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Flag - Outer Org Trainees

TheOriginalBigBlue

Gold Meritorious Patron
This post from The Oracle on Mike Rinder’s Blog deserves a special mention. For many decades it has been customary for senior management to initiate programs that require scarce and valuable staff from all over the world to go to Flag for training but this post portrays the practice as having deteriorated into a kind of desperate organizational self cannibalism.
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http://www.mikerindersblog.org/sadlanta/

The Oracle says
January 27, 2016 at 3:18 pm
Mike, you wrapped it up the way it is. This is how it has been with staff and conditions do not seem to change for them.
The shipping them off in the night as “outer org trainees” is one of the most gruesome traditions I have seen. When Flag needs to get their stats up in the academy and there are no public, orders get sent out to these Orgs to send staff to train. Flag also gets workers as these people have to work five hours a day or more for accommodations and food. So Flag gets free labor except for paying for food and offering a bed.
The Orgs invariably upon being ordered to send someone, (and unmock a post in the Org), send the person they can live with out the best, or the person they want out of the Org.
Many of these people get used to deliver to the public arriving arriving at Flag for service. Many get recruited for the Sea Org if they qualify. The routine is engramic for these people, to wake, work, study and deliver. And the education, they did not pay for, becomes compulsory. I watched these folk for six years at Flag, the ones that were able to stick it out, and they looked traumatized.
In the tech dictionary Hubbard describes what degrades a being as: “degraded beings find ANY instruction painful as they have been painfully indoctrinated with violent measures in the past. They therefore alter-is any order or don’t comply.”
Most of the people who graduate from Flag ordered training, do so in post traumatic stress syndrome. They go home in a very bad condition and can not think with or use the knowledge / engram content. End up leaving or being dismissed or “disciplined” and blow off. Have huge debts they can not repay to Flag and wander off to recuperate. Not even being able to make use of the information as they can not really think with it. Or apply it.
It is sick to order someone to train. If they wanted to learn they would have paid for the courses way back when. Every day their debt grows under these sadistic conditions, and they still have contracts to fulfill back home, if they ever return. I’ve heard with GAOT going in circles some people have been at Flag for ten years on compulsory training cycles training and retraining. People that signed a five year contract at their org.
Where are the thousands of “Flag Trained auditors” that have been cranked out over the past three decades and ordered to the ship to train? They are not on staff and they are not out here with successful practices. I have had two people trained in this way who were “graduated in a state of shaock” that they could not think with anything they “learned”, use it, apply it, and the last thing they wanted to do was audit anyone. Don’t even want to go into what the ones that are auditing out here, are doing and thinking.

“Flag training” is a brutal sadistic experience. The students are already looked down upon as DB’s when they arrive, as they are “public” or “class four org staff”. If they come their senses and decide to route out, they are ordered for compulsory auditing / sec checks. They vanish never to be seen again. Never able to use what they owe for!
Then the grand finale , under the best outcome, the very tiniest who make it through, return home, and audit or manage the org until their contract is up, are expected to replace themselves with another Flag Trained auditor or executive.
This is the Church of Scientology under David Miscavige. Making degraded beings. Routing people back down the bridge. And it is all in the enforce band.
He has the audacvity to call Sea Org “volunteers”. Tell me which of those Sea Org staff in Atlanta or L.A. Org volunteer to be there. I can guarantee you, none! And of the 200 staff sent into L.A. Org, many are gone already.
“Hope” is a very powerful and holy force. To manipulate and use people giving them false hope is as unholy as it gets. And this is David Miscavige’s forte these days. Why he has Sea Org members body routing on Sunset Boulevard and working Atlanta and Tampa.
He wiped out the mission network, then he suppressed the class four Orgs into non existence with the Sea Organization.
There is a massage parlor chain out here called “Massage Envy”, where you can buy a membership for monthly (weekly or daily too) massage, that has swept the nation and boomed in cities of health conscience people. But the Church of Scientology can’t get staff. Empty. That’s right, someone has outdone David Miscavige with massage parlors. I haven’t heard any of any ARCex field protesting on Hollywood Boulevard either. I drove down the boulevard last night, and the street is full of staff. And clients.
 

