After leaving staff (the Guardians Office) I worked at Delphi Boston for a few months. I absolutely disliked working there so I left and went to work as a waitress in a really nice Boston restaurant. I was shocked at how much money a waitress could make and did rather well considering that up until then I had been making peanuts for the past two and a half years.

I worked at this restaurant until I became pregnant. I didn't want to be on staff and have children as I had always felt that being a full time mom was a good thing.

Our son Derek is now 22 and he is a really nice guy. I love my son more than life itself. I am so fortunate that he never joined the SO. Not that they didn't try! But that is another story.

When Derek was about 18 months old, I went back to work part time for the Great American Picture Company (GAPCO). At that time George Freeman was the owner of the company. George is a nice guy that I recently contacted and found out that he was still in.

I told him it was OK if he wrote up a KR on the phone call because I knew he was currently on his PTS/SP course and would end up with a huge withold if he didn't tell. God, is that nutty or what?

It was funny but that night I just rang up a few Scientology friends and it was very interesting because some (like George) were still in and others quietly out. The ones that are quietly out, just love to gossip!

In 1989 I was working for the Great American Picture Company (GAPCO) in Boston, Mass.

I was considered part owner but of course there was nothing in writing about it. It's just an example of the sloppy way some Scio's do business. We were all OT's and being a partner meant that as long as you were "in ethics" and "on the bridge" you were part owner and shared the wealth, but if you "leave Scientology" you get nothing and this was a non verbal agreement. We all thought that way so there was no reason to sign papers.

The Executive Director of GAPCO at that time was my good friend, Maureen O'keefe, who was then auditing on OT 7. The Head of Sales (PES) was OT 8 Anne Strickland, the OES, was Anne's husband, Curt Strickland, who was also auditing on OT 7. GAPCO even build a special room in the business offices so that the people on OT 7 could go and Solo Audit there. This was a company run on Scientology policies. What a nightmare!

The sales force at that time consisted of myself, and a very nice man and OT V named Chris Harrison, and a very lovely and talented man named Rick Birkenshaw, who was also auditing on OT 7 at that time.

Most Scientologist I know are very nice people. It seems the mean ones rise to the top.

Since I was the only non OT part owner in the company Maureen and Anne decided it was time for me to do the OT levels.

I personally did not see this happening any time soon because my husband, Bobby was the Deputy Executive Director of Boston org and then the ED and making something like 20 to 30 dollars a week. Our son, was attending Delphi and I was basically supporting the family and paying for Delphi and all the bills and trying to make payments on to the Bridge.

Anne and Maureen decided that I was going to go to Flag do the OT levels and there would be no stops on this. I was to leave for Flag on Jan 3rd, 1990.

I was instructed by Maureen and Anne to get as many applications for Company credit cards as I could and to fill them out, which I did. I was told that I would be paid $1000.00 a week while doing my OT levels and that Anne Strickland would handle my finances while I was gone, insuring that my bills were paid and my husband and son taken care of while I was gone.

In the past, the company had paid for the OT levels of both Anne and Curt Strickland so I assumed that they would also cover these credit card charges that the company was about to rack up for my OT levels.

I arrived at Flag on Jan 3rd but only had about 11 thousand dollars from the company credit cards. I needed a lot more to pay for all the services I needed to do at Flag to get me through OT 3 including paying for room and board.

Maureen got with a Scientologist named Leslie McDermott who was a very nice lady with excellent credit. Maureen regged Leslie to max out all her credit cards in order for me to do the OT levels. She assured Leslie that I would be making lots of money when I returned as GAPCO would then be run by OT's and that this was really a "theta" thing to do.

Leslie did it, and my OT levels were "secured".

I'll leave doing the OT levels for another story, but I will say that I had a great time at Flag for the 3 months I was there. It was like a 3 month vacation with people that all thought exactly alike. LOL. If you are into group agreement (like I was) this is like being in heaven.

By mid March 1990 the money for room and board had run out and I was under a lot of pressure to complete for LRH's Birthday. I completed OT III in March and then flew home.

When I arrived home I found out that the promise of pay for $1000.00 a week had never happened and that I was in the process of being evicted from my apartment, my lights and phone were shut off for non payment and I was 3 months behind in my Delphi tuition and all the monthly payments for all the credit cards were now overdue as well. These credit card payments came over to $1000.00 a month. Anne had paid me very little during the time I was at Flag. This bunch of ethical OT's had crashed stats while I was gone and of course no one would dare tell me about my financial situation because that would have cause entheta and a distraction while I was on the OT levels.

I was completely overwhelmed. I had no money and had to do some fast maneuvering to get my financial situation under control. It was such a nightmare that I didn't think I would ever be able to recover, but I got back on the sales lines and started to make some money. Stress was my middle name. Anne was not even slightly apologetic about this.

I finally came to realize that the above incident overwhelmed me to such a degree that I didn't start recovering from the effects of it until recently when I finally set my own financial house in order.

It was financially and emotionally a cripple. I couldn't deal with financial things until recently. I developed an aversion to them due to being stress out for so long. But I finally have it under control.

GAPCO was doing so poorly that some weeks there was no pay at all and the weeks that we were paid, Maureen would take my entire pay check and pay the company credit card bills that had been used to pay for my OT levels. This left me with no money for food, rent, gas, or anything else.

There was no way I could pay the bills, and support my husband who was on staff making little to nothing and paying Delphi $450 a month so my son could be protected from the "evil psychs" in the public schools. I'm not kidding, I really used to think like that.

I also found out later that Maureen was paying Curt and Anne full pay and not paying me. I'm not really sure why that was but when I got my hands on the check book I discovered that she was doing this quite frequently.

I'm sure Maureen had this somehow justified as being the "greatest good". The fact was that it was illegal and GAPCO would play hanky panky with the money all the time.

I was drowning and was told I was responsible for the situation and that I should do O/W write ups and conditions to handle it.

Being that I was such an indoctrinated idiot I attempted to stick it out.

But I knew that if I stayed the situation would only get worse because Maureen was driving GAPCO into the ground with the application of LRH tech.

I left GAPCO and jumped from the frying pan into the fire. I started working for Bridge Publications as a Wholesale bookseller.

But that's another story.

Patty

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TIP #1

In order to properly eat a doughnut you need some liquids to wash it down. Coffee, milk, and Mountain Dew are the three most widely accepted doughnut chasers with coffee and milk having the added value of 'dunkability'.

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