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Question for long-timers after leaving SO

Mrs. Xenu

Patron
To all of you who have spent a considerable amount of years of your lives in the SO or any Orgs. When you finally made the right decision to leave, how did you find a suitable employment if all you had was Scientology work history? Did employers accept your past 20-30 years of experience as a scientology staff member? What kind of job did you manage to get? I'm just curious. While I was going to the org, many times they tried to recruit me and, apart from all the downsides of being on staff, the deterrent for me was that I could perhaps never get a decent job in the normal world. What did you do? Did you have any good transferable skills? Did employers accept it? What jobs did you end up in?
 

tarbaby

Patron with Honors
transferable skills

When you finally made the right decision to leave, how did you find a suitable employment if all you had was Scientology work history? Did employers accept your past 20-30 years of experience as a scientology staff member? What kind of job did you manage to get? I'm just curious.

That's a very good cult recovery question, LadyX. One of the personal boundaries drilled out of us by the cult was the ability to withhold things from people. And BTW, I think it's really that very adroitness which keeps society running smoothly!

As far as applications and resumes, I'd just put "Minister of Church - 1967-1982 and if they asked, I told them, "I'd rather not say", or "it was a religious cult" and usually they didn't enquire further.

What did you do? Did you have any good transferable skills? Did employers accept it? What jobs did you end up in?

The skills that were transferable were ones that I had to relearn anyway. Obviously I had "management skills" because of the sheer number of people I had become proficient at ordering around. It's a hard habit to break, being so superior and all. But I had to learn how to do it all gently and softly in the wog world, since I didn't hold anyone's immortal future in my hands. And that was hard, in as much as the real world has many cultish dynamics and powertrippers, too. Some that looked and acted exactly like those detestable ones inside, from which I had just walked away.

And I had other skills that were just part of my experiential learning and not attributable to the cult practices. Organizational skills. Planning skills.

Some of the jobs I held were stockbroker and buyer for a number of companies. Production manager of archetectuaral signage, production control in a big printed circuit board mfg co, event/concert producer for the City of LA and others, local emmy-winning assistant producer of live tv events, PR witer for Hollywood Chamber of Commerce.

Most of those employers eventually found out my cult history.

HTH (hope this helps ... for the newbies)
Dennis
 

The Oracle

Gold Meritorious Patron
I think that would depend on what type of employment you are looking for.

If you want to practice medicine and you worked in central files in the Sea Org, chances are you will have to learn new skills.

When someone is looking for someone to hire they are expecting someone who can solve problems for them.

Anyone who is a problems release shouldn't have difficulty getting employment as most of the work out there is work anyone can do if they can solve problems.

The Church is an organization with staff, I didn't bother to hide the fact I worked for the Church for six years.

When I first left the org I knew I had to secure an apartment and I had very little money. So I picked up a newspaper and simply looked under "free rent".

I found many people looking for apartment managers, people to manage apartment buildings in exchange for an apartment.

I picked a smaller building and went for the job and got it instantly.

Turns out I looked awfully good compared to some of the other people looking for free apartments. For one, I even spoke English!

The apartment building was a crack house so it was a huge project to turn it around. It took all of my time for six months and I was extremely underpaid just getting an apartment.

I had to start by getting everyone out of the building.

Oh...that's another long story so let's just skip over that.

Anyway, through the property management company I got jobs cleaning vacant apartments for cash.

So, in six months I had enough money to buy a car and a wardrobe to inch my way into Beverly Hills.

After I emptied out the apartment building, supervised all of the renovations, and got the apartments rented out to preppy people, the owner of the building and the property management company were flabbergasted.

The property management company offerred me a job to supervise all of their apartment buildings from above.

At that point I played my card. I said I needed 100,000.00 a year . It was true too. I was bringing my father to live with me and had to put my husband through school. I needed a big apartment and a lot more money.

They couldn't pay that but had a friend in Beverly Hills who owned a property managment company that catered to celebrities and wrote me a letter of indroduction.

I went over and the owner fired the president and hired me on the spot.

He turned out to be a former Scientologist impressed with my record in the Sea Org!

And his current president had really made a mess of incomplete projects and blown off some clients.

You can not ser fac on celebrities.

My time in the Sea Org got me the job right away and I was put on that executive post. (great job that was by the way)

So, you have to be willing to start at the bottom, find out what is wanted and needed and produce it for anyone.

If that means picking up a cleaning rag and a vacume cleaner you just have to get started and do very very well.

Then you will find your windows of opportunity from there.

There is a very high demand for domestic work, especially caring for the elderly.

Which I also did part time in the beginning, as well as waitressing.