Enthetan

Master of Disaster
The whole "outer org trainee" thing has always been a scam. As noted, the orgs are pressured to send bodies, so they send their expendables. They are used as slave labor, and get enourmous freeloader debt.
 

TheOriginalBigBlue

Gold Meritorious Patron
The whole "outer org trainee" thing has always been a scam. As noted, the orgs are pressured to send bodies, so they send their expendables. They are used as slave labor, and get enourmous freeloader debt.

For clarification: The orgs are Flag's customer in this arrangement. They pay Flag to have their staff member trained. If they can't pay for training, food or berthing then I'm taking The Oracle's post to mean that the staff are used at Flag to "work it off". If those staff break their contract or route out of the Sea Org then the full amount of the costs for all of this is tacked onto their Freeloader Debt which is billed to them by the org to which they were contracted.

In the old days these Freeloader Debts were occasionally reduced with some kind of "amnesty" or special deal. I imagine their motivation was to either make it easier to recover the staff member, get someone back on lines or a calculation was made that it was better to get a fraction of the bill paid vs nothing. Prior to the "inflation" run-up in prices in the late 70s a Freeloader Debt might be a few grand but now it could be 10s or hundreds of thousands.

It does not need to be paid by law. Payment is voluntary and only if one wants to maintain good standing. If anything, huge Freeloader Debts probably serve to either cement a Scientologist's inability to re-establish good standing or make them reluctant to leave in the first place.

The living conditions for these outer org staff can be quite crowded, imagine 12 people bunking 3 high in a small hotel room, and funky, especially considering it is very humid there and once something gets sweaty or wet it takes a long time for things like towels, shirts and socks to dry. For many staff from cooler environs it may be the first time they get to see a real cockroach in its native habitat.

I think in LRH's time orgs probably sent their most promising staff because they wanted their hard earned cash to be well utilized and by someone who wasn't a "flight risk". They probably did honestly hold out great hopes that with all the wonderful training these people would return to create a new era of booming stats but as the decades progressed the real net result became self evident.
 

Boojuum

Silver Meritorious Patron
The whole "outer org trainee" thing has always been a scam. As noted, the orgs are pressured to send bodies, so they send their expendables. They are used as slave labor, and get enourmous freeloader debt.

Getting outer org staff to Flag wasn't all bad for the COS. For one thing, Flag had a lot of cool stuff compared to a CLIV org like wealthy people and highly trained people who took "the tech" very seriously. Lots of very dedicated, very serious, very hard working people. One was immersed in the Scientology culture and fully expected to produce or suffer the embarrassment of being sent home. Training at Flag was a very intense and lively experience and for many, the most challenging environment they'd ever been in. Many came back invigorated and inspired.

The downsides were pretty severe. I think PTSD for example. I noticed many people returning from Flag not adjusting to the CLIV org experience well at all. I saw one guy blow after the first few days back. I had a Flag Rep tell me he'd false attested everything he did at Flag. Being fully indoctrinated into the screaming and yelling and harsh ethics was the worst, I'm still recovering. You get robotic and it's tough to spot that.

Getting trained at the FOLO was nuttier than Flag. No wealthy people. Lots of very poor staff. Very bad food. Disappearing people (blows). Lots of very stressed out people.

Still, the outer org experiences were quite rich and priceless. Like boot camp. It wasn't always fun but there were rewards. Lots of camaraderie. I enjoyed the experiences but I didn't get stuck there for years.

I'd like to say that the COS didn't do anything right but sending folks to the major centers of Scientology helped to align us with LRH's views.

The problem and this is always the problem with Scientology is that the very nature of LRH's Scientology is nasty and uncaring and ruthless while pretending to be the perfect organization. Whether you go to Flag or stay in your local org, the SO will attempt to mold you into someone who ONLY cares about forwarding the dreams of LRon, which are to make LRH rich and powerful. If you become a successful auditor or CS, you're one of the extremely few and probably haven't been in long enough to feel the nasty and uncaring and ruthless nature of the COS.

