This “ideal” org in Chicago is really setting some interesting precedents.
The building has been completed for some time. But they cannot open it.
There are two apparent reasons.
First, Miscavige fears being anywhere public — even surrounded by security and all sorts of measures to protect him from being served with legal process.
The second reason seems to be that they have no staff, so have resorted to a scraping of the barrel from other orgs. In the past this was done wholesale, often using SO members (like in Columbus and Orlando), but now it seems that like donations to the IAS, orgs are supposed to cough up with staff to “help Chicago.” And they are contributing their elderly staff, the spin is that they are “experienced.”
Just look at the collection of doddery
From week before
CC Nashville decide they didn’t have anyone they could afford, so they recruited someone in their city for an org in another city. They probably only have 10 staff in Nashville.
Did they raid a nursing home to staff Chicago??
I can’t wait until they start buying up real estate and opening up “Ideal Retirement Homes” making a fortune off of abusing elderly Scientologists and cashing in on insurance benefits.
The city musical chairs is nuts. If I were in City X, and I had give a staff member, who I could ill afford, I would be pissed.
Wow. Can you imagine being bossed around by a 25 year old when you’re 70? Can you imagine working staff hours at 70? Or 60? Being yelled at because you’re just being a body? You’re just pts! You’re in Treason when you faint from fatigue? Wow. The body is not the same at 70 as we were at 25 or 40. But those kids don’t know that so they will resort to accusations like the above I bet. That’s just my opinion of course 🤕😐
This reminds me of Berlin in 1945. Those left to defend the city from the approaching allied armies were old men and boys.
Just curious, what are the living arrangements like for these folks? Are they renting 2-3 bedroom apartments and putting bunk beds in them? I can’t imagine being middle-aged or elderly and living like college students.
I hope you don’t mind me “hitchhiking” on your comment…
I wanted to see if Mike has seen the latest on Carol Miles. She and I worked
together in TV Production in London in 1988-1989. I have GOOGLED her over
the years and seen the “Whatever happened to Carol Miles” stories.
Now these links have turned up. She grew up in Hamburg, so the German Company
makes sense:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/carol-miles-85936159/?originalSubdomain=uk
https://www.nordlb.de/suche/ansprechpartner?tx_solr%5Bpage%5D=23&cHash=e162d3e5c7ce2ac55bf813060e26b1d7
Just wanted to find out if Mike has any info. My email is kevinsmithwick@gmail.com.
I’ve seen reference to “postulate contracts” in which the staff members aren’t supposed to show up until the org reaches an increased level of business where they’re needed – which of course isn’t going to happen.
So in the hall of mirrors that is Scientology, I wonder how many of these people claimed as signing up to staff Chicago will actually never show up, and might never have really been expected to. Plus it seems likely that some will get inextricably mired in the logistics of either leaving where they live now or finding a decent situation in Chicago, particularly since the CofS provides almost none of the sort of relocation assistance that a normal organization would.
The fact that that they also essentially don’t pay people – current staff pay has the purchasing power of about $5 in Hubbard’s era – may also drive their recruiting of people of retirement age.
And so the moss gathers upon the rock.
I guess if you are living on social security it makes it easier to join staff.
When I started in Scientology back in the 70s, almost all of the staff were in their 20s and 30s.
Public were of all ages but there were plenty of young people around.
In the Sea Org there were still many young staff members when I was last around in the early 2000s.
Not so at Class V Orgs. though, where there was a distinct geriatric ambience.
I guess this must have gotten much more pronounced since I was last there.
Cavalier, staff in their 20s to 30s in the ’70s, would be around 70 in the 2020s – it seems like a lot of the same people, and not much real new blood in this century.
Going Ideal? Does that mean closing the doors and turning off the lights?
Would seem ideal to me.
Seriously, Scientology is shrinking. The organization needs to move into storefronts, not large buildings.
Get out your popcorn SP’s and sit back and enjoy the show.
David Miscavige can no longer run and hide
The wheels of karmic justice have churned slowly but they are churning and soon Miscavige will be punished for his crimes against humanity.
Read Tony Ortega’s blog ! He is keeping excellent track of all the lawsuits against Miscavige and the cult of Scientology
Let’s all stand up and give three hip hop hoorays to all of you SP’s who never gave up!
Your are relentless, defiant and resolute. Thank you
The cult is dwindling down to nothing and us SP’s are winning big time!
I hear you, SP!