I was working three jobs for a three years, monday through friday as president for the celebrity property managment company during the day, still cleaning vacant apartments on the week ends during the day and waitressing fri sat and sun nights it a ritzy restaurant (I had to put my new and still current husband through school).

Maybe if you could tell me what erea you live in and what the scene is I could give you some better advice.

If you live in West Virgina you may have to relocate.

Are you in a city and what coast?

What would you like to do?

Let me help you solve your problem!
 
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Terril park

Sponsor
Priceless!

The cliche of the ex SO member being incapable of existing
in the outside world demolished in an instant hat for survival. :rose:
 

Mrs. Xenu

Patron
Most of those employers eventually found out my cult history.

HTH (hope this helps ... for the newbies)
Dennis

Well done, Tarbaby for finding your feet!!! Excellent. I feel sorry for you guys because you leave the SE with basically nothing, not a penny to your name and you have to act quickly. I would have thought that finding a 'wog job' would be a very hard task. When you say your employers eventually found out your cult history, what do you mean by that? Did they treat you differently? Did you feel you had to move on and get another job?
 

Mrs. Xenu

Patron
Maybe if you could tell me what erea you live in and what the scene is I could give you some better advice.

If you live in West Virgina you may have to relocate.

Are you in a city and what coast?

What would you like to do?

Let me help you solve your problem!

First of all, a big well done to you, Ms. Illusioness!!!! You were not only supporting yourself but your husband and your dad too!
You are ever so kind to be wanting to help me, but luckily I'm not in that kind of situation at all. My time in Scn. was about 10 years ago and only for about 2 years. I just recently noticed the entheta websites and started thinking about what would have happened to me if I hadn't smelt the rat at the beginning. Then I was thinking of you poor apostates, how you fled (some of you spent like 30 years in there) and I thought to myself: 'How the hell did they manage to get jobs etc. with no savings in a bank, no real work experience etc. Of course your experience in the cult must count to something, if anything at least administrative jobs can be found. By the way, I live in the UK, I suppose things would be different over there, as I hear that the American employers may be more sympathetic or more willing to give people a chance. I don't know how easy it would be fore a long-timer to get a wog job here in the UK. Perhaps some UK ex-members can answer that.
This subject really interests me because I think when one wants to re-build one's life, the first step is having to get a job.
Well done!
 

tarbaby

Patron with Honors
When you say your employers eventually found out your cult history, what do you mean by that? Did they treat you differently? Did you feel you had to move on and get another job?

I mean that after I was hired and got to know people, I would reveal to certain of them what I had been into. And no, they treated me the same after they found out. I never had any negative reprocussions. In fact some of the employers were quite supportive of my endeavors after learning of my history.

Dennis
 

The Oracle

Gold Meritorious Patron
Well, I am now a true believer that "If you could make it in the Sea Org you can make it anywhere".

Once you seperate from the Sea Org and take your skills with you and leave behind the police and people who stopped you, the red carpet rolls right out.

My viewpoint is that I had to work really hard for everything I got including the knowledge and experience, I don't waste any of it.

I know some long timer men get out and want to "rest in peace".

Those guys never had to be a mother and housewife. Breakfast lunch and dinner seven loads of laundry a day cleaning dishwashing cooking and homeschooling sewing grocery shopping budgeting little league sports and this list could go on and on.

The Sea org is a walk in the park compared to the life of an average "wog" housewife.

There are plenty of illegle immigrants working two or three jobs to support their families.

There are plenty of celebrities working 20 hour days and movie sets.

There is so much work available in America you pretty much have to hide in a closet not to get a job. 5000 illegle immigrants a day spill over the border in California for work and there is plenty of it.

I understand nowdays when the Sea Org offloads someone they actually find them a job and a place to live.

It wasn't like that when I left or many other's before me.

But a lot of people have family etc.

I mean, c'mon, they hire retarded people now Walmart.

One has to admit that in the U.S.A. survival is easy.

It's getting ahead that is more difficult.

You can't just do "the usual" and expect to live well.

You have to come up with something unusual.

The guy who designed and established "MY SPACE" sold it for over 5 million.

Working hard and for yourself there is good money in real estate flipping houses.

I worked three nights a week as a waitress and if you get into the right restaurant in the right part of town you can pull down 4 - 500 a night in tips if you really dote over the customers.

I can say that upon leaving the Sea Org anyone should feel a huge resurgance with the suppression off and be able to do very well in a short period of time if that is what they want to do.

Most people will probably be very surprised to discover how much more competent they are compared to fellow workers.

And with rewards available to you like good food, time to relax and enjoy, sex, family visitations, shopping sprees, theatre and the internet, the freezone if you will, life should be a packaged charm.
 