The rule is: EVERYONE WHO STAYS WITH SCIENTOLOGY EVENTUALLY GETS SCREWED. ALWAYS. IT'S NEVER ABOUT YOU. WHAT IS ULTIMATE YOU CAN YOU GIVE? NOT ENOUGH. GIVE MORE. ALWAYS.
 

renegade

Silver Meritorious Patron
Some staff get sent because their contracts are going to expire and it's a way to keep them on staff another 5+ years.

OR was a way to flesh out their plans on leaving.
 

Dulloldfart

Squirrel Extraordinaire
For clarification: The orgs are Flag's customer in this arrangement. They pay Flag to have their staff member trained.

They do? I think it would be more accurate to say that Flag (or ITO or whichever org is training the OOTs) bills the local org rather than billing the individual student. The note the student signs says that if the org doesn't pay (and they very rarely do pay more than a token amount, if that) then the individual student becomes liable for the bill.

The richer orgs sometimes cover food & berthing for their trainees, but paying for the actual training and [STRIKE]auditing[/STRIKE] sec-checks? Not so much.

Now, usually the training given by the upper org really sucks. Stories of OOTs taking several years to get through their programs are commonplace. Doug Long (now dead) told me in 2001 that his training at Flag to be Senior C/S took 9 years and he was already a Class VI when he started! I don't know how long he remained on staff after he returned but it wasn't long.

Paul
 

Lulu Belle

Moonbat
(from Oracle post)

Many of these people get used to deliver to the public arriving arriving at Flag for service. Many get recruited for the Sea Org if they qualify.


When I was staff at AOLA in the 90s I was told it was an RPFable offense for a Sea Org member to recruit an Outer Org Trainee. This was because orgs were refusing to send staff to the SO orgs because they were afraid they'd never get them back.

That, of course, didn't stop management from ripping off AOLA and ASHO trainees to become FSO staff during the first GAT evolution. :angry:
 

TheOriginalBigBlue

Gold Meritorious Patron
When I was staff at AOLA in the 90s I was told it was an RPFable offense for a Sea Org member to recruit an Outer Org Trainee. This was because orgs were refusing to send staff to the SO orgs because they were afraid they'd never get them back.

That, of course, didn't stop management from ripping off AOLA and ASHO trainees to become FSO staff during the first GAT evolution. :angry:

So to be more specific, you were told it was an RPFable offense for "AOLA" to recruit non-SO staff, as opposed to a higher org like Flag?
 

Lulu Belle

Moonbat
So to be more specific, you were told it was an RPFable offense for "AOLA" to recruit non-SO staff, as opposed to a higher org like Flag?



That's a good question, actually. I was under the impression that none of the SO Orgs, including Flag, were allowed to recruit OOTs. But looking back on it I'm not 100% positive.

I'm sure with Miscavige personally running the GAT training evolution who they wanted to take they took. He who makes the rules can break the rules. That's pretty much the way it always was from what I remember. :angry:

The stealing of personnel from orgs by management, CMO, higher orgs, etc. was even more blatantly criminal than raping the orgs of the money they made. There was so much desperation for staff that every supposed rule was broken any time a higher org could get away with it. There was always a rationale that the person going to a higher org was "the greatest good" and therefore justified.
 

TheOriginalBigBlue

Gold Meritorious Patron
That's a good question, actually. I was under the impression that none of the SO Orgs, including Flag, were allowed to recruit OOTs. But looking back on it I'm not 100% positive.

I'm sure with Miscavige personally running the GAT training evolution who they wanted to take they took. He who makes the rules can break the rules. That's pretty much the way it always was from what I remember. :angry:

The stealing of personnel from orgs by management, CMO, higher orgs, etc. was even more blatantly criminal than raping the orgs of the money they made. There was so much desperation for staff that every supposed rule was broken any time a higher org could get away with it. There was always a rationale that the person going to a higher org was "the greatest good" and therefore justified.

And lower org staff often wanted to transfer to higher level orgs in hopes of better living conditions, auditing, training..........sanity.

But as has been pointed out moving up or getting promoted wasn't always a blessing. Working with LRH or at Gold was supposed to be the cat's meow but now we know how that played out.
 
