February 06, 2003~~3:13 p.m.
C the Phone Nazi
It�s official because I have decided. e.sCIEntOlogy needs to get rid of C. I don�t believe I have introduced you all to C as of yet. I was waiting for just the right time when her patronizing manner and high-pitched squeak had finally pushed me over the edge into blatant maliciousness. And that time has come. C is a woman of slight stature. She stands about 5 feet tall and probably only weighs 90 pounds, at best. She is about 50 years old and is likely a natural redhead, but it appears that she dyes her hair at this juncture in her life. I know this because some days it is darker than others. On the �dark� days, it is a shade just past that which someone could pass as having naturally red hair. C wears her hair in a short coif and accents her coloring with outfits in burnt orange and sometimes, chartreuse. She wears an inordinate amount of gold jewelry and although she is not married (luckily for the male population) she wears a ring on her left ring finger which one can only assume was designed personally and includes a juncture of two very wide gold bands in between which is nestled a triangle-cut diamond. Since the apparent �symbol� of sCiENtoloGY is the triangle (I think it has something to do with something they call the �ARC� which stands for something obvious but to them, is revolutionary) I have decided that the triangle diamond is C's own personal reminder that she is a proud member of this cult. C(not her real name) uses a former LAST name as a first name in addition to a first initial. Her first/last name is not the same as her daughter�s and there is some crazy story associated with why and how she goes by the name she does, but I�m not sure what it is. All I know is that she has no real last name and the whole thing just makes her all the more wacko. C's voice is of import. I mentioned that she often uses a high-pitched squeak to converse with others. This is putting it mildly. Since my �workstation� (aka cubicle) corner is diagonal to her workstation corner, I am privy to her voice carrying over into my peaceful world approximately 76 times a day. I believe I am relieved of having to hear her more often than I do, because her voice reaches octaves only heard by those of the canine species. For this, I am truly blessed. Mostly, the �squeak� happens when C is trying to order someone around in a �nice� way so as to be condescendingly bitchy instead of just straight bitchy. Also, the �squeak� has an uncanny knack of turning into a high-pitched squeaky giggle when C is trying to be �cute� to someone on the phone or to simply act as though she gives a shit about anyone other than herself. The giggle is always the last straw for me. I pretty much lose it right about then. C used to be the building manager and was the person who was in charge of making sure the heater worked all the time, building maintenance, supply requests, et cetera. Right after I began working at e.Sci, she was quickly ousted from her position after several years of devoted servitude. The reason being that she is a raving bitch and if she ever caught someone using a cute wicker �in box� instead of the company endorsed black plastic ones, she exploded in a fit of temper and caused all employees in the surrounding vicinity to scramble hurriedly under their desks in trembling fear of the apocalypse. The company had had enough of C's rantings. So they moved her up to help out in the events side of the company to help with registration. They couldn�t just FIRE her because she was �one of them� and well, they owe it to themselves to take care of their own. At first, C was just a registration employee who worked the phones, making sure people had been invited to the events and informing them of details pertaining to the registration process. And then, it happened. C was promoted. Her dream of being in a position of power over a couple of lowly 20 year olds was realized. Now she would get PAID to be a rag! The biggest thing about C is that she wants to control everything within reach, whether or not it is her business to do so. And hypocritical doesn�t even begin to describe her. Just a few weeks ago, I was busily typing away at my computer when C began one of her many personal phone calls across the aisle from me. Since her voice shoots straight toward me, I was able to sit in on her conversation without much trouble or care to do so. I heard about her live-in boyfriend�s engaged daughter and the daughter�s non-sci fianc�. I heard how upsetting it was that the daughter would not be participating in a sci ceremony and apparently, does not seem to be all that interested in participating in sci at all. In fact, the biggest problem was that the fianc� was not intending to join the cult and this knowledge was disturbing to the father-in-law-to-be. At any rate, this conversation was only one of many �personal� phone calls I have been forced to listen to, coming from C's workstation. Then one day, I was involved in my own personal phone call. Having heard so many of C�s, I was very aware that likely, the people around me could hear my conversation. I was undaunted. I happened to be speaking to my mother on the phone and a subject came up on which I had a very definite and passionate opinion. I was speaking sternly and with authority. I was getting emotional. I was NOT yelling. Afterward, whilst I was having a normal conversation with a co-worker, C walked up to me and said in her most patronizing tone: �Honey, I just wanted to let you know that (lowering her voice to a whisper now�a very foreign concept for her vocal chords) we could all hear your conversation a minute ago! Maybe next time you should take it into an office or something.