Alan

Gold Meritorious Patron
My time in the Sea Org got me the job right away and I was put on that executive post. (great job that was by the way)

So, you have to be willing to start at the bottom, find out what is wanted and needed and produce it for anyone.

If that means picking up a cleaning rag and a vacume cleaner you just have to get started and do very very well.

Then you will find your windows of opportunity from there.

There is a very high demand for domestic work, especially caring for the elderly.

Which I also did part time in the beginning, as well as waitressing.

I was working three jobs for a three years, monday through friday as president for the celebrity property managment company during the day, still cleaning vacant apartments on the week ends during the day and waitressing fri sat and sun nights it a ritzy restaurant (I had to put my new and still current husband through school).

WoW! :D
 
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DrDen

New Member
There is life after Scn

My wife and I were in the SO for over 15 years each. We were in managment in LA and went to a lower org after having a baby. We hung on there working in poverty for 2 years before we threw in the towl and left. At that point we had two children and that year made less than $10K. So we started off with almost nothing and really we only had a little bit of furniture because before going to the lower org I was on an an 8 month LOA and earned some money to buy furniture with. I rode a bicycle to work (I was 50 at the time) even when it snowed!

But we were lucky compared to many. I had military and business computer experience before going into Scn SO staff and continued to work on computers in the SO. However, depite that, most of my SO experience was of little value as I worked on their archaic legacy computer equipment and when I got out in 1997, the PC was in full business use. So my only experience with that was with the home computer I'd managed to acquire.

Let me say first that, SO members, despite being in an organization that staff are essentially PTS to management and the whole theta trap of the SO itself, most members are basically very great and able people. What LRH says about SO members being very capable in the outside world to a large degree is true. In the SO you are expected to be able to do any job and do it well. If you can't you aren't there very long. You do gain many abilities as you are assigned jobs -- whether in renovations, organization, management, etc. You learn as you go and learn to make things go right. There is a lot of emphasis on training for your duties - Even though there is a lot of abberaton and excessive controls of your life and you work up to 72 hour (sometimes more) weeks

With that said, I came out feeling a huge sadness having lost connection with the group I'd been a member of and losing a lot of friends. But I'd always felt very capable in my life, in working with computers and so I simply jumped in and never looked back. So above all else it is attitude. You have to believe in yourself, and if you have that then you can make others believe in you.

But it was very dicey and scary at first. Although we did have an apartment we were very thankful for food stamps and welfare for 2-3 months to be able to feed our babies and have a roof over our head. I'd go the library daily and check ads in the paper there and call employers from the pay phone. That is tough. I paid for an answering service so that I could get messages since I didn't have a phone at home yet. I don't know if these even exist any more, but that's probably not a problem since you can get cell phoness for cheap these days, and use the $10 cards you get in supermarkets now. So in many ways it is a lot easier today. There is also internet services at most libraries now to get your resumes onto the internet and search the job databases.

But factually anyone that has been in the SO for years has a lot of skills, and it is really a matter of creatively putting those talents into a resume.

I have never hidden my time in Scn with any employer or on resumes or for that matter from friends or co-workers. Basically I simply state that I was in the ministry in Scientology. I may not be proud of what Scientology has become but I can honestly say that I was in it for the same reasons that Scn states as it's purpose to "make a safe world, where honest men can prosper, without wars.... etc." don't remember the exact words. That was always my purpose and the fact that Scn went off the rails (if it was ever on them) is beside the point.

So my advice to anyone having left SCN or the SO is hold your head high, know that you are an honest being and your intentions (and those of most of your friends left behind, or left before you) were honest and pure, and YOU can make life go right and just recognze that there are many SPs and PTSes in at all levels of the church, and you will find that any control that they have over you is shattered and you can move on. Know that we love you, as you felt when you first ran into the term "much Love" when you first joined staff, without any of the bullshit enforced reality that managment shoves down your throat.

Ah, hell, I told myself I wasn't going to say anything negative here, the intention is to let anyone know that has left, that they can make it and make it well. Sign up for courses, study for Microsoft certifications, etc. The world is open to you. Study tech has a lot of crap in it but just the knowledge of clearing words, and not go glib, is the real key to being able to study anything. Hell, I'm studying quantum physics now as a hobby and that would have been impossible without the baics of study. So use the few good tools you gained from Scn and throw out useless control garbage and you will flourish and prosper!!!

DrDen (my nickname by some of my old clients)
 

The Oracle

Gold Meritorious Patron
DrDen

Thanks for your very hearty and warm encouragement.

I think you should know also, unless you signed a "Vow of poverty" in the Church which waived your social security rights, that prior to 1993 it is still regarded as a Scientology Organization, not a Church, they got legal status only in 1993.

