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Monday, April 25, 2016

An Interview with a Scientology Owned Corporation

A woman we'll call Esme recently went to a job interview with a local software company in Clearwater.

For those of you who aren't in the know, if you are interviewing in the Tampa Bay Area, you may eventually run across a Scientologist-owned company. They all have the same traits: They generally operate out of cheap, run down offices. They all have charts all over the walls of their conference room. And they all use the Scientology approved management system.

The Scientologists had a guru, a former SciFi author who believed himself to be a master of, among other things, management.

I have nothing against L. Ron Hubbard's writing skills, having enjoyed "Old Doc Methuselah" when I was a kid. He was creative and obviously persuasive, or he couldn't have created the religion that he did. It was successful for a while, although many reports indicate it is slowly crumbling due to the continued disenfranchisement of its followers, such as Leah Remini.

In his zeal to dominate his followers entirely, LRH (as his devotees call him) created a business management system that he insisted they use not simply in their personal lives but in their professional ones as well. The problem is that he had no degrees in this field, and no personal knowledge of it. His system was outdated even when he conceived it, and depends upon both micromanagement and his poor understanding of how a business should operate. If you are a drone, this is effective. But if you are creative, or think outside the box, or simply want to contribute more to an organization than rote subservience, this system is not effective.

Not knowing that this was a Scientology dominated company, Esme went to the interview. She had been told she was going to take an IQ and personality test. She found that odd, as most of those tests are done online now, but she thought little of it.

The first thing that Esme noticed when she entered the building was that it was dank and dark. There was little lighting and the company obviously spent nothing on creature comforts. There was no attempt to appear palatable or even modern, despite the fact that they were a software company and not, say, a group of shut-ins. The carpet was stained in multiple places and obviously hadn't been cleaned in a very long time, possibly it had never been cleaned since it had been installed.

Esme walked up to the receptionist's desk to find it abandoned. In fact, the entire building appeared to be abandoned, as everyone was at lunch. It had an eerie feeling to it. However, someone meandered by, saw her, and explained that everyone was at lunch. She found it peculiar that everyone was gone at the same time, but she settled down and waited as people trickled back in.

Eventually Esme was claimed by the woman who'd initially contacted her. She was brought into the local conference room, which had an entire wall covered in charts that looked like EKG readings. She was handed a supposed personality test and was told it would take 30 minutes to complete. The test was proudly branded as "Master Tech." 

When Esme retells this, she starts by asking anyone who's lived in the Tampa Bay Area for a while: "If you see the word "Tech" on a test, what do you immediately think?" Most people answer "Scientology." Why? Because LRH was enamored with technology. He felt the best way to appeal to his followers was to appear as scientific and up-to-date as possible so the Scientologist vocabulary is peppered with the word "tech."

Esme blew through the personality test in a short amount of time. "It was so obvious even my poodle could have aced it," she says breezily. The questions included things like "I generally like to be by myself" or "I consider myself to be a people person" or even "I bite at and/or pick at my fingers." When Esme let her handler know she was finished, the handler expressed surprise and then gave her a timed IQ test.

Esme blew through that as well. "I've had serious IQ tests," she states. "They take some real thought. This was a test that was created by someone who really didn't know what they were doing." Again, her handler expressed surprise at how rapidly Esme conquered the test. 

After her handler left, Esme quietly googled "Master Tech" only to find her suspicions confirmed. And quickly glancing over the shoddy bookshelves in the dingy conference room, she saw many Scientology manuals. She googled the company and found out that they'd already been sued for both sexual discrimination and forced Scientology indoctrination conditional to continued employment.

After a short time, two men entered the room. Telling Esme that they had seen her test results and were very pleasantly surprised by them, they began to attempt to sell her on a glorified telemarketing job.

After they ran down, Esme then said "Thank you, gentlemen. May I now ask a couple of questions?" The men expressed enthusiastic interest in what she had to say. She began by asking what the base salary was. Then she said "Obviously you both are Scientologists. Let me start by saying that I'm not an SP."

The men, both startled, uneasily agreed and asked how she'd figured it out. They seemed to find it impressive that she knew what an SP was (Scientologist lingo for Suppressive Person, which is a designation for someone that a Scientologist is not allowed to even speak with. This includes immediate family members if they're designated as an SP).

She explained the wall charts and Scientology materials made it very apparent. Then she asked "Do you insist on using Hubbard's management system?" They said they did and asked her what she objected to. Being a management specialist, Esme truthfully said "I find his concepts severely outdated and only workable in certain situations. His micromanaging is stifling and doesn't allow creativity."

One of the men said he'd been brought into the organization specifically to make sure all of LRH's business model be institutionalized. He tried to explain that they'd gone back to the original materials and that was far superior than any modifications that had been made to the system since LRH had gone toes-up. He then asked what she specifically meant by creativity. She explained that she felt she would need to be creative in her sales pitches and, to his credit, he agreed that this was important.

But what Esme couldn't properly express was her knowledge (due to having been trapped before in a Scientologist-owned company) that it is a cruel and didactic system, run by petty dictators with incomplete knowledge. Where people skills and warmth are seen as unimportant. Where flogging employees and negative motivation were encouraged by LRH. Where constant, suffocating oversight is seen as the norm.

In the end they insisted that their particular interpretation of the Scientologist business model was somehow superior to whatever Esme had experienced in the past. They asked if she was offered a position there, would she agree to sign a waiver saying she understood they were using that system? Yes, Esme said, if it was truly as effective as they said, she'd have no problems with it. But she knew there would be problems and so did they.

She never heard from them again.

