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I got down to the ground floor by the painfully slow elevators that seemed to stop at every floor even though most of the time no one was there.

I got out and asked a girl in the hall about the canteen, “It’s downstairs, next to the galley,” she said.

I was there all damn day and nobody told me about this, but now when I had this tiny window of time to get a badly needed shower, I had to go out and buy some sandals. This is brilliant. I finally made it to the canteen. I looked around. The place was packed with people. There were so many people buying candy bars, soda, gum and cigarettes, that it was almost silly. As I looked around, that was all the place had: junk food and cigarettes. No damn sandals!

I went to the guy at the counter and asked him where I could get some sandals in my panicky new guy voice. “George’s General Store,” he answered while selling someone a pack of Camel non-filters and not even looking at me.

I knew where that was, and I thought they might even have some sandals there! George’s General Store was a tiny building across the street from the Complex that was like a mini market for Scientologists. It had everything from vitamins to dictionaries. And oddly enough, sandals too. It was half the size of the canteen and had twice as many people inside. Half these people were buying junk food and the other half were like me, buying random items that you would not normally find in a mini market.

After I paid for an overpriced and rather plain pair of flip flop sandals, I made my way back across the street to the Complex with a towel still in tow and my new sandals. The elevator had about 50 people waiting for it. The rest of the Complex staff were now off duty and going up to their rooms! I headed towards the stairs and up five flights to the floor the EPF dorm was on. As I left the stairwell and headed towards the showers, I realized that no showers were going to be had. There was a line of at least ten guys queued up outside the showers! There were guys waiting inside, too!

I caught my breath and went back to the room. No shower tonight. Maybe if I got up early enough, I could get one in the morning.

I dumped my towel by my bag and grabbed my toothbrush, I headed toward the bathroom and realized that the bathroom in the dorm was just a sink and that’s it. There was no toilet in the room anywhere. There were three guys waiting to brush their teeth and two brushing at the same time, huddled around the sink.

This was a signpost moment. I should have picked that up. I did not. Somehow, I rationalized all of this and thought that, once I was done with the Estates Project Force, I would be back in an apartment instead of living in barracks.

I brushed my teeth alone and went to bed. It took me a few minutes to get used to a sea of sporadic squeaks throughout the room, but as I laid there exhausted, I dreamt of what a hot shower would feel like in the morning.

That next morning would be one of the worst I had ever had, followed by several thousand more that rivaled it. At 6 a.m., people were milling around the room. I was dimly aware of these people, but still sleeping.

Bill shook me and I was instantly awake. He was dressed, as were most of the others in the room. “You have to eat breakfast,” he said, as he walked out the door, “to be studentable.”

Again, I had the picture of him eating my sandals for breakfast as I realized I had just missed my chance for a shower! This sucks.

I grabbed some of the tasteless eggs and a piece of burnt wheat toast. Breakfast of champions around here, I thought. The entire Estates Project Force had to meet in the Vehicle Repair Unit after every meal. This was the large area right outside the EPF In-Charge office where the broken down Sea Org vehicles were parked. A bus and a few cars were parked there with their hoods open. They looked as though they hadn’t been worked on for weeks, maybe even months.

Each Estates Project Force unit lined up and reported each person as present or accounted