So to be more specific, you were told it was an RPFable offense for "AOLA" to recruit non-SO staff, as opposed to a higher org like Flag?
I was NSO staff at AOLA a couple times in the late 70's - I did some auditing in the HGC and some FESing - they had this constant problem - they would fire the NSO auditors, then fall be hind on delivery, run up a backlog, then hire a bunch of NSO auditors to handle the back log then, tell them it was mandatory for them to join the SO. They would all leave... then the org would again fall behind in delivery... and they would hire... over and over.

Mimsey
 

Gib

Crusader
They do? I think it would be more accurate to say that Flag (or ITO or whichever org is training the OOTs) bills the local org rather than billing the individual student. The note the student signs says that if the org doesn't pay (and they very rarely do pay more than a token amount, if that) then the individual student becomes liable for the bill.

The richer orgs sometimes cover food & berthing for their trainees, but paying for the actual training and [STRIKE]auditing[/STRIKE] sec-checks? Not so much.

Now, usually the training given by the upper org really sucks. Stories of OOTs taking several years to get through their programs are commonplace. Doug Long (now dead) told me in 2001 that his training at Flag to be Senior C/S took 9 years and he was already a Class VI when he started! I don't know how long he remained on staff after he returned but it wasn't long.

Paul

I don't know if you know, but Doug Long committed suicide. I was shocked when I found out. He was my first sec check auditor. He was ruthless, the sec checks were grueling. I was given the sec checks as a result of myself blowing from staff, BTW I recovered myself as I didn't want a freeloader debt and was still a true believer (and green) and partially because I was told the org found the SP, the who, who was offloaded and declared (that's a long story and can't discuss it) and things were better at the org. (only to find out nope, that wasn't true either, LOL)

Those dumb ass sec checks, what a fuk'in mind control. I mean the only overts I had were something like take a pen home and forget about it. I was pretty clean. But, per the tech I had some hugh crime for blowing. And of course now coupled with my knowledge of the Bill Franks interview of why people leave is because of ARCX's, well you got it, that was the case for me. The org sucked, what one reads of LRH and how grand and glorious it is to be on staff is not the actual scene. And of course the staff contract freeloader debt is a catch 22, a gotcha, you're trapped.
 

Terril park

Sponsor
Was on probably the biggest evolution of OOTs.
FEBC 1981.

One on there at the same time who I met ,many years later
told me that when she was doing correction, or something, in LA
she was told 60% of the trainees never went back to their oprgs.
 

Lulu Belle

Moonbat
I was NSO staff at AOLA a couple times in the late 70's - I did some auditing in the HGC and some FESing - they had this constant problem - they would fire the NSO auditors, then fall be hind on delivery, run up a backlog, then hire a bunch of NSO auditors to handle the back log then, tell them it was mandatory for them to join the SO. They would all leave... then the org would again fall behind in delivery... and they would hire... over and over.

Mimsey


Yeah. AOLA had probably the biggest situation of all the SO orgs when it came to this. Besides FSO (who I don't think was ever allowed to have NSO) they were the biggest SO service org in Scientology. They also made most of their money in the HGC. They never had nearly enough Sea Org auditors to service the public and make income. (As a note, quite a few AO tech people were ripped off by Flag and Int, so that was part of the cause of the problem.)

The org really needed the NSO, but they were a sore spot for management. There were constant orders to get rid of them, but then the hours would crash, and the VSD would crash, and the GI would crash, so it kind of forced the situation of getting them back.

I always had mixed feelings about them. I liked a lot of them personally, but I know I felt some jealousy and resentment about the fact that they made so much more money than the rest of the staff, and didn't have to do anything but their job. No call in, no white gloves, no musters, no mandatory briefings, etc. etc.

It was also kind of weird that they weren't actually "staff" but they were privy to everything that went on, including what was in all the staff's pc folders, etc.

Ivan was finally forced by management to get rid of them for good around 1990 or so. Even the die hards, like Steve Miller and Susan Soloman, were out for good. The org stats crashed and never recovered.
 

