What's new

scooterstory

Opter

Silver Meritorious Patron
Scooter

Thank you for the last installment.

You write that when you left staff it felt like being out of prison.:thumbsup:

Even though, I was on staff for a much shorter time than you were on staff, when I left it felt like I was out of a prison ( not that I ever was in prison in real life ).

Opter
 
Once upon a time a long long time ago......

Wow.... :omg:

I have just spent all day reading all of this and boy oh boy I have such mixed emotions. It was amazing to read about so many familiar people having spend a lot of time in the Sydney Org myself.

I was shocked to read about what happened, and so sorry for your loss, but certainly not surprised at the "coverup". Maybe one day I will tell my story too...:nervous:

Well done on your story, I hope this isn't the end...:)
 

Lurker5

Gold Meritorious Patron
Scoots

Just started reading your story this morn. Been at it for hours now. Can't stop. Was thinking, My God, what an honorable man Scooter is. Terrific writer/story-teller. What an asset to scn he was, even though scn did not deserve him.

Just finished the story on Lauren, and tears are running down my face, non-stop. How terrible for you and your wife and baby son, all your family, to have to bear this terrible tragedy. And then the cold emotionless, compassionateless mistreatment from scn.

And yet, here you are, giving us this . . .

My God, man, what a treasure you are - your heart is as big as the Universe. What an honor it is, for me, to read your story. Your courage and upstandingness are an inspiration - to me - to us all.

May many blessings and love shower upon you and yours.
You have all my compassion and empathy.
 

scooter

Gold Meritorious Patron
Moving to Narconon

Sorry for the delay, folks.

I've been working on a few things of late and just not had the time to get back to this.

Just little things like Senate Inquiries, media interviews, projects out of the public eye - minor unimportant stuff. :D

Back to the real important stuff - ME.:happydance:


It started with a phone call and an American accent saying that he wanted to speak to me about being the C/S for Narconon Sydney. He introduced himself as Anthony Landers from Narconon Int and he was at Narconon Sydney doing a project to get it all turned around and doing well. I was interested. We arranged to go for a drive out to the property to meet him.

We turned up on the place and had another quick look around – we’d been there before and I quite liked the place. Lots of trees and wildlife. I think we got a guided tour of the place and then went to Anthony’s office. He had the Narconon stats up on the wall and they impressed me greatly – they were all going up well. I’d never seen such great statistics for a Scientology org. I checked with him and yes they were real and they’d all began to go well since he and the rest of the “project” arrived.

He sat us down and began to recruit us – he wanted me to be the C/S there as their C/S had left/been routed off (depending on who you spoke to.) At the moment the C/S they were using was my friend Tia and the folders were being driven down to her for C/Sing and then brought back – the whole trip took at least three hours. Pay was minimal at the time but looked like improving as the stats continued to rise. Oh, and he was staying on as ED until the place was really established. And he was an OEC/FEBC. Had been the D/ED for LA org for a while then left (actually had to leave as he wasn’t qualified as staff due to previous criminal history.) I was now more than sold.

We had a few things that we’d need to do first before we moved up. The Preschool Committee had successfully rattled enough cages that a Board of Investigation had been set up and I was to be the committee’s representative on it. We’d been able to find out enough of the insanity behind the school’s moves to get us hated by the executives over the school. For instance, one of the “major” problems the school had with getting government accreditation was that the person who would be inspecting that they met the standards was a proclaimed lesbian. Yet the school itself was in a predominantly gay area of Sydney! It was truly a joke.

Because my wife had successfully negotiated all of the papertrail needed to set up our centre in the record time of four months, every time the school came up with objections we were able to shoot them down with facts. So the only way they could save face was to call a B of I. It had been “called” by a senior CLO executive, obviously to be seen to “do something” about the general dissatisfaction about how “the School” had handled the whole mess – I saw the original comm. from her to the head of ApS about it later.

The first meeting was at the school itself and I turned up to find that the actual investigation we would be doing was minor and wouldn’t be allowed to rattle any cages. Then one of the Board members (who was also staff at the school) told me “we don’t want ‘wog’ kids at the school – they bring the Tone level of the whole school down.” So much for the school being the vehicle for getting the “Tech” out into Sydney’s education system. I sat through a few hours of being told that we weren’t there to make anyone wrong but to help the overworked school staff. It all ended up being a mild slap on the wrist for the offending school executives and they were given crams to do scene.

