstrong Auditorium Clean
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