Gib

Crusader
That's a good question, actually. I was under the impression that none of the SO Orgs, including Flag, were allowed to recruit OOTs. But looking back on it I'm not 100% positive.

I'm sure with Miscavige personally running the GAT training evolution who they wanted to take they took. He who makes the rules can break the rules. That's pretty much the way it always was from what I remember. :angry:

The stealing of personnel from orgs by management, CMO, higher orgs, etc. was even more blatantly criminal than raping the orgs of the money they made. There was so much desperation for staff that every supposed rule was broken any time a higher org could get away with it. There was always a rationale that the person going to a higher org was "the greatest good" and therefore justified.

When I went to Flag as a OOT in the early 1990's, I had finished one course of many to do on my TIPP, so on the routing form throughout the org, when I got to the recruiter, and when he found out I was fully hatted for a particular admin post, I was then stuck right there, I had the CO, the HAS, the OES, the recuiter, and a few others all trying to get me to join the SO. And I was like what about replacing myself at the org, they are "we will handle that". My life was changing right before my eyes and I'm trying to think into the future. OMG, it was a nightmare. I can't explain how I got out this for security reasons. But what a fuk'in pain in the ass.
 
I also tried to do NSO auditing at ASHO when it was on Temple - they were so disorganized, they didn't have any pc's assigned to me, so after a few days of nothing happening, I left and they never noticed I was gone.

I liked auditing at AOLA - I needed to do an internship and that was filling the need - I was getting good crams, good advice from their pros then they dumped all of us.

As an example, I was too much of a stenographic auditor - I was talking to this one pro - she showed me some of her w/s for a simple repetitive grades process:

Q1 (check mark)

Q1 pc waffles

Tr3

Q1 (check mark)

Q1 (check mark)

Q1 pc cogs - vgis F/n ind.

And yes, they really hated paying us real money.

Mimsey
 

TheOriginalBigBlue

Gold Meritorious Patron
I don't know if you know, but Doug Long committed suicide. I was shocked when I found out. He was my first sec check auditor. He was ruthless, the sec checks were grueling. I was given the sec checks as a result of myself blowing from staff, BTW I recovered myself as I didn't want a freeloader debt and was still a true believer (and green) and partially because I was told the org found the SP, the who, who was offloaded and declared (that's a long story and can't discuss it) and things were better at the org. (only to find out nope, that wasn't true either, LOL)

Those dumb ass sec checks, what a fuk'in mind control. I mean the only overts I had were something like take a pen home and forget about it. I was pretty clean. But, per the tech I had some hugh crime for blowing. And of course now coupled with my knowledge of the Bill Franks interview of why people leave is because of ARCX's, well you got it, that was the case for me. The org sucked, what one reads of LRH and how grand and glorious it is to be on staff is not the actual scene. And of course the staff contract freeloader debt is a catch 22, a gotcha, you're trapped.

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/135/135-h/135-h.htm

Les Miserables

"Man has upon him his flesh, which is at once his burden and his temptation. He drags it with him and yields to it. He must watch it, check it, repress it, and obey it only at the last extremity. There may be some fault even in this obedience; but the fault thus committed is venial; it is a fall, but a fall on the knees which may terminate in prayer.
"To be a saint is the exception; to be an upright man is the rule. Err, fall, sin if you will, but be upright.
"The least possible sin is the law of man. No sin at all is the dream of the angel. All which is terrestrial is subject to sin. Sin is a gravitation."
 

Enthetan

Master of Disaster
I don't know if you know, but Doug Long committed suicide. I was shocked when I found out. He was my first sec check auditor. He was ruthless, the sec checks were grueling.

If a good person is forced to behave as a bad guy for too long, it becomes hard to live with himself.
 

ThetanExterior

Gold Meritorious Patron
Back in the 1980s my local UK org only had Book 1 auditors so they sent a guy to AOSH UK to train up to Class IV auditor and C/S.

He was there for about a year I think and when he'd finished his training the ED of his own org kept insisting that he come back home but the AO wouldn't let him go.

Eventually the ED sent someone to Saint Hill on a secret mission to get this guy, sneak him out and bring him home.

There weren't any major repercussions as far as I know.
 
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