Scientology: Adventures in Employment - Part 1

Before I say anything in this post, let me first say that I have not studied Scientology and I cannot begin to tell you everything they believe. This is merely a brief but true story of my encounter with them.

I worked for Scientologists for a total of 3.5 days in 2005. A lot of weird stuff went down in that time, thus it was suggested that I separate the story into 2 parts: Application --> Hire and Working. Here is part 1:

Application --> Hire

When I was 19 I had a 3 month period where I was unemployed. I was looking for work and had decided to stay focused on administrative positions.

I applied for a role at a local physical therapy office. I will only refer to it as HM as this will play into the story in part 2. The role at HM was the executive assistant to the head physical therapist. Wow, was I in for a treat.

I was called in for an interview so I got myself all dressed up and brought a copy of my resume and references along.  I looked like this: 


Except a different outfit, no brief case, less sassy and I actually looked like me. Basically, not like that at all, except for the brown hair.

The receptionist "Keisha" was not very friendly. I had to sit in 1 of 3 seats that were next to her desk and listen to her answer the phone for about 15 minutes. Thrilling. Then I met with the CEO of the company- it was a very small office, as you can probably guess.

The CEO, "Bill" was an older gentleman, he asked me the normal interview questions (strengths, weaknesses, etc.), told me about the company and the job and explained that where they look at experience, they want the right kind of people in their company - Sounds great, right? The he asked me to meet with his niece, the COO.

I waited for 45 minutes to meet with the COO, "Katherine." She was young, tall, thin and blonde, but very serious. Kind of like this: 

except a different person. She asked me some more typical interview questions, yadda, yadda, yadda. Then she asked me to take some tests.

Now, what kind of tests would you expect if you were me? Applying for an admin job, I'm thinking typing, filing (therefore alphabetizing or number sequences) etc.? Right?

Nope!

I had to take an IQ test first to see if I was as smart as this guy: 

I'm not, but close enough. Then I had to take a personality test. I wasn't sure exactly what personality they were hoping for. I assumed something like this: 

Happy administrative assistant excited about doing her job. I would find out later, they were hoping more for something along the lines of this: 

Jack Nicholson, post-lobotomy. I'm not sure what that says about me that whatever they got from my personality test made them think I fit their company, but I try not to think about that too much!


Mind you, all of this testing is being done in their kitchen, where people are coming in and out, eating their tuna salad and Keisha is yelling at people about chipping in for pizza. 


After the tests, I sit around for another half hour while they review things and Katherine and Bill determined if I was smart enough (or dumb enough?) to work there. Also, thinking back, they never really did discuss my administrative abilities much. I was 19, desperate and stupid so I didn't think any of this was weird at the time but now I'm like "WTF?!?!"


After spending about 3 hours in that god-awful office painted in all baby blue and Keisha droning on and on over the phone, I was called back into Bill's office where he offered me the job.


Once again, I was 19 and desperate but I didn't think any of the following:


-why are there no other applicants?
-why didn't they want to see other applicants before making their decision?
-why didn't they care about my relatively little administrative skills or past experience?
-who in their right mind spends 3 hours in an interview?
-why did I have to take those tests?
-why am I not at all shown the actual physical therapy portion of the office?


No, no, I was excited that I would be getting $4 more an hour than my last job, plus they would pay all my benefits and give me paid time off and holidays! What more could you want?!?!


Sane people. That's what. Remember, Scientology is promoted heavily by this guy:



At the time I didn't take the job knowing about the Scientology thing, but trust me, you're going to want to stick around for Part 2 because things just started to get weird. My 3.5 days with them were the weirdest 3.5 days I've had at any company. And I've had a lot of weird days.


To Be Continued...