OOGs
Thanks very much for sharing this story. Very interesting indeed, and I think the same experiences occurred no matter what continent one is on.
In our case, it was when the whole KTL LOC push came through, and all orgs HAD to have KTL supervisors. Two staff at our org were selected to go to Flag, and we all envied them to go to the Mecca of Scientology.
When they returned, they looked tired and stressed, and were also mostly quite tight-lipped about the experience. One was a good friend of mine, and I cornered [the person] eventually - and all they could say was that it was WILD. Having to sleep in mass-packed dormitries, having to find own money to pay for basics, and a non-stop pace to squeeze out the maximum training in the minimum amount of time, so as not to waste any costs on mere staff members.
The person eventually admitted that it was not what [the person] was expecting at all. Which was as close as it could get to that person admitting they were rattled by the experience.
Even at that time, when I was still in and winning, I was immensely bothered by that account. Flag was supposed to be the Holy Grail of perfection - I had pictured upstat efficiency, upstat setting, and very uptone staff, speed of particle flow in a good way. The image of mass-packed dormitries, and having to scramble for money for basic needs did not fit with my idea of upstat at ALL.
Interesting similarity too - because our org was also always getting hammered by "uplines" for not being upstat enough, not having enough money. The telephone lines were cut a few times for non-payment of bills, for example. I remember quite a few staff in the org, whenever something came from up-lines that was even more demanding at usual - they would roll their eyes. One time, we were given an instruction to kludge central files, when it had been done the week before - stupid things like that. In our org, there was definitely a sense of us taking Hubbard's tech and creating something great, but a general sense that "up-lines" was a little insane. The general feeling was that up-lines were far enough away, so they would be put up with, but they could be a royal pain in the a** sometimes.
When the instruction came down for us to have to clap and cheer LRH's picture after each muster, we all just laughed. None of us could help ourselves. But we did it. We had to. However, none of us could look at each other while doing it, or we would burst out laughing, and have to put all of ourselves into ethics!
- jodie