The choice to take required Forum for management position:

[www.eastbayexpress.com]

Interesting that Cafe Gratitude could fire employees for not attending Landmark(!) I think the employee could have a honey of a lawsuit. The restaurant chain may serve "raw foods" but if I were the employee, that restaurant would be thoroughly cooked.

Landmark is all about taking responsiblity for oneself.

But..they dont take responsiblity for the impact they may have on subjects--or on persons taking it under pressure from employers.

What is not fully appreciated is that Landmark wants you to sign away your right to sue or mediate with Landmark for damages you might incur while being processed during one of thier seminars.

No licensed therapist or physician ever makes a patient do such a thing.

[forum.culteducation.com]

Landmark only wants to take credit for you if you think youve benefitted.

If you freak out or break down under pressure, LEC deosnt take responsibly for their contribution to the mess. You get stuck paying for your own medical care if somethign goes wrong during a LEC seminar.

And..it isnt just that first weekend. You get pressured to bring in your friends and relatives. And you get pressured to do the NEXT level of Landmark..the SELP program, where you really get 'baked.'

They wont let go of you.

The stress and sleep deprivation of doing an LGAT such as Landmark are not recommended if a person has particular medical or psych problems.


Here is another quandry for someone whose employer is pressuring them to do Landmark as a condition to become a manager:

Suppose that person knows he or she has a medical or psych condition that precludes their doing something stressful such as Landmark?

Suppose that employee has diabetes or bipolar or a history of depression and would prefer not to mention this to their intrusive, pushy, Landmark infatuated employer?

Or you have a cherished religious commitment that you prefer to keep private and you dont want to take Landmark.

Or you just dont wanna take Landmark and dont want to sacrifice your cherished personal privacy by having to give an explanation to this pushy, intrusive, proslytizing employer?

A woman whose husband was bipolar (a condition even Landmark lists on its liability form as precluding participation) was stilll under pressure from his LEC infatuated boss to do the program. Read this thread.

[forum.culteducation.com]


And..notice how some correspondant showed up and supplied some very misleading information to the distraught correspondant.

It is hard enough to get and keep a job in this awful economy.

When, in such a pressured context, one's employer is pushing an LGAT down employees throats, that is doubly oppressive.

As a measure of Landmarks moral stature, I can report we had more trolls from Landmark on RR.coms message board than any other program--until Byron Katie's devotees showed up.

Remember too, how Landmark tried to sue Rick Ross into extinction because RR.com emerged as the major go-to resource for persons seeking a portal of information that was not controlled by Landmark.

The suit was dismissed with prejudice.

A hearty expression of unfeigned GRATITUDE to the United States of America, The First Amendment of The US Constitution, Mr. Rick Ross, Professor Margaret Singer (deceased), to Mr Peter J Skolnick, Esq, Mr Michael Norwick, Esq, and to the legal firm of Lowenstein and Sandler LLC, for their pro bono support.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/13/2009 01:24AM by corboy.

Put 'cafe gratitude' in the exact phrase slot in Google

Put 'landmark' in the all words slot.

See what comes up.

For giggles, there is this:

[74.125.155.132]

Reactions from those who've read the article on Twitter are critical:

[search.twitter.com]

sampliing:

- I am brainwashed: Cafe Gratitude requires managers to have attended Landmark Forum [is.gd]
- I'm surprised how many people a triggered negatively by Cafe Gratitude. Even Isa Chandra moskowitz. [www.powells.com]
- Culty Resto sounds like one of the people sending me penis enlargement emails. Also, Café Gratitude is nasty and gimmicky.
- NOT surprised to read this about culty resto I dislike RT @bayareabites Café Gratitude relationship to Landmark Forum [ow.ly]
- bayareabites: Café Gratitude, its relationship to Landmark Forum (EST offshoot) & highly encouraging employee involvement with Landmark [ow.ly]
- RT bebycik Whoa -- I didn't know that Cafe Gratitude was connected to that creepy Landmark forum [tinyurl.com]
- I knew Café Gratitude was creepy... [is.gd]
- @beerandnosh And so now I *really* will never visit Cafe Gratitude. (Why when flour + water is right there!?) (via @CommandZed)
- Reason 395 I love the Bay Area. Vegan eatery Cafe Gratitude is revealed to be a...wait for it... deviant sex cult: [bit.ly]

Do be sure to check and read all the comments in the East Bay Express following the article.

[www.eastbayexpress.com]

You can readily tell who the Lekkies are.

They claim the article is slanderous, is badmouthing a wonderful, visionary community project. That if you dont
like it, dont work there.

Well..this economy creates a climate of duress. Many HAVE to work.

Sounds more that a private batch of dirty laundry was, thanks to East Bay Express, finally laid out on the sidewalk for public scrutiny.

AThis person summed it up somewhat better:

Quote

There's a LOT said in the article that sounds VERY oppressive, and could land CG in legal hot water. I certainly hope it does. It's the equivalent of a restaurant saying "If you don't attend Easter Mass, you won't qualify to be a manager." What in the bloody heck does any of this have to do with being management material in one having to follow their kooky doctrine?

