Hi Everyone,
Three weeks ago the San Francisco Org started sending out teams of recruiters trying to lure in new customers WHILE I was out there. That was the first time in a long time that I've seen them do that. Now today (Sunday the 10th) when I arrived they had a large table set up out front and had a team giving "free" E-meter demonstrations. They even had quite a few staff and maybe some public members wandering around handing out fliers. The Org had quite a little happening going on out there.
Fortunately most people were not impressed by the demonstration. Some were even put off by it. One woman I talked to asked, "What kind of a 'church' has a storefront window? It's all so weird." Another told me that the E-meter didn't respond like it was supposed to so the recruiter started making up all kinds of excuses for the failure. I told her it rarely ever does but most people don't find that out until AFTER they've wasted tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars and that if you complain they'll just end up blaming YOU for all its failings.
The more people they attracted to their table the more that came over to talk to me. Many would walk directly from their table over to me. It turned out to be a BIG day for telling my story and handing out fliers.
About an hour after I arrived the Org decided to shut their recruitment drive down and pull everything and everyone back inside. I guess one little wog was able to rain on their parade so they packed up their marbles and went home. Cool!
It was encouraging to see that so few bought into the charade enough to go inside for the "free" personality test. However, it does kind of concern me whenever I see relatively large crowds being lured in to at least hear their sales pitch. The more people they hit on the higher their chances of nailing someone.
It should be interesting to see what's going to happen next. Perhaps NOW would be a good time to organize another large picket out there. Anyone interested?
By the way, does anyone know if this recent big recruiting push is a nationwide / worldwide thing or just a San Francisco Org thing?
Wayne Whitney