But it did save the School’s preschool from being closed down, despite what it did to our reputations as “in-Ethics scientologists.” I guess it was the best result that could’ve been gotten given the hierarchy we went up against.

The there was the problem of finding somewhere to live near to Narconon that we could all fit into. We had a look at the staff house a few minutes away but there was no room there for a family plus dogs. We looked at several and applied for them but no joy – we got turned down. We’d actually thought we had one and gave notice to our landlord we would be moving and then had to tell him we’d stay if we could, please?

In the meantime I moved up there and began the nightmare of sorting out the C/Sing while Caz packed up the house and kept looking for a house to move to. I would drop in whenever I brought folders down to Sydney for the C/S there and maybe stop the night then go again. I hadn’t done a Purif C/S course and was madly trying to get through that so that the late-night driving to and from Sydney could stop.
 

LongTimeGone

Silver Meritorious Patron
Scooter, this is the first time I've read your story and I am impressed with your recall of events and names. On that note, your name is very familiar to me but I can't stick a face to it.
I spent 18 months at Flag '90-'92 sent from AOSH ANZO, so I guess we passed in the night and I can certainly relate to your experiences.
D.
 

scooter

Gold Meritorious Patron
Scooter, this is the first time I've read your story and I am impressed with your recall of events and names. On that note, your name is very familiar to me but I can't stick a face to it.
I spent 18 months at Flag '90-'92 sent from AOSH ANZO, so I guess we passed in the night and I can certainly relate to your experiences.
D.

Events and names are mainly due to diaries - police like 'em 'cause they show hard evidence (hint, hint, OSAspawn reading this :D)

If you take the GF mask off my face in my avatar - oh wait .... :coolwink:

There's plenty vids of me up - outside Mel org, on T/T or Lateline, Senate Inquiry - that'll give you the "mass.":omg:
 

scooter

Gold Meritorious Patron
Second episode for the day ! :omg:

It was great waking up every morning to birds and trees and sometimes even sneaking out early for a quick explore of the surrounding forest before breakfast. I found lots of orchids and watched lots of birdlife and would then get back “On-Purpose” and go have breakfast and lock myself in the C/S office for most of the day then drive to Sydney some nights and back again.

In early April 2002 I had the last meeting of the B of I and after that it was just a stream of days working or looking for a house. Finally we were offered the ED’s “apartment” on the property – a converted one-car garage next to the “withdraw house” and close to the office building. It had a tiny shower/toilet, some basic cooking facilities and two very small rooms. We took it as we were running out of money and couldn’t find anywhere else close by.

So I borrowed a van and trailer and loaded it up one night, only to have to stop after a few miles because the trailer had come loose. I arrived at Narconon at 2am, unloaded everything with the help of the staff member dong the withdraw shift at the time then C/Sed the folders and drove back to Sydney.

I parked the van and tried to start our car but it wouldn’t, so I waited for the owner of the van to arrive to help me start it. Then I drove home and slept for a few hours.

I got up in the afternoon and cleaned up around our house then drove up to the in-laws house for dinner (they live about two hours out of Sydney) then drove across to Narconon and arrived there 9pm and did the folders. Then really crashed for the night.

The next day the removals truck came to Narconon with all our household gear and we moved in. We had to store a lot of it in the big shed on the property as there was just no room in the tiny “apartment’ we had. What was even more upsetting was that there were several single staff members who had bigger living areas than the four of us had. But they wouldn’t move for us because they were “upstat” and deserved their luxury.

There was no GI in for the last few weeks so there was no pay. We were close to broke and Caz went to see the ED in tears – she got little response. He was being moved to Narconon ANZO – so much for not leaving without a replacement. He never returned as ED and later left the country with the ED from Narconon Melbourne, which caused quite a stir.

The workload I’d inherited kept me working from 9am through to well after dinner most nights. Everything was backlogged, and stupidly I tried to catch it all up as fast as I could. I was sometimes running the sauna, sometimes running the courseroom, doing C/Sing and being a member of Exec Council every Thursday night. Plus attending the Board meetings whenever they held them on the property. Then when our ED left, I had to run the sauna by myself. It was nuts.