I’m not sure what is going on with these new staff members being recruited from other orgs. No org or mission is adequately staffed so why would an under staffed org let their people go to other orgs?
It reminds me of when I was the ‘HAS’ at a mission. It was my job to recruit new staff members. About the best I could do was put a sandwich board in front of the building saying “Now Hiring”. Of course all I got were a few desperate itinerant folks stopping in. When they asked how much they would get paid, I was honest with them and told them that pay was based on ‘stats’, so it might be little or nothing. They all walked out.
At the same time, I was getting lots of pressure from someone at Flag to send them some sea org recruits. There were two Mexican guys that responded to my sandwich board gimmick. I signed them up for staff at Flag. The Flag person was ecstatic because their ‘stats’ were up. The problem was how to get these guys to Flag, they had no money. I took them to the local Greyhound station and there was some sort of travelers aid group operating there. I introduced these guys and told the travelers aid rep that I had secured employment for them in Florida but they needed transportation and had no money. When I mentioned scientology, they were immediately suspicious. I went into full asshole scientology mode and told them that they were discriminating on the basis of religion, etc. etc. They got tired of my ranting and whining immediately and put these guys on the bus to Clearwater.
I didn’t feel bad about sending these guys there. I knew they would last only a few days or weeks at Flag before getting the boot. I’d let the folks at Flag deal with any fallout and I figured that these guys were at least in a better location to secure work in a better year round climate if they had to be on the streets.
Ms. B, when orgs have a staff member for every couple of active members, how can they be “understaffed” these days? There might not be enough people to fill all the slots on the oversized “org board” specified by Hubbard back when Scientology was booming, or to try to actively use 100,000 old “central files” that have accumulated over half a century and handle other pointless make-work, but what are all the staff needed for these days, really?
I’ve never seen a good explanation of what org staff really do – in fact, it’s such an opaque subject, I’m starting to suspect that Scientology somehow deliberately keeps people in the dark about what’s really going on. But I keep hearing that the local orgs have have a dozen or two staff, when they can only ever gather 35 to 50 people for the photographs we see at events. That’s at a level equivalent having a full time domestic servant cooking and cleaning and looking after a household of 2 to 4 people, which would actually be more than most people with a modest sized house would need.
Perhaps after the pandemic and with a lot of members not coming back in, it’s become painfully obvious that some of the orgs really do have staff to spare.
You are absolutely correct here Peacemaker. I am referring to an unfilled org board, not the fact that there are plenty of staff members around to handle the number of public beating the doors down demanding the ‘tech’.
Still, there may be plenty of make work stuff to do for dedicated staff hanging around to be the last to turn off the lights when these orgs and missions close down. Because there is little or no pay, they are off moonlighting to make ends meet. This makes your average org seem very busy, at least to the staff hangers on-ers. If they actually have nothing to do there IS always central files to work on.
It is unlikely that any of these “new staff” will be there in 3 months. They will find that the promises were lies. The pay will be little to nothing. They can’t afford rent and food in Chicago and the org won’t be able to turn on the heat this winter.
I predict all the new staff will be reaching out to the Aftermath foundation in the near future.
Yup
the one thing with several of them being veteran staff at other orgs is they’re going to be directly exposed to the fact it isn’t automatically better with a big space, wages aren’t automatically higher because it is called “Ideal”. Not only will this one deflate fast, but I predict there will be a number of those veteran staff who finally cognite that it wasn’t their little org that was the problem.
If I recall correctly, LRH was in hiding at the end of his life.
Je was not hiding, he was travelling incognito and being modest and discreet.
Is that what they call being transported in the trunk of a vehicle and making sure not even his wife knew his location?
The new strategy behind Ideal orgs, starting with Chicago, might be:
“Ideal Nursing Home for Aged Scientologists.”
Fred,
Thanks for the laugh. Makes total sense and perhaps that hope is what is driving the folks pictured in the promo piece.
Yes, Glenn, I would venture to guess that a hardworking, dedicated Scientologist, after years of service, would hope to be taken of in his or her old age.
That’s not asking too much, is it, David Miscavige?
You’ve poured millions of dollars and countless man hours into “Ideal Orgs” worldwide, yet they’re nothing more than empty shrines to a dead madman.
Supporting elderly people? That would be decent.
I’m not being facetious but, poor old Elba, God bless her soul, looks as if she had eight or nine attempts at putting her shirt buttons in the matching holes. She finally got it pretty right.
No new blood. I wonder why????
The internet is why.