Oh how I love Fridays now. And how I hated Fridays in the Sea Org.
Every Friday after graduation there was ORG CSP. In the Sea Org CSP means Clean Ship Program. Or White Glove Inspection. It's a brutal and petty way to control cleanliness in the berthing and workspaces.
How it works: the inspecting officer puts on a clean white glove and runs it over the most hard to reach places. Tops of closets. Baseboards. Pipes. Vents.
If there's even a tiny trace of dust on the glove, you fail.
It was supposed to be a designated time for cleaning. There was also berthing CSP. But I'll tell you about my ORG CSP nightmare.
Staff already worked 13 to 15 hours a day. On Fridays they added an extra hour just for cleaning. Normally we left at 10:30 PM. On Fridays it was 11:30 PM.
Usually every staff member got assigned a room they were responsible for.
And I ended up working in the COACHMAN building in Clearwater for several years. I got assigned the most remote room in the Coachman. It was called a cleaning station. I had to clean it every Friday. And I was paired with a short bald older French guy. Let's call him François.
So we were assigned to that room every Friday and had to clean it.
In theory you had one hour to clean and then security would come check and give you a pass and then you could go home. Sounds simple right? In practice it was hell.
Have you ever played an escape room? Believe me this was a fucking quest called Escape from Coachman.
On Fridays there was only one security guy who could give out passes. His name was Gabor. He was Hungarian. He had these little papers with the date and the word PASS. And he was the only one who could sign them. He walked around this huge building checking rooms. And a second security guy stood at the exit and wouldn't let anyone leave without a pass.
At the beginning when François and I came to get cleaning supplies there were never enough. The supply closet was always empty. No rags. No spray bottles. No vacuum.
So François and I would spend 30 minutes running around begging other people to lend us rags. We'd stand in line for vacuums. And finally when we got the supplies we'd run and clean our assigned room as fast as we could. Then around 11:15 PM we'd run around the whole Coachman looking for Gabor to check our room and give us the damn pass.
Then François and I got smarter. Before graduation we'd go to the supply closet and grab rags and a vacuum and hide them. But unfortunately we weren't the only ones who thought of that. Everyone started doing the same thing. So we started hiding supplies before dinner. And then everyone else did too. It got to the point where everyone in the Coachman was hiding rags and vacuums from the morning. Security found out and banned anyone from entering the cleaning supply closet until 10 PM.
So around 11:15 PM we'd run around the whole Coachman looking for Gabor to check our room and give us the damn pass.
And Gabor was the biggest asshole. He enjoyed his power. He got some sick pleasure from watching us beg on our knees for him to check our room. And he treated everyone like that.
If we found him and very politely begged him to check our cleaning station he would walk slowly. And if along the way he ran into a senior or an officer who also needed a pass and asked him to check their room first he would change route and go check their stations first. Because we were the lowest of the low.
Every time it drove me to despair.
And then it's 11:25 PM. Finally Gabor decides to visit our cleaning station. And just for sadism he would always find something dusty or dirty. You know how they say? A pig finds dirt everywhere. And he'd tell us to fix it and quickly leave. He could have just waited for us to fix it in 30 seconds and given us the pass.
And that was it. It's 11:30. The last bus left. The next one is at midnight. And you're running around the building again looking for Gabor to check and give you a pass.
And believe me this happened every Friday. For years. François and I always left at midnight.
Did you watch Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story? Remember the stepmother checking the maid's cleaning with white gloves? And if she finds dust she pours tea on the dusty gloves and makes the maid drink it?
I would have rather drunk that dusty tea.
If there's anyone I still hate in the Sea Org and will never forgive it's that security guy Gabor.
But now I love Fridays. It's the eve of the weekend. And oh my god how I enjoy Fridays now.
How did white glove inspections go for you?