And then there was what I kept uncovering about what had happened previously there. A former “student” had been driving to the place every Thursday to sell drugs to those who were on the program – at times, half of the people doing the program were using on the property, and that also included some of the staff who’d “successfully” completed the program.

And some of those same staff were taking students out to local clubs for a “few” drinks.” To celebrate a good week. Or just because they could.

Then there was the two thugs fresh from jail who’d gotten onto the program and were terrorizing the rest of the students. One girl was apparently raped the first night she arrived out of withdraw. She left and never came back, but unfortunately didn’t go to the police about her ordeal.

Now, with the ED gone and someone taking his place who knew virtually nothing about Narconons, the money ceased. The place became even more of a nightmare and students were complaining about not enough food and being cold at night. Heaters had been banned because they cost too much to run and the students were allowed to have them only until “lights out” at 11 pm. Then whoever was making sure they were all in bed was supposed to remove them so that the students wouldn’t have them running all night.

A couple had joined staff fresh off the program and were living locally. She was pregnant and they couldn’t even afford their rent anymore, so they left staff. Even so, they were made to feel like they were doing the wrong thing, but not by me. I had no doubts that it was far better they went off and put a real life together far, far away, and I told them so.

Stupidly, I didn’t take my own advice. My ‘reasoning” was that I had signed a 2 ½ year contract and would have to see it out because Hubbard’s Code of Honour said “keep your word once given.” My wife and I began to argue about the place and why was I working so hard for a group that wouldn’t pay me AGAIN – it was as bad as being on staff but at least here we had a roof over our heads and ate in the communal dining room.

But then a local Scientologist was hired to supervise the courserooom on a fixed hourly rate – something nobody else got (we were all on the “Proportionate Pay Plan” of Hubbard’s – totally illegal, but I didn’t find that out until later.) She was often late which meant I was still starting the courseroom in the mornings anyway.

It really was the fact of being out of Sydney that kept me there. I could get up in the morning, do some warm-up exercises then jump on my mountain bike and ride around the property with the dogs, stopping by the courseroom to start the fire in it so it would be warm by the time course started.

Then I’d finish the ride and have breakfast with the family. Then there was staff muster, which I was learning to avoid by being busy elsewhere, and the occasional walks I could sneak in during the day when staring at folders or watching people in the sauna got too much.

Then yet another promise got broken. When I started, I was told I wouldn’t have to do “quartermaster” shifts – these went from 8pm to after 11 every night and you had to make sure that the students were all behaving and there was no illicit drug use, drinking or sex going on. I had a family that I wasn’t seeing enough of already even though they lived a few hundred metres from my office. It was explained to me as unfair that I got to have every night off while the other staff had to do QM shifts.

More soon.
 

Sindy

Crusader
Just started reading your story this morn. Been at it for hours now. Can't stop. Was thinking, My God, what an honorable man Scooter is. Terrific writer/story-teller. What an asset to scn he was, even though scn did not deserve him.

Just finished the story on Lauren, and tears are running down my face, non-stop. How terrible for you and your wife and baby son, all your family, to have to bear this terrible tragedy. And then the cold emotionless, compassionateless mistreatment from scn.

And yet, here you are, giving us this . . .

My God, man, what a treasure you are - your heart is as big as the Universe. What an honor it is, for me, to read your story. Your courage and upstandingness are an inspiration - to me - to us all.

May many blessings and love shower upon you and yours.
You have all my compassion and empathy.

Thank you for this comment about his story. Though I do not have time tonight, by next weekend I intend to have this story full read. I so look forward to finding out about all of you on this board. :yes:
 

Opter

Silver Meritorious Patron
VERY VERY INTERESTING :thumbsup::thumbsup: It is good to find the real truth about the 70% success rate - per the cult PR - of the Narconon program.

Please continue.

