you are viewing archives from 2005

the scientology follies

I went to Pasadena on Wednesday. I had to get some blood drawn, stop at my dentist’s office to make an appointment for my veneers ($800! Each!) and drop by the hotbed of housewifery also known as Crate-n-Barrel. For some reason, along with Thanksgiving for twelve, I’ve decided that I should set a table like no one’s ever set; I’ve purchased runners and placemats and napkins. I’ve mixed and matched centerpieces and candles and votive holders. I’ve compared and contrasted plates and place settings.

I’ve wondered why A. and I didn’t run off for a quickie wedding months ago so I wouldn’t have to be buying all this myself.

But I digress.

I parked in the lot off Union, a block away from the store on Lake Street. As I locked my car, I had the eerier feeling of the familiar trickle down my spine. It hit me as I exited the lot and looked across the street.

It was the restaurant in which I discovered that I was working for the Church of Scientology.

By 1996, I had put in hundred-hour weeks in the mailroom at UTA, a pilot season at TriStar Television and a Staffing Season at ICM in which I learned that my agent-boss wasn’t only going through a complete mental breakdown but that she was bringing me along for the ride. She had promised to represent us, but when a job offer came that she neglected to mention, I knew that she’d never let me go. I tried to quit three times. Unable to find a replacement, I left the desk in care of a temp and decided to take a dip in civilian life.

I just wanted a JOB. Any job, as long as it had me there between nine and five and didn’t have me thinking about it at any other time.

I’d like to be a receptionist, I told the woman at the temp agency.

You’re overqualified, she told me.

Exactly.

I was sent to interview at an up-and-coming Internet Company in Pasadena. Armed with my Thomas Guide, I navigated the 134 East to the 210 East and headed toward my first non-Industry job. I was called a stupid cunt within the first hour of my first job out here, I thought, so this’ll be a snap.

I announced myself and was promptly steered back to Human Resources, where I was introduced to the head of the department. I want you to meet J., the H.R. guy told me. He’s looking for an assistant.

I don’t want to be an assistant, I told him, I want to be a receptionist. I explained to him who I was, the job I had just come from, and my desire for a little bit of sanity in my life. I no longer assist crazy people, I told him, I just want to answer phones.

He chuckled. J.’s nothing like that. Really, just meet him.

J. entered. He looked like any of the nameless, faceless guys I went to high school with, but at thirty-two: thinning brownish-blonde hair, blue eyes, a nondescript build with the khaki-pant-blue-button-down-shirt that operates as “Business Casual.”

We chatted for a bit. He seemed okay. I could tell he liked me, that was clear.

So, will you think about it? he asked.

I looked toward the H.R. guy. What’s the pay?

Oh, same as the other job, I’m afraid.

I got up. Well, it’s been a pleasure to meet you both.

J. looked panicked. What do you want?

I did the math in my head. I got twelve an hour with no overtime at ICM.

Fourteen plus overtime.

We don’t pay any assistant that, said the H.R. guy.

I shrugged. I’m not any assistant.

J. nodded. It’s yours. We’ll work it out.

I smiled. See you tomorrow, boss.

Those first few weeks were like the first few weeks at any job. Filling out forms, taking photo IDs, learning names, figuring out the phone system, discovering where the previous assistant had filed things (she hadn’t.)

It was relatively easy work, and minus the commute, I didn’t mind it so much. The environment was a bit sterile and silent. It was nothing like my previous job. The assistants were frumpy and dumpy, outfitted in shapeless knit clothing and eighties hair. Some had just graduated from high school. Some had three or four kids.

But they seemed to know each other.

My first few days, I sat down with J. and told him what I would and wouldn’t do. No personal errands, no personal business, no picking up lunch unless I was going out too. He seemed slightly scared of me, which is exactly where I wanted him. I told him that I was smart, efficient, and that the office would run my way and he wouldn’t be sorry. He agreed, and things started off swimmingly.

