Alison Greene on an Old Con Game

In a recent roundup of oldies-but-goodies, workplace advice columnist Alison Greene revisits (Item 2) a 2019 letter titled, "My Coworkers Are in a Self-Help Cult."

She advises the letter-writer, whose suspicions were roused when he wisely googled the name of the cult:

... If you start seeing more of this at meetings, you should flag it for your manager -- but if it stays a one-time weird moment, I'd just leave it for now. You could, however, counter to Bernadette the critical things she said about herself.

You could also make sure that other people on your team know the facts about the organization, so that they might be more likely to decline if Jason or Bernadette try to recruit them...

Greene's reply reminded me of a long-ago encounter I had with such an organization, which I wrote about in the late '90's and posted to my blog nearly twenty years ago. It starts with the generic (if not quite accurate) term for this kind of brainwashing, large group awareness training:

Image by Juhele, via Wikimedia Commons, license.

From early in the morning to approximately midnight for three consecutive days, I attended a class offered by Excelsior. Participants were very strongly encouraged to be punctual about attendance. Talking when not called upon and note-taking were verboten. There were two thirty-minute breaks and one meal break during the marathon sessions. Assignments, often consisting of making phone calls to relatives, friends, and co-workers were assigned for every break, especially at the end of the day. During these calls, we were to insist that whomever we contacted drop everything to attend a later part of the class "for their own good." Even bathroom breaks were discouraged.

Decide for yourself whether you would be a decent judge of what is "good" for yourself or anyone else if you were sleep-deprived and ate hurriedly, if at all, over the course of several days. Consider also that these will be the least of the handicaps placed on your judgment. For one thing, you may have already submitted even the freedom of going to the bathroom to someone else's authority.

There is no similar organization (that I know of now or knew of then) named Excelsior: The cult I encountered was known to be litigious, hence my made-up name. And there doesn't have to be: One should run from any organization that behaves this way.

I found that experience to be so incredible -- in the old-fashioned sense of the term -- that I thought that just knowing people do such things is the best defense for almost anyone with a grain of sense.

Although I think my writing has improved since then, I think the column overall has, alas, aged well.

Forewarned is forearmed, even for those in danger only of wasting their money or their time.

-- CAV