omg!! I finally figured it out - when I accidentally hit the escape key it wipes out my post completely. God - that has been driving me nuts for days. Does anybody know how to undo the erasure?
Anyway! Cowboy - I hope you are still with us after that epic derail I contributed to. I think few of us have had the "pleasure" of meeting the man, so these slices taken of his life are very illuminating as to what he was like and how people dealt with him. It seems to me that CMO was ostensibly in charge - since it seems apparent, he no longer wanted to be. Was this a conscious decision by the execs in CMO to filter what he was told, or they just fell into it as it was just survival with an unpredictable ruler on the loose?
It reminds me of the Dev-t graphed policy with the unstable senior.
Another question - some people tell stories of his "generosity" - was their any truth to it? Example: this guy I knew worked on some sort of TV ad and messed it up. Hubbard flipped out, and made him reshoot it at his own expense (I seem to recall a $10K figure in 70's money) and after he was done and it was approved, Ron thanked him, and repaid him what he had spent. Do you remember any stuff like that?
Mimsey
The CMO acted sort of like the LRH letter writing unit. We responded in his name and were tasked with dealing with difficult situations. Of course, not only did we answer in his name, but when we did send something in and it was a mess, he'd often take it out on the messenger.
The messengers had zones of responsibility, for instance DM was in charge of Cine camera stuff at one point, and the messengers would often be there when a particular submission was presented, to answer questions on the submission, take any wrath, etc.
CMO was not "ostensibly" in charge. It was in charge. Period. It was everything. Only a messenger could get you in to see the man, and that on the rarest of occassions. Mostly personal contacts occured on a walkabout, or when he worked Cine. Any visitors were usually something to do with Cine, going over a mix, a video, an edit, etc. Of course there were times that Hubbard would present to their area of work and frequently lambast them.
We learned his health, which was strained, was important as well, and his vessel-bursting tyrades at exposure to bad news would leave him shaking with rage and red-faced.
Yes, there was good to the man. I mentioned earlier in this thread that he paid for the SU messengers to all go to a Bee Gees concert.
Have you ever noticed how a beaten dog still graves the pet of it's master? So, too, did messengers crave the rare word of praise, which was sufficient for them to weather the fowl-mouthed tyrades and demeaning comments that were far more frequent.
I remember more than one occassion when several of us stood outside his room arguing over who had to go in and present bad news, knowing they might full well come out missing their head....
