From: fun@thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard)
Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology
Subject: Adelaide org visit: slight enturbulation
Date: 28 Dec 1998 02:05:15 GMT
Message-ID: <766p0r$14g$1@thingy.apana.org.au>
Just went to Adelaide for Christmas. I mentioned this on another newsgroup, with a note that I'd be going in to annoy the Scientologists. So on Saturday afternoon I borrowed a Mafia staff car, parked outside the Adelaide CoS and went on in.
(It's in a reasonably nice-looking shop front fairly close to the middle of town. The street is pretty dark and shadowed. They're just across the street from the offices of the Adelaide Advertiser, the local daily newspaper. Apart from the darkness of the street, it's pretty well-located. See pics at http://suburbia.net/~fun/scn/orgs/adel/ .)
I was greeted at the door by a staffer acting like ... Well, CoS staffers have two modes of interaction. One is the instant outgoing bonhomie that gets the raw meat right there. The other is the paranoid weirdo mode they take on at pickets, when it's abundantly clear that this person is not operating on the same wavelength as the rest of humanity. Disjointed sentences, quivering facial expressions, that sort of thing. This guy was in the second mode.
Staffer: "Can I help you?"
Me: "Yeah. I saw the personality test thing, I've got a spare half an hour, thought I'd try it."
Staffer: "Uh ... are you from Melbourne? Is your name David?"
Me: "Yep." (Hey, I'm not going to lie to them.)
A second staffer comes along: "Uh, you're not welcome here. Could you leave, please."
Me: "No worries." I left. Turned a corner, looked back and saw staffer #1 looking around, puzzled, wondering where I'd gone, inspecting the car. (I predict that tracing that number plate will do you no good whatsoever.) Went to get some film (nothing open - I'm not used to cities that are shut on Saturday afternoons any more), came back and drove off. Waved goodbye at the staffer (not sure which one) keeping a careful watch on the car through the window.
Good God. They bothered sending photos and stuff around to the Adelaide org warning them that I was coming. I've never been in there, I don't know any of the people there. But they knew I was coming and were on high alert for someone of my general description walking through the door at SOME UNKNOWN TIME somewhere around Christmas.
I could have a lot of fun with this.
(I feel so loved! So validated!)
So. What sorta stuff would they have been sent, to be on the lookout for me? Have any ex-staff on a.r.s had any experience with this sort of thing? Something more than the usual DA pack, surely.
--
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