Sun Mar 09, 2008 7:27 pm by everfree
Ah, "external influences"... good times.
Here's how it looked at a lower level (Class V) org.
Staff at Class V orgs very rarely get paid anything resembling a livable income. Most often the pay is pocket money, if anything at all. One year I made $500 for the whole year of way more than full time work.
As a result, staff usually have to "moonlight" - working outside the org - to make some money to live on. It can be difficult working for non-Scn companies because as staff you are required to put staff before any other consderation.
That means that if you have to stay up until 3am on a wednesday night preparing bulk mail or writing letters, that's what you had to do, regardless of having to get up at 5 to go to your moonlight job.
And if you had to be in on Thursday morning to gather stats or finalize that reg (sales) cycle you had been working on, there was little choice.
These things would cause trouble with most non-scn employers, so best would be to work for a scn-owned company who would be more sympathetic to your needs as a staff: let you sleep in a couple hours if you needed it, or get time off to be at the org on Thurday morning, or let you travel to the nearest SO base at a moment's notice for training or "handling". The drawback being that in return for such flexibility they generally didn't pay too great. But such were the sacrifices we made for the great cause...
Well, one day a very nice scn employer who I had worked for briefly was at Flag and got called into Ethics and grilled as to why staff members worked for their company. They ended up being required to get $15,000 worth of security checks at their own expense in order to "prove" that they weren't doing anything wrong.
A short while later we received an "interog" which is a list of questions of interest to Ethics in weeding out undesirables and/or uncovering misdeeds. It asked questions about what Scnists employed staff, who let staff rent from or live with them, if any Scnists had given the staff gifts, that sort of thing.
Two separate SO missions were sent into the org to investigate further. Remember, there was nothing going on but a few Scnist public trying to make life easier for some of the staff by allowing them to work very flexible moonlight jobs to make some money.
And by money, I don't mean getting rich, I mean to be able to have a roof over one's head and eat food besides ramen with ketchup, ramen with mustard, plain ramen, and - for a real treat - ramen with a can of tuna for protein.
About that time I had a child and needed a new job; a Scnist employer I had known for many years and considered a friend just happened to have an opening for a position for which I was very - almost uniquely - qualified. It paid pretty well, more than most Scn jobs. I was very excited.
When I enquired about it, I was told that they had recently made a decision to no longer employ CofS staff members. They mentioned the person who had been sec checked specifically, and I think the missionaires had been to their company.
I tried desperately to change their mind, but couldn't sway them. I was absolutely crushed. I never spoke to them again as a friend (though I now have much more understanding of and compassion for what they were going through).
I had to support my child so I ended up getting a regular job and started refusing to do anything like stay up late or take time off that might jeopardize it.
Shortly after, the first wave of what can only be called propoganda posters arrived at my org. They were intended to warn us about EIs.
One had a guant, destitute staff member sitting on a park bench with his e-meter with a caption like "They told me I'd make a lot of money if I left staff." Another had an angry, purple-faced businessman boss looming over a tiny, scared staff member employee.
Rather than have their intended effect, those posters pissed me off to no end. The staff were already destitute - without a finger lifted or even mention made on the part of CofS management - and the only purple-faced bosses I've ever seen surrounded by cowed juniors were all CofS execs, never outside CofS.
I remember thinking that if management put the effort they put into policing external influences into actually ensuring the staff made a livable wage instead that little or no such policing would be needed, they only felt the need to do so because staff welfare is an area for which they take absolutely no responsibility whatsoever so they knew they are weak and open to attack.
I know us staffers didn't get it as rough as you SO members, but it reached us as well.
How far does that extend? Your parents can't buy you anything on holidays? Is the intention to keep members in poverty or what? What is the stated reasoning behind this?