Opter
 

scooter

Gold Meritorious Patron
I’d been “promoted” from C/S to “Senior Director for Production” – which meant I was over Treasury, Technical and Qual divisions. SDP was the Narconon equivalent of OES in an org, and just as thankless a task. One of my juniors was the course sup and he got very sick (of course “everybody knew” it was just his case) and he’d wanted to go back onto his program because he felt his Objectives were unflat and thus he wasn’t allowed to be staff per Narconon policy because he hadn’t completed his Narconon program. So I was now also the Course Sup.

I decided to go ask him myself what was happening and I walked into his room and asked him if he were dead yet. He was obviously ill and we chatted briefly about how we could somehow get all of his stuff done without me having to take over his job for the months it would take to get him through all of this. He went back to work a few days later.

Then we had some idiot turn up across the valley and set fire to the place. All night long fire trucks were turning up on the property to fill up with water and then go back to fighting the fire – the kids loved the excitement but for me it just meant less sleep.

That week was yet another week of no money in and the place was imploding. The child-care centre we’d set up was also collapsing so Caz went off to try to handle that. Our business partner wasn’t friends with us any more which didn’t help – we had no money and were totally at the mercy of Narconon for our necessities like power and water. And it got worse rather than better.

Our new registrar had been trying to leave staff but having no success, so he went and reverted to heroin and then told everybody. Of course this meant he could no longer be on staff but he had to hang around for the obligatory “handlings.” And our business partner and my wife were rapidly becoming the worst of enemies. She wanted to buy us out at a low rate or sell to us at a high one and we could do nothing about it. We had no income from either of our jobs but had a high loan repayment to be met on our business, and our “partner” knew she had us over a barrel.

Then we had yet another week of no pay and the ED NN ANZO ordered us all to have a game of football to make us feel better. I refused to join in but eventually got talked into doing it, only to have my ankle broken by a student who thought I was someone else and hacked wildly at me.

So I got to be taken across very bumpy roads for an hour and then wait in a hospital for seven hours to see a doctor. Sometime after midnight I got my ankle set in a cast and I went back to Narconon the following day, and straight back to work. Within two days I’d physically collapsed but I was still expected to at least do folders on demand. It got even worse.

A few weeks after this, we had a whole bunch of people from CLO and NN ANZO plus others come to “inspect” the place because there was still no money coming in. My wife got hold of some of them and put it to them that the ED needed training and that I should be ED temporarily while the ED was trained up and then could come back and take over again. I was willing to go along with this ONLY if I wasn’t left on the ED post but it was made very plain I was temporary.

This immediately became I was mutinous and trying to take over from the ED and thus I must be the “GI Why.” So I was ordered to do ethics (which I refused) and attempts were made to isolate my wife and I from the “loyal” staff. But of course I could still be badgered at all hours to C/S folders “as needed.”

One of our staff blew, scored drugs and took them and did so with a student he was supposed to taking to the doctors. They both arrived back late at night and the student was telling us that the staff member had forced him to take drugs but he’d tried to talk him out of it. Of course all the students and staff knew about it and began to question whether the program was actually worth doing if the staff would take you out to score drugs.

Then one of the staff got coerced into having an abortion - she was young and her and her partner were both on staff and they’d have to leave to support the child so the greatest good of course was to abort the child. My wife was livid about it, I was numb. It was all so insane as to be unbelieveable. The ED actually drove this girl to have the termination after being one of those who’d spent time “convincing” her of the rightness of the situation.

Shortly after this, the ED’s husband arrived from the US. He was a nice enough fellow and had been on and off Narconon staff for many years and done the program a few times as he’d reverted after the program at least three times that he told me. He was a trained C/S but for some reason wasn’t going to be C/Sing at all. I didn’t question this although I didn’t understand why at the time.

Then came a bombshell that was hushed up as much as possible and few around at the time ever found out about it. All the time we’d had no money coming in, our main reg (a long-time scientologist) had been trying to get a girl from England to come over and do the Narconon program here as it was a lot cheaper even with airfares taken into account. He’d spent hours on the phone to her and run up huge phone bills and was supposedly handling her on the phone day and night to get her here, and often not on post in the mornings because he’d supposedly been talking to her at 3am in the morning or some such.

What had been occurring is they’d started a long distance relationship and were basically having phone sex – literally. Sitting around masturbating and telling the other person what you are doing because you are thinking of them can’t be classified as anything else.

