First-hand accounts of the Scientology Experience
Warrior's Story
From warrior@electrotex.com Tue Jul 29 12:21:01 BST 1997
I've been meaning to write this for some time...
In 1976 I had been in the Sea Org for about a year. I was on staff at
the American Saint Hill Organization Day (ASHO D), posted in Treasury.
One of my routine staff duties required was to send copies of weekly
and monthly reports on the Org's finances to various levels of management.
There were many, many weekly and monthly (even some quarterly and yearly)
reports which were routinely sent. Some of these were:
1) The weekly Cash/Bills stat graph - showing the cash on hand v. the bills
owing
2) The weelky Financial Planning Executive Directive - showing what the
Org's operating expenses were being spent on
3) The weekly HCO Book Account report - showing what expenditures were
being made for re-stocking books, book promotion, etc.
4) The Weekly AC-1A Form - showing the breakdown of *all* income into
the organization for the week just ended. It detailed *all* account
transfers of funds between and to the Org's various accounts, i.e., the FBO
#1 Account; the Org's Main Account; the HCO Book Account; the CVB, or
Claims Verification Board Account (for refunds and repayments); the Org's
Reserve Account; the FSM, or Field Staff Member Commission Account; the
FBO #2 Account; the Guardian Office Main Account; the Sea Org Reserves
Account; the GO Reserve Account; the Guardian Office World Wide Trustee
Account, etc. I am going on memory here, so I may have forgotten a few
other accounts. But these are the main ones, at least.
5) The Flag Divisional Directive (FDD) weekly Treasury inspection report -
showing whether certain standard actions were being done, such as: sending
out accounts statements to all "freeloaders"; sending out accounts statements
to "debtors"; mundane things like mailing out checks for payment of the org's
bills; writing staff letters; doing the required audits actions on the org's
financial records; keeping the org's assets in good working order, etc
6) The Financial Planning Program #1 - showing the existing mid-range
financial planning undertaken in accordance with LRH ED 55 Int SO Special
(Financial Planning Programme #1 for Sea Org Orgs).
7) The AC-2 Form - showing other accounts information.
8) The LRH ED 245 Int Promotional Actions of an Organization Form -
showing what Treasury Division was doing to increase the size and
income of the org.
9) The Bills paid report - showing a list of all bills paid for the
week.
10) The FSM Commissions paid report - listing all FSM Commissions paid
for the week (with names and amounts).
etc....
There were MANY reports to send. I had to make copies for the Flag
Representative (Bruce Richeson - now declared SP, by the way). I had
to make copies for the Local GO Finance people (Larry Willson, Gerry
McNeely). I had to make copies for the USGO Finance Bureau. I had to
make copies for the Deputy Guardian for Finance at the Guardian Office
World Wide (Herbie Parkhouse). I had to make copies for the Flag Data
Files and the FOLO Data Files. I had to make copies for CS-3 (Commodore's
Staff Aide for Finance (Vicki Polemini and Fran Livingston).
etc...
I mean to tell you I made a LOT of damn copies of a LOT of damn documents
and reports. It used to take me about a day to complete all the reports
and about an hour to photocopy them all, and about another hour to collate
and staple them all, and more time to put the "routing" on them (showing
who they were being sent to).
Usually I would do this on Thursday night *really* late at night. Often
I would be one of the only people in the org at that time. There was always
a "QM" (quartermaster), whose duty was org security, present while I was in
my office doing all my thankless tasks for my $10/week "pay". I would stay
up *all* night, every Thursday night, writing checks. And there were a LOT
of damned checks to write too! And since there is an HCO PL called "The
Foundation" by Hubbard which states that "the day org pays the bills for the
foundation org", I got to write all their damned checks too! And I wrote
all the checks for the HCO Book Account (for both orgs), and I wrote all the
checks for the FSM Commissions (for BOTH orgs), and I wrote all the checks
for the Local GO. And I wrote all the checks for the payroll. You get the
idea...maybe! I would estimate that I wrote in excess of 275 checks every
week.