� I rolled my eyes and said, �Yeah, I knew you could hear it. I don�t really care.� I did not say, �and don�t call me honey you lunatic cult-member!� but I really really wanted to. The most irritating thing about her making this comment to me was not that it was none of her business in the first place, it wasn�t that she used the patronizing tone with me or that she called me �honey� or that just looking at her makes me want to curl up and die a quick, painless death, it was that not only does SHE hold personal conferences from her desk almost daily, but she also runs a side business out of her home which she takes phone calls for at work! There is an aside to this �personal phone call� issue that I would now like to address. To make it clear, I must back up a bit. In sci, there is this process called �auditing� where a cultmember goes to Florida for months on end (there is no set time frame for auditing) and basically has their brain �read� by a trained �auditor.� Apparently, it is very expensive and you go through all your life experiences and �get rid� of any brain �clutter� or something. So people from our company go to Florida and �work� from afar whilst being brainwashed in this manner. They go away and nobody knows when they will be back. To be fair, they do their jobs and are in email and phone contact with our office. But obviously, if a manager is gone for months at a time, certain things cannot be controlled from a beach in Florida as they might be if you were in the office every day. The director of our area has been in Florida since October or November. We are uncertain as to when he will be back in California. While he is gone, the Powers that Be have decided that our area needs �looking after� (which is not true, because someone ELSE has been designated the �go to� woman in his absence) and the CEO and office manager bitch have been keeping a �close eye� on our department. Which means we all have to look busy all the time despite it being our slow season. Which brings me to my argument that, if it is company policy to allow all sci's who want to, to go to Florida and be audited and �do their jobs� concurrently, this would assume that the company feels as though you are fully capable of doing your job equally as well from afar as you would in the office. Otherwise, allowing auditing would just be like allowing a 6-month vacation with pay, right? So why would you then turn around and assume that in the absence of our director, we are not being �managed� appropriately and that we would need to be watched closely to do our work? Since we are on �high alert� that we are being spied upon, I was told that if I need to make any personal phone calls, I should do it in an office where the execs can�t hear me. (This, I assume, is not in any way related to C�s meddling) This pisses me off for a number of reasons. The first is that in our company handbook, there is an explicit section that addresses personal phone calls and other things of that nature and it says that doing these things is understandable and okay as long as the privilege is not misused. The second is that not only does EVERYONE need to make a personal phone call once in awhile, this whole COMPANY is run for personal �religious� gain. I can say without reservation that the CEO�s �assistant� probably spends more time doing work for sci than she does for the company. So if I suddenly need to curtail my phone calls in the event that an executive walks by one day and hears me making dinner plans with a friend, when I WORK for a company that makes money off of me going to their brainwashing courses, I am miffed, to say the least. Mind you, I make about 2 personal phone calls a week. There is no issue of me being unable to get my work done for being on the phone, or that I will miss significantly the many hours of socializing I had become accustomed to or something. It�s just the principle of having to bow to The Man and that whole �authority� thing that pisses me off royally. I should be allowed the same basic rights as an employee in a cubicle as those who have their own offices are sciEntOlogIst and crazy as hell. And by the by, hell is exactly where I�d like to suggest C take her next �auditing� vacation.
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