Landmark Memories
Nov. 20th, 2001 08:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sanpaku_backupWow, every time I've tried to get into LJ through my friends page, it didn't let me. Now when I went in through the LJ main page it was no problem. I wonder what's up with that.
Anyway, so, yeah, I got an interview with this school in western Mass. to be a social studies teacher... but I kind of think I'm going to cancel it. It is a boarding prep school for kids who have discipline problems, and it is based around a lot of therapy and stuff like that. On the one hand, I'm intrigued by the challenge, and maybe these are the people I should really worry about in the world (though it is still a prep school, so c'mon, it's not being Mother Teresa here). But on the other, my one big memory of my previous high school teaching was that I am not any good with the discipline aspect. I am at a loss when confronted with hostility of any kind, and that was certainly the mildest of all possible environments to confront that.
More than that, though, is the emphasis they have on solving the discipline problem through what to me looks like a suffocating (they call it "family environment") setting of round-the-clock therapy. I was told that teachers are required to do it once a week, and the kids get sessions 2 or 3 times a week in addition to all kinds of other exposures. Hey, I'm sure that they know what they are doing and that what happens there helps the kids. I also know lots of people who have been on therapy, and I have nothing against it (indeed know virtually nothing about it). It's just that it's a different and faintly unnerving language to me. The brochure for the school brought up unfortunate associations in my mind of my encounters with The Landmark Forum, one of the creepiest experiences of my life. (Brrrr. Just looking at the site makes my skin crawl. At least they haven't changed their ways. "We're not going to tell you what this is. Just give us the fucking money, baby. Right now. Don't ask a lot of questions. Where's your checkbook?")
BTW, anyone else out there who reads this who ever had an encounter with those fucks, tell me about it. There are few things I enjoy discussing more. The scam is so brilliant that it appeals to me, as do most varieties of grifting and scheming (since I'm so bad at them myself).
Anyway, so I am thinking about this and realizing that the school just sounds a bit much. A challenge is one thing, but this... and with it being a 2 hour drive away... I think I will cancel.
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In other news, every day is the same as the one before it, etc. etc.... I think I am on the verge of running out of reviews and stuff to copyedit... If I could just get them to hire me to do exactly what I am doing now, without having to move but with health benefits... like that's really going to happen! But that is the hope.
Just underlines the whole problem with the freelancing thing, which is that even without any health bennies or 401k or any of that, you still have no job security. And not enough tax money, either! Sat down the other night to figure it out, since I did not have withholding on my unemployment (taxable-- how fucked up is that?) and now have to contemplate paying A Lot of Money in April. This "Self-Employment Tax" thing, where I pay twice the amount of federal tax as anyone else-- can someone explain that to me? I suppose it is on account of not having to pay Social Security, so I have more "disposable income" or something. So twice the tax and fewer benefits when I retire! Just perfectly great.
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We are preparing for National Gluttony Day, when all of Mrs. Sanpaku's fam will be coming here. I am looking forward to it as enjoying the house is the last vestige of my shabby genteel pretensions. And as the smell of the Tofurkey fills the house, I wish a good one to you and yours. That is, until the ^*&@^% Christmas stuff starts up, keeping me out of the mall and in a bad mood for the next six weeks.
Anyway, so, yeah, I got an interview with this school in western Mass. to be a social studies teacher... but I kind of think I'm going to cancel it. It is a boarding prep school for kids who have discipline problems, and it is based around a lot of therapy and stuff like that. On the one hand, I'm intrigued by the challenge, and maybe these are the people I should really worry about in the world (though it is still a prep school, so c'mon, it's not being Mother Teresa here). But on the other, my one big memory of my previous high school teaching was that I am not any good with the discipline aspect. I am at a loss when confronted with hostility of any kind, and that was certainly the mildest of all possible environments to confront that.
More than that, though, is the emphasis they have on solving the discipline problem through what to me looks like a suffocating (they call it "family environment") setting of round-the-clock therapy. I was told that teachers are required to do it once a week, and the kids get sessions 2 or 3 times a week in addition to all kinds of other exposures. Hey, I'm sure that they know what they are doing and that what happens there helps the kids. I also know lots of people who have been on therapy, and I have nothing against it (indeed know virtually nothing about it). It's just that it's a different and faintly unnerving language to me. The brochure for the school brought up unfortunate associations in my mind of my encounters with The Landmark Forum, one of the creepiest experiences of my life. (Brrrr. Just looking at the site makes my skin crawl. At least they haven't changed their ways. "We're not going to tell you what this is. Just give us the fucking money, baby. Right now. Don't ask a lot of questions. Where's your checkbook?")
BTW, anyone else out there who reads this who ever had an encounter with those fucks, tell me about it. There are few things I enjoy discussing more. The scam is so brilliant that it appeals to me, as do most varieties of grifting and scheming (since I'm so bad at them myself).
Anyway, so I am thinking about this and realizing that the school just sounds a bit much. A challenge is one thing, but this... and with it being a 2 hour drive away... I think I will cancel.
**********************************
In other news, every day is the same as the one before it, etc. etc.... I think I am on the verge of running out of reviews and stuff to copyedit... If I could just get them to hire me to do exactly what I am doing now, without having to move but with health benefits... like that's really going to happen! But that is the hope.
Just underlines the whole problem with the freelancing thing, which is that even without any health bennies or 401k or any of that, you still have no job security. And not enough tax money, either! Sat down the other night to figure it out, since I did not have withholding on my unemployment (taxable-- how fucked up is that?) and now have to contemplate paying A Lot of Money in April. This "Self-Employment Tax" thing, where I pay twice the amount of federal tax as anyone else-- can someone explain that to me? I suppose it is on account of not having to pay Social Security, so I have more "disposable income" or something. So twice the tax and fewer benefits when I retire! Just perfectly great.