Since ASHO at this point in time was incorporated as part of the Church
[sic] of Scientology of California, and Publications Organization US was
*also* incorporated as part of the CoSoC (in fact, Bridge was part of ASHO,
being positioned on ASHO's org board within Division 2) I got to do the
damned payroll for *3* orgs (ASHO Day, ASHO Fdn & Pubs US) AND the Local
GO as well! At this point in time (1976), ASHO Day had right around 100
staff. ASHO Foundation had about 90 staff. And Pubs US had about 75 staff.
The Local (ASHO) GO had about 8 staff - let's see... there was Richard
Deere (AG), Larry Willson (AGF), John ___ (AGPR), Toni Elkington, Patti
Cifarelli, Bill Earls (AGI), Beverly Grau (SoCo), Gerry McNeely (later AGF),
and another lady whose name I can't recall, although I do remember her face.
One crazy thing about Scientology at this time was they had no computer
with which to do payroll! So I had to write a payroll "DV" (disbursement
voucher) for every single staff member. These DVs were the kind that are
about 5 1/2" X 8" and are "fan-folded". They were in quintuplicate (sp?),
meaning there are 5 copies of each voucher. They were made to fit into a
"Uarco" (brand) voucher machine, and there are carbon papers that slide
in between the 5 copies.
In addition to having to write payroll "DVs" for each staff member. I
was also required to write "DVs" for *every* check too! And there were
5 copies of every "DV" which was for payment of the bills. Sometimes I
would get so exhausted writing all these damned "DVs" and checks that I
would succumb to exhaustion and fall asleep. Usually i would wake up
when my head hit my desk! Or I would wake up realizing my pen had just
slid across another check, necessitating that I write it over again.
One Thursday night I had gone to the photocopy machine which was
located in the hallway right outside the Ethics Officer's office,
next to the coffee vending machine, and just down the hallway from the
Class 8 course room (Sue Mustard was Class 8 Supervisor) and the "Ivory
Tower" (where the Senior Case Supervisor, Barbara Rubio, and the other
C/Ses worked. I was making photocopies of all my damned reports. As a
Treasury staff member (who probably made more copies of reports than
anyone else in the org) I had a key which allowed me to bypass the
coin mechanism normally required to make a copy.
When I was done making my reports, I took them all back to my office
(right next to the Academy Course course room). No sooner had I set
foot in my office, that I realized I had left my key in the xerox machine.
I immediately ran back to the machine (about 50 feet from my office) to
discover the MAA, Michael Grau was removing it from the key slot on the
machine. He was actually removing it from the slot as I was approaching
the xerox machine. I had been about 2 seconds too late to get there first.
For this heinous offense I was informed that I had been "OUT-SECURITY"
since "anyone could have found the key and used it to make copies for free"
and that this was an automatic TREASONOUS act according to Flag Order 1467,
which states that "out-security = TREASON".
As a result of this, I was assigned a lower condition (TREASON) with
FULL PENALTIES, meaning I had to wear a grey armband, had to take my
meals separately from the rest of the crew, had to do *15* hours of
"amends", and I received *NO* pay for the week, and NO pay until I
worked "up the conditions from 'TREASON', to 'ENEMY', to 'DOUBT',
to 'LIABILITY' and back to 'NORMAL' condition!!
I protested this lower condition assignment by writing an "Orders,
Query Of" or a petition (can't recall which), but was told I WOULD DO
the LOWER CONDITION FORMULAS until I was back up to normal. The really
shitty part was that there had been absolutely NO harm done - no free
copies made. And for this I got NO pay at all that week. I had to
borrow money for the week just to get the bus back to my berthing space
each night in the Hollywood Inn at 6724 Hollywood Blvd (after I did
my 15 hours of amends, of course). For those of you who have never
been in the Sea Org or Scientology, amends are done on one's *OWN*
time. In the Sea Org, this means between 10:30 PM and 8AM, because that
was our only free time in the Sea Org.
All that for the heinous crime of leaving my key in a xerox machine
in the middle of the night where it was "out-security"!
Shit. Scientology SUCKS....
Warrior
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