Thursday, April 14, 2016

Prom

I'm a little confused as to why it takes the average teenage girl an entire day to prepare for Prom. You'd think it was her wedding! But I hear many horror stories about it: A trip to get her updo, mani and pedi, makeup, yada yada yada. Prom has become a living nightmare. I'm glad I was able to go to Prom back when it was an enjoyable event instead of a nerve wracking obligation.

Wednesday, April 13, 2016

The Planned Obsolescence of Printers

The printer industry has a vested interest in your purchase of a new printer every couple of years. A high level employee once told me that the only way to force this purchase is to up the cost of the ink on the older units to a point that it is cheaper to buy a new printer than to continue to invest in ink.
Most people know this now, and there is a booming market for alternatives (Amazon has a lot of generic alternative inks). I recently went to purchase ink for my 2 year old printer only to see the bill was going to be $100 for 4 cartridges. I went on Amazon and got 10 cartridges for $25.
Today I put them into my Epson printer and I swear the thing took it personally.
I immediately got "We see this isn't genuine Epson ink. Are you SURE you want to use this ink? It could cause [death / disaster / world catastrophes]." I clicked yes, and the printer still wouldn't budge until I pressed another YES button on the printer itself. Finally out of protestations, it reluctantly printed out what I'd asked for.
In perfect color.

Tuesday, April 12, 2016

Oops

I take the gallon of "oops" paint up to the old man at the counter. "Do you..." I begin. "Nope," he snaps.
Patiently, I start again. "Do you know what color this is?" I ask. "Oh," he says. He looks at the can. He opens the the can for me, methodically, and shows me what's inside.
"Do you mind..." I start to say. "Nope!" he snaps, assuming I'm going to ask him something that will force him to do more than what he wants to do. "...putting a little bit more on the paint lid so I can get a good idea of what the color is?" I finish.
He glowers at me, but does so, finishing it with the blow dryer so that I can see what color it dries to.
And they say customer service is dead.

The Pressure...to NOT Marry

I just heard on the radio that women still feel very pressured to be married by the time they're in their mid thirties at the latest. I find that quite odd, I don't see that among my female friends. Instead, if anything, I believe that most of us feel the pressure to NOT get married, as if marriage Is for fools and the weak.

The Itsy Bitsy Spider

So me, driving along, suddenly attacked by a spider the size of a quarter. I ended up on the median, but luckily survived the attack and killed the sucker during the struggle. 

I am NOT kidding, either. It actually came scuttling across the windshield at me and went diving for my face...you should've seen me. I grabbed what first came to hand...an umbrella that Mary Poppins would be proud of. 

The spider thought nothing of it, but retreated and waited on the ceiling for its next attack. I found something to squash it with and it was finally game over. That is...after I ended up going across two lanes and finding myself on the median, driving/skidding merrily along to a stop.

Wednesday, April 06, 2016

A Rose by Any Other Name is Still a Rowhze?

Everyone would do the world a great favour by banning certain girls' names because they are so overused. I swear there are millions of Ashleys, Kaitlynns, Jasmines and more.
I know name fads come and go, but a child that shares a name in common with so many others will never be easily distinguished from the herd. On the opposite extreme are parents that are too creative and curse their children with names no one can pronounce.
If I could make a suggestion, and I'm one small voice, I would ask for people to reach back in time to try alternatives that are both unique and recognizable. Perhaps this name preference is due to my own name, but it has served me well all these years.
Some names I'd love to see resurrected: Althea, Amy, Beth, Bess (I realize they're derivatives of Elizabeth), Cecilia, Cassandra, Deborah, Dahlia, Elspeth, Esme, Freda, Felicity, Fern, Grace, Gianna, Heloise, Leah, Peg or Meg (derivatives of Margaret), Rene or Renee, Rose, Tabitha, Uvula (just kidding), Valerie, Veronica, Zinnia.
I suspect the reason that we don't give our children these names is that we have somebody unpleasant we associate with them, in which case perhaps we should go even further back into Medieval times. But surely we can do better than a girl I recently met who was named Mayonnaise (although it was spelled differently).

Tuesday, April 05, 2016

Ponytail

"How do you like my hair in a ponytail?" I ask my dad offhandedly. Dad studies me for a moment. "You know what's under a pony's tail, don't you?" he asks. My dad: Keeping it real.

Monday, April 04, 2016

Mask

I'd forgotten my lawn guy was coming today and had slathered on a clay mask, which was half dry, when I heard him outside. Remembering he needed a key to my gate, I resignedly got up, grabbed the key, and walked outside.
"Your face is green," he said as a statement, not a question, just as if he'd said "You're wearing jeans today." I nodded.
"Want me to leave the key at the front door when I'm done?" he asked.
"That would be great," I said.
He nodded. "OK, see you next week," he said.
I guess by now he's rather used to my eccentricities.

Sunday, April 03, 2016

Girl vs. Boy

A mother just shared this with me: One of my 12 year old models just chopped all her hair off recently and is sporting a man's cut. She was dressed in pink, standing in line in a department store when she heard two men whispering.
"What do you think?" asked the first guy. "Is it a girl or a boy???"
The girl whirled around and said "What does it matter to YOU? I'm a PERSON."

Friday, April 01, 2016

April Fools

The phone rings and I see it's Mom and Dad's number. "HONEY!" my mom cries out tearfully, "Dad's been arrested!!!" My heart leaps into my throat, I jump up getting ready to throw on some clothes and hit the road to find them wherever they are. It's all so improbable: Dad looks and acts like a peaceful Amish farmer. "What HAPPENED??" I ask urgently as I'm racing down the hallway when it suddenly hits me...it's April Fool's Day. I stop and groan. "It's April Fool's Day, isn't it," I say resignedly as Mom howls in the background. And some people wonder why anyone would commit matricide.