If they only want robots who are into their cultish ideals, then hire from within their cult. DON'T use a business that's supposed to be fair and equal as a recruiting center. That's complete B.S. and means that they'll NEVER see a dime of my money.

This does sound way too much like if Scientology opened a chain of restaurants. I don't want to take an e-meter reading with my tempeh, thank you very much, and leave the poor employees alone when they don't care to follow the lead of the founders' quasi-religous zealotry. There's enough trouble in trying to find a job these days, so CG needs to ditch the indoctrination and stop using their restaurants as a breeding ground for more suckers. Serve quality products, serve well, and be done with it.

Seems the only people defending CG are people involved in Landmark. Go figure...

PS There actually is a case history of what happened when Scientology did buy a thriving bakery in Berkeley.

It was a chocolatier and bakery called Cocolat.Their chocolate poundcake was out of this world.

Go read here what happened when Scientology bought 'em.

[www.google.com]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/15/2009 07:50AM by corboy.

[forum.culteducation.com]

(excerpt)

Quote

Cocolat. In 1991, an investment firm owned by Joel Feshbach, an acknowledged Scientologist, purchased Cocolat, a West Coast candy company that was having some financial troubles. Then, in early 1993, thirteen management and administrative employees told local newspapers that they had quit their jobs at Cocolat because their employer was using management techniques based on the teachings of L. Ron Hubbard. The company reportedly fired an additional six managers after they had resisted the company's management philosophy. Feshbach denies ever having pushed Scientology onto Cocolat employees, but once again claims of religious harassment were filed with the EEOC by employees.

Former Cocolat employees said that references to Hubbard and his terminology had begun to pervade the company training and in-house communications. They said outside consultants brought in Hubbard's philosophy, complete with workbooks, saying they were going to make the employees' lives better. One former store manager said, "It was like Scientology came in disguised as a management course. All the red lights went off for me. I felt like I was being brainwashed or something." In April 1993, the popular chocolate maker announced a reorganization and the closing of its entire San Francisco Bay Area retail chain.

I think that Cocolat did publish some of its recipes in a cookbook before this tragedy occurred.

A friend told me she wasnt too impressed by their chocolate truffles but said that the Cocolat chocolate poundcake was heavenly--perfect texture, full chocolate flavor, just sweet enough, but not too sweet--in short, perfect. Try to find the recipe for the poundcake. Thats enough of a religious experience. You dont need Scientology or Landmark or anything else along with it.

Except for a cup of strong coffee.

That, friends, is religion enough.

However, my mother did admit she put up with a lot of proslytizing crap from a lady, but only so she could wheedle that woman's recipe for pumpkin chiffon pie.

This is a message to annoying, oppressive cult and religion folk who jam their belief systems down peoples throats:

* You make your doctrine a laughing stock

* You piss off employees

* Some of your employees will stay just long enough to learn to cook, and then open up much better restaurants than yours--and attract cli



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/15/2009 08:01AM by corboy.

Sparky,

from what I read in the East Bay Express Story, the employee appears to have been DEMOTED from a managers position back to a server's position , for not doing TLF. And said employee was eventually fired for a variety of different reasons including insubordination, openly criticizing the owners and *taking up time in meetings related to talking about her spiritual beliefs (*this point was not clear in the East Bay Express blog.)

There is not enough detail in the blog to make proper conclusions but it sounds like Cafe Gratitude started all this problem by not being more really clear and up front in the interview process with this employee about how key they held doing the landmark forum as part of the training for that culture, and what the consequence for not dong The Landmark Forum was = her not being eligible for a managerial position. But Cafe Gratitude very well might have told the employee these things in the interview, there are too many details missing from the blog to know for sure what as said. Often these things are written to be controversial and lean one way or the other to the detriment of the facts and the truth.

Either way, thotcontrol, I smell a lawsuit brewing. There is a possiblity that the employee after 'demotion' was fired after trumped-up charges could be found for grounds of termination. Companies like to get three (3) charges so termination cannot be challenged...I know, I was forced to collect charges on employees that the upper management wanted ousted.

With Landmark thrown into the mix, this would seemingly violate the rights of the employee.

Imagine if you would that CG tells employees/applicants that a condition of employment is taking Landmark. They are openly violating the law, aren't they?

What if CG said applicants must be gay/jewish/under 6 feet tall or latino only?

Landmark is a cult. It has a history of mental breakdowns and ruined lives.

Hey! What's that I smell?

The burning leather of the soles of lawyers shoes hitting the pavement from running to sue CG out of business.

Sounds like the issue is informed consent.

Did CG make it clear, as a matter of promotion to management that taking Landmark would be part of the deal?

Someone wrote this concerning a quite different group and context--a group that was not a paying job, on which one depended for income:

Quote

When I was talking with the man who was my first contact with the Gurdjieff Work, I remember asking him whether there were objective tests for "promotion" within the organization, and he assured me that this was in fact the case. Well, of course, I was naive to think that there could be a complete absence of politics in any human endeavor, but his answer was, on the whole, not untruthful.

I think that this is an important consideration in contemplating devoting years of one's life to involvement in any group.

If people are not told up front that the plums are being distributed nepotistically then they are being defrauded.

[sustainedaction.org]

It is all the more important for people to be told how 'the plums are being distributed' before they are hired into a paying job....