Blown for Good - Marc Morgan Headley [60]
Chapter Eleven – I Sometimes Wish I Were Dead
After a few weeks, I was starting to buckle with all the new restrictions being enforced. I had been down to two Team Share cards and had not received any pay for almost two months. I was not sleeping much and not studying either. When we did have study time, it was more like two and a half hours of rest, as one would usually end up falling asleep in the course room for a majority of the time spent there.
Nodding off while sitting at my station checking the tapes as they came off the line was a regular occurrence. Since no one was ever around at night except the other guys on the night shift (who occasionally did the same), it was not that big of a deal.
One day, when I arrived at the base from my daily bus ride, I was told I needed to go straight to the tapes department. When I got there, people were crowded around my station.
“You are toast, mister!” Jason Bennick barked out as I walked in the door. “You violated the production line and you are going to be declared a suppressive person if I have anything to do with it.”
I sat down at my station attempting to figure out what they were talking about. I was shown several test results from the pancakes I had passed the night before. The test results were marked as “passed” by me, but two out of the 300 pancakes checked had a very slight frequency out of specification that I had not caught. The specification was +/- 2dB on the 20-20,000Hz frequencies and one frequency was about 1/10th of a decibel out of spec on two pancakes. I was being interrogated and yelled at by roughly four people at once who questioned why I had passed these on to be packaged. Jason Bennick was still yelling and screaming about getting me declared for my supposed attempt to sabotage production. I could see through his act a mile away. The last General Manager was taken off post for allowing the past crew to produce faulty cassettes. Jason was going to declare me a suppressive person and I would be the fall guy and everyone could go back to business as usual.
“There is no question about it. You violated the production line. You are going to be declared!”
I stood up and simply said, “Well if you are going to declare me, then I want to leave. I am out of here.”
I walked out and went to the Hubbard Communications Office. Jason Bennick followed close behind. As soon as I got there, Jason came in yelling, “This guy needs to be declared suppressive. He violated the production line in tapes! Get a declare issue drawn up right away!”
I sat down and said nothing while Jason explained everything to the HCO Area Secretary. She listened and when he was done, she said, “Okay, we will see what we need to do.”
Jason pointed to me and said, “YOU ARE A SUPPRESSIVE PERSON!” and then stormed out.
I could’ve cared less, I had already decided this was completely crazy and that I would get the hell out of here. I had no intention of sticking around.
The HCO Area Secretary looked at me and said, “What do you want to do?”
“I want to leave,” I said, “give me a Leaving Staff Routing Form.”
She reached into the desk and pulled out the exit form. She filled out my name and gave it to me. I looked it over.
It was a long list of all sorts of things I had to do before I would be allowed to leave. It had a list of people I was required to see, documents I had to sign, I had to be security checked, I had to write a list of my overts and withholds, the list went on and on. I did not care what it took, I wanted out of here. I was not interested in getting no pay, no respect and putting in over 100 hours of my time each week, being tortured and mentally abused the entire time.
Jason came marching back in. He went up to the HCO Area Secretary and started yelling at her. “You had better make