Blown for Good - Marc Morgan Headley [66]
It was Thanksgiving? That was one of the things about the Int Base. It was like in Vegas where they don’t have clocks. At the Int Base, there were no seasons, there were no holidays. Just weeks that ended on Thursday. You knew when it was Thursday and that was about it.
We had Thanksgiving dinner and gave thanks that we were going to have our 30-minute meal breaks back and would be allowed to purchase snacks and sodas again and maybe even get paid. Sadly, we were happier than we had been for most of the year.
Chapter Thirteen – Waiting for the Night
We had spent almost 2 years on the night shift. It was Tony, Agnese and I. Several hundred staff members worked on the base during the day and about ten staff worked at night.
There were both pros and cons to being on the night shift.
Cons:
1. No one is around.
2. Sunlight is only visible when you are supposed to be sleeping.
3. If you miss the bus from berthing to the base, you are stuck at berthing with no means of transportation.
4. Same thing going home, if you miss the bus, you will be stuck at the base all day.
5. You are tired all the time.
6. If any executive comes through and does an inspection during the day, the day shift blame anything they can on the night shift because we are not there to defend ourselves.
7. If you are single, the chances of meeting a girl on the night shift are very low.
Pros:
1. No one is around.
2. No standing around during lengthy breakfast and lunch musters.
3. No mid-day inspections.
4. No snoring roommates keeping you up while they sleep.
Being on the night shift was a lot different than working days. Sure, there are tons of jobs all over the world that are done at night. But working on the night schedule at Gold was different. There were very few areas of Gold that had an official night shift. Most divisions would have day shift people that often stayed and worked through the night, but they had to be there the next day as well. The other areas that had night shift people were Security and the galley. That was it. Security night shift was made up of Danny Dunagin, the Night Watch Chief and whatever guard pulled the smallest straw that week. They would rotate the second night shift guard. The galley night shift consisted of a few cleaners that did all of the really dirty cleaning work that no one else wanted to do. These people were regularly cycled out with the latest person that had really managed to screw something up on the base.
Now in addition to the night shift staff, there were those that lived on the base. The list was not long, but it was interesting. You had:
1. COB RTC - Dave Miscavige. He lived in the Lower Villa with his wife Shelly, COB Assistant.
2. Inspector General for Admin - Marc Yager and his wife Michelle Yager. Lower Villa.
3. Inspector General for Tech – Ray Mithoff and his wife Gelda. Lower Villa.
4. Inspector General for Ethics – Marty Rathbun and his wife Anne. Lower Villa.
5. Annie Tidman (formerly Broeker) – She lived in a small house near Old Gilman’s house.
6. Gary and Carmen Wiese. They lived in what was called the Maintenance man’s house.
7. Security guards. Just about all of the guards lived on the property in Old Gilman’s house in a room packed full of people.
8. Jon Horwich, his second wife Stephanie and daughter Roanne. They all lived in the Horwich house.
So in addition to the night shift, these people were sometimes seen out and about at night.
I remember hearing a story about how Hubbard used to do inspections aboard the Apollo and that he had an uncanny ability to walk into a room and go straight to the drawer where there was something that shouldn’t be there. One of the stories I heard was that one of the cooks had put a pair of boots in an oven and Hubbard walked into the kitchen during the day and went straight to the oven, opened it and found the boots. I heard this story because it was rumored that Dave Miscavige had this uncanny ability as well. Staff would tell similar stories about how, during inspections, if there