So, you would have a right to have credits into your social security prior to 1993 if you did not sign a vow of poverty.

All the best!

Well done.
 

Mrs. Xenu

Patron
I never had any negative reprocussions. In fact some of the employers were quite supportive of my endeavors after learning of my history.
Dennis

Probably I would have been very supportive if you were working for me. I'm very understanding. So now, could you say that things have more or less settled?
 

Mrs. Xenu

Patron
Well, I am now a true believer that "If you could make it in the Sea Org you can make it anywhere".


The Sea org is a walk in the park compared to the life of an average "wog" housewife.

I think that's a very good way of looking at life. If you could make it in the SO you can make it anywhere. That's true for many things. For example, you know those women who stay in an abusive marriage for whatever reason and then years down the line they get divorced....they would feel exaclty like that. They would say 'If I could deal with that abusive person, then anybody else is a doddle'...

I like your comparison of being a housewife and being an SO member...you are probably right, the average housewife has a lot on her plate. :)
 

Mrs. Xenu

Patron
Dr Den, a big well done to you too! You knew it all along that you had to put your kids first, no matter what the Scn. says.
 

Bea Kiddo

Crusader
Mrs. Xenu et al,

I am so sorry to hear about your husband being held prisoner in a mountain. I had no idea he was married with children. More proof of the church meddling with families where they don't belong. My condonlenses to you. I hope things get worked out soon for the better!!!

Thank you to all for this post. It's a most interesting read. I'd like to put in my two cents (which may be only worth a quarter of a cent nonetheless):

When I first got out, I relaxed for 3 weeks without doing much of anything. Deliberately. It was awesome. But then the real world hit and I did need to make money. I applied for a simple, minimum wage job and was instantly hired. Within 9 days they noticed I was a cut above the rest on performance (Being in the SO so long, my mind set was always TMs and making things go right, and those were still with me and probably still are) and promoted me to Manager. I was there for 8 months, when the conditions there got beyond what I could bear (long story) and I moved on to another job as a manager of a larger place, which I still work at.

I love what i do and the company takes really good care of the managers. They have an awesome bonus program. Its easy to make however much money you want, you just have to get them to profit and they pay you well for it. Plus medical, dental, vision and 401K, paid vacation, business trips around the country. Pretty cool.

And about my past? Well, here in the US it is illegal to descriminate based on religion. So they don't even ask about it. If I brought anything up, they would listen and be nice, but for the most part, nothing. They can't ask much. But they saw my performance and that was sufficient for them. When I was first doing resumes, they suggested I try to just put in what kind of work it was, functions and so forth that are similar to WOG jobs. Kinda translate the posts like a reg is sales, a recruiter would be HR (Though recruiters going into HR would end up doing very illegal things inadvertently, not knowing that the SO does things illegally on that regard), things like that.

Hope this helps!!:cool: :)
 

Mrs. Xenu

Patron
Mrs. Xenu et al,

I am so sorry to hear about your husband being held prisoner in a mountain. I had no idea he was married with children. More proof of the church meddling with families where they don't belong. My condonlenses to you. I hope things get worked out soon for the better!!!


Hope this helps!!:cool: :)

Dear Bea,
Thank you for your concerns!!! It's heartwarming. If you wish to know my story you can read it in the 'Humour' section called Setting the records straight about my husband, Xenu. I put it there just to make sure I do not offend anybody, but it is the Truth.

Well done to you too, Bea for finding your ground in the old, nasty, horrible wog world! I assume that if you've been used to producing high standards all the time at all costs then you kinda get used to the pace. I asked this question because all the stories that people post on various internet sites only discuss their experience, the time leading up to the breaking up point, the break up point itself and that's it. Nobody really writes about the journey they have to make to re-build their lives. That, I think, is a very big task, especially if you spent so many years there.
 

tarbaby

Patron with Honors
Probably I would have been very supportive if you were working for me. I'm very understanding. So now, could you say that things have more or less settled?

Do you mean is my life settled, or is the suit filed against me settled? Either way the answer is yes.

But as long as there are idealistic people being mislead and defrauded, and there are families being destroyed, I am not "settled."

Dennis
 

Mrs. Xenu

Patron
Do you mean is my life settled, or is the suit filed against me settled? Either way the answer is yes.

But as long as there are idealistic people being mislead and defrauded, and there are families being destroyed, I am not "settled."

Dennis

Wow!! A lawsuit? So do you think a lot of SO members are really tempted to leave but the only thing that holds them back is the fear that there's a lawsuit afterwards from them?

Also, do you have any ex-scn colleagues that are out too? Have they found good jobs?
 
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