The other assistants didn’t seem to know what to do with me. I talked to them, tried to get some sort of sense of who they were outside of Big Internet Company, but no one was very forthcoming. I asked where they had all met, and I was told they were all part of the same Church Group. I shrugged it off, worked at my desk through lunch and took off an hour early.

We had a departmental dinner a few weeks into my tenure there, and J. asked if I’d come along. It’ll be a chance for you to bond with everyone he told me. I agreed to go.

Our department was still relatively new, and the Executives who worked in it were still getting to know each other as well. I ended up having more in common with W., an Exec who handed the Entertainment sector. We had had lunch once or twice, bonding over our entertainment industry experience. And our current experience at Big Internet Company.

The night of the dinner, one of the Assistants, D., asked if I’d like to ride over to the restaurant with her. Sure, I told her, wondering if the weirdness between me and the other assistants was beginning to thaw. She parked in the lot off Union, where we ran into W.

Can I talk to you for a minute? W. asked me.

Sure, I told her. D. said she had to check on the reservation, so she was going to go ahead.

Big Internet Company is run by Scientologists.

So what? I asked. There’s one or two everywhere. Especially out here.

No, she told me, I don’t think you understand. They ALL are.

I shook my head. We would have known that going in. Someone would have said something.

I’m just telling you what I heard, she told me, and I think it makes sense.

WE went into dinner, where I picked at my food and only W. and I had wine. Everyone said their good-byes, and I rode with D. back to the office.

I forgot something inside, I told her, I’ll see you on Monday.

She dropped me off and I used my keycard to get into the building. I took the long way to my cubicle, circling around the huge, warehouse-like room that was ringed with glass-walled offices.

Slowly I passed each office, glancing inside each one quickly, looking for that signature book.





Not one, not two, but every single office that I passed had it prominently displayed in the bookcase. I grabbed my notebook off my desk and stole back into the night.

I had gone from working for Crazy People in Entertainment to working for the CoS, in one fell swoop.


A few days later, one of the still-in-high-school girls brought around the Employee Manual.

I took it and thanked her. She waited.

You have to sign for it, she explained to me.

I looked at the form that she held out to me. This says I agree to what’s in the Employee Manual, I said.

Uh-huh. You have to sign it.

I won’t agree to anything in it until I’ve read it, I explained kindly.

But I can’t give you the manual unless you sign for it.

Then I guess we’re at an impasse, I told her.

She stalked off. I got an email from J., who said the head of the Department wanted to see me in his office.

I heard you wouldn’t sign for the Manual, he said.

I won’t sign a piece of paper saying that I agree to something until I have a chance to read what it is I’m agreeing to.

He pointed through the glass wall at the floor. Everyone out there did so without a problem.

I looked him in the eye. Then everyone out there drank the Kool-Aid, I responded.

He chuckled and tossed the Manual at me. Read it, then sign. Okay?

Certainly.

I took the Manual to my desk. It wasn’t a hotbed of anything all that juicy, although it did mention that some of the higher-ups at Big Internet Company happened to be Scientologists and that Big Internet Company utilized L. Ron Hubbard’s Management Principles to operate.

The only difference between Mr. Hubbard’s Principles and every other place I’ve worked at is that he likes to call a Memo a CSW, for Completed Staff Work. That was pretty much it. I mused on the thought of the Vatican issuing a Guideline for Business Principles, but the idea of the Middle Manager as High Inquisitor isn’t something I’d like to dwell upon.

However, times change and the Internet was exploding. Millionaires and Billionaires were being made overnight and Big Internet Company wanted a seat at the table. As they veered toward Going Public, the L. Ron Hubbard employee manuals were replaced with standard Employee Manuals, CSWs were replaced by the Memo, and the Dianetics books were relegated to the bottom shelves.

I lasted nearly two years, the bulk of which the Company was privately held. I ended up leaving over a dispute about a promised raise, a promised promotion, and promised stock options, none of which ever materialized. J. discovered the downside of an assistant who had a brain and expects a boss to live up to their promises. And I discovered that it doesn’t matter where you work; each place is going to be screwy as the next.