What really pissed me off was there was no apology for me for having been labelled as the person “stopping the GI” – the whole attention was now on keeping all this quiet. The ED wanted to sack the guy, her senior (ED NN ANZO) wanted to ship him off to Narconon Melbourne because they needed staff down there and he was being pressured to get some. I tried to get some sense put in where the guy could go to Melbourne temporarily but come back once this girl from England had done the program and gone home. She was to arrive in a few weeks and maybe it could be put that our senior reg was going to help out Melbourne for six months then come back? The guy was shipped out and never came back. And one of the new staff found out about it anyway and left in disgust soon after.

My wife had now found a place for us to live and we were getting ready to move to it – it was on acres several miles away from Narconon and it was relatively cheap rent. We were finally getting out of our tiny place and getting a real house with bedrooms and a bathtub and a yard that wasn’t shared with people withdrawing from drugs.

Two days before we actually moved, the course sup called me to the courseroom to confirm his suspicions about a student. This guy had been to Sydney the day before and was now in the courseroom with pupils like pinheads and he was scratching himself constantly.. I went and had a quick chat to the guy and to a few others so as not to make it too obvious and then we pulled him out of the courseroom and off to a quiet office for an interview – he was off his head on heroin.

It went like this – a NN ANZO staffer had taken him to Sydney the day before to renew his visa and, as she worked in the org at nights, had taken him into the org with her. He’d asked if he could go across the road to MacDonalds by himself for some food and she’d said OK – a big no-no in Narconon policy as students are NEVER supposed to go anywhere without a staff member present. But the girl was a course sup at the org and had to stay with her students, didn’t she?

So our guy had gone across to Maccas and been standing in the queue when the guy behind him pulls out a cell phone and organizes a heroin deal. Our guy suddenly gets cravings, gets his food and collars this other guy outside and convinces him he’s legitimate and needs to score too. Being from another country and having the accent to prove it makes it easier. They agree to meet in 40 minutes. So back to the courserooom goes our student.

Now another firm Narconon policy is that students never have more than 5 dollars on them at a time – our friend had almost one hundred. He’d needed it to pay for his visa etc. and had kept the change as he hadn’t been asked for it back, had he?

But now he’s “thirsty” – so he needs to go to Maccas again. Sure, not a problem, says his minder. He goes and meets this guy, catches a cab somewhere, does a deal in a back alley somewhere with a dealer, gets a cab back to the org, sits in the courseroom with his deal until course is over and he gets a lift back to Narconon. Hides his drugs and gets up early in the morning and has a hit. Then goes on course. And is spotted.

Our guy is now scared he’ll be shipped off home as he’s failed at the program. He’s put back into Withdraw for a few days then back into the sauna, after doing some “amends” for his sins. He “graduated” several months later, went home and promptly relapsed into heroin usage again.
 

scooter

Gold Meritorious Patron
Mate - what you're getting is called the "rough draft" :coolwink:

This is a book - and I have all the docs to back up what I'm saying (well most - the NSW police have some of them to help with investigations.):yes:

OSAspawn, you'd better report THAT to your betters. :roflmao:
 

I told you I was trouble

Suspended animation
Goodness me Scoots ... you and Caz must both have the patience of Job.

It is incredible to hear the real story about what was going on behind the scenes because we normally would only hear the "PR" version of events (lies).

It really does read like a Tarantino script.


:yes:
 

anonomog

Gold Meritorious Patron
I’d been “promoted” from C/S to “Senior Director for Production” SNIP


:omg:

Write the book!
You write well and I wanted you to continue...I ordered a bulk delivery of popcorn.:D

Title it: 1001 reasons why your job doesn't suck as much as you think it does.
All through the post I was thinking even my worst days at my position from hell didn't hold a candle to this.
 

Intelligence

Silver Meritorious Patron
Awesome Scooter

This is going to be an awesome book Scooter. Go for it, my friend :)

2011 is going to be a very Big Win year indeed, eh'?
 

AngeloV

Gold Meritorious Patron
Jeez. Running a non-scio addiction center is hard enough. Throw in scientology admin tech and you get a nightmare Scenario (for the staff at least. Sounds like the addicts pretty much acted like addicts do.)

Compelling reading, scooter.
 
Top