**********************************
We are preparing for National Gluttony Day, when all of Mrs. Sanpaku's fam will be coming here. I am looking forward to it as enjoying the house is the last vestige of my shabby genteel pretensions. And as the smell of the Tofurkey fills the house, I wish a good one to you and yours. That is, until the ^*&@^% Christmas stuff starts up, keeping me out of the mall and in a bad mood for the next six weeks.
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no subject
Date: 2001-11-20 07:05 pm (UTC)Whaddaya mean "until"? Down here, it starts right after Halloween.
Gabba-gabba-hey! One of us, one of us...
Date: 2001-11-20 07:38 pm (UTC)The one that scared me the most was:
"Boo-hoo-hoo these are my parents and it's their first time here and they are the best people in the world...boo-hoo-hoo..." Her parents were in fact there with her. She made them stand up next to her. They stood there, looking around the room apologetically. I felt so bad for them.
My friend asked me afterward if I was going to sign up for the coming weekend. This "free" night told me nothing about the activities, techniques or sessions we'd encounter that weekend. They told me nothing about what to expect, except a load of crying and some mysterious process that would suddenly make me successful.
Their circular reasoning reminded me too much of the creepiest of church testimonials:
Why should I join? Because it will help you/save you. If you really want to help me, why don't you just help me/just save me? Because that's how we make money/because it's God's will. We need your tuition/offering. We need you to join. So we can help you/save you. But I don't want to join. Then you won't be a success/you're going to hell. But what about people who are successful in life who never even heard of the Forum/but what about the Buddhists? Forum would have made them an even bigger success/God can save them too if He wants...
During the free introduction, they told me nothing more than "It'll make your life better. Now give us $350."
"But HOW will it make my life better?" "Give us your money and we'll tell you how." AAHAAHHAAAAA! Make it stop!!!
I told my friend that the tuition was more than my rent, and if he'd pay my tuition--and promised me that I wouldn't cry the entire weekend when I was locked up with those big babies--then I'd go to the Forum. He could make no such promise. Hey, they have their conditions, I have mine. But still he always finds a way to work it into the conversation. And those people are always folks I want to not be like:
"Look at so-n-so. He did the Forum and he's in a show on Broadway."
(Yeah, and in the process he abandoned his company with $20,000 of his debt to pay off.)
Maybe I wouldn't mind being on Broadway, but not at that cost...
His Forum friends all seem to have these weird fake smiles and far away glances. It's really disarming.
Sometimes, when I'm at low points and feel I'm wasting away my talents and youth in Pittsburgh, I think, "Man, maybe I should do the Forum weekend...maybe that's what's keeping me back. Maybe I should cry in a room full of strangers." Then I think, "Or, I could spend that $350 on a demo CD and postage to send out information about my show..." There's no real reason I'm successful or not successful. I'm doing the best I can, and it's got to stay that way until somebody can give me a rock-solid career path to follow. And it ain't going to be with the dang Forum! DANG FORUM!!!
So, I vote no on the school...
You said it.
Date: 2001-11-20 08:09 pm (UTC)I should probably write about it in my journal at some point for the full story. Maybe I will. For now, I'll say that there were a lot of points of similarity with your story. Our friend who was into it was a very nice person, very sweet, convinced that it had changed her life. When she told us about this meeting, she said something like, "yeah, the main weekend is expensive, so you might want to bring your checkbook or something." Very uncharacteristic. Raise the bullshit radar right there.
At the meeting itself, I kept saying, "so what exactly is this? What exactly do you do?" And they kept talking about "the technology" and these "exercises" and it was clear that it was canned and strange. Another similarity to your experience was the family issue. This poor guy came there and was encouraged to open up about what was on his mind, and basically his parents wanted him to be a doctor and he wasn't sure if he wanted to do it. And you could see the Forum woman just made him feel horrible for having any desires of his own, comparing it to being a hotshot on a basketball team who forgot about all the people who had helped him and the fans. It was a lesson in manipulation, and it had him wavering. I was impressed with the evil.
That's the basic secret of the "technology," from what I can figure out after doing my own research into it. Here's the story: the meetings are shame sessions, except on a grand level. They put you in a room with people and encourage everyone to let loose with their emotions, screaming and confessing your feelings. In the old days, when this was "est," they kept people from going to the bathrooms or eating and so on. The Forum today is more toned down but the basic idea is still to get people who are manipulable and make them feel bad for having egos. (It turns out that there are a bunch of interesting books about est and Werner Erhard, who stole most of the plan from the Scientologists. It's a whole big fandango.)
The genius part, as I figured out afterwards, is that those evening sessions are "tests" to weed out suspicious people like you and me! If you come to their party paying $350 sight unseen, chances are that you're the kind of gullible fool who can be pounded into life-changing submission over the course of the weekend. So by selecting their shills, they make the thing actually work! It is brilliant!
And it was very sad because this friend of ours, as I said, was nice in every other way. She called me up afterwards and I tried to explain all this to her for about 45 minutes. Finally I asked her, "What is this with the money? Don't you realize that things that really want to help you aren't so hard sell and cagey about it? Where does all this money go, anyway?" She said, "Well, let me ask my supervisor here." I'd thought she was in her apartment. I didn't know she had called me from... The Hive. Yipes. Of course the whole episode really put a hell of a damper on the friendship, and it pisses me off, because she was one of the few people I got to know in Baltimore...
Anyway, Mama, you don't need no stinkin' Forum, and you know it! Nor does anyone else. They are pretty benign as cults go, I guess, but what an incredible scam. I can't believe how many people I know who have come across these freaks. The holy rollers got nothing on them. I think their only real rival is... Amway!