So, You Want to Join a Cult - Part XL - The Purges Catch Up To Me

The purges caught up with me in early 1999. Our finances were in bad shape. Any attempt that I made to take a hard look at our budget, or cut back in area was met by a stubborn refusal by my ex-wife. As I mentioned in an earlier installment she, as well as several other women had interpreted the verse that said a women was to be a "keeper at home" to mean that the wife would make all the decisions, but that the husband, as "head" would be responsible. (Or take the blame if things went wrong) Local Way leadership supported this interpretation. As I said, our finances were a mess, we were under pressure to, not only give 10%+ of our income to The Way, but spend money on classes and out-of-town events. At home, I was under pressure to make purchases that we couldn't afford. The answer both from my then-wife Pat and from Way leaders was to "believe for financial prosperity". My solution to this impossible situation was to run up an unsustainable amount of credit card debt — and hide it from her. As you could imagine, eventually I would be found out. It was a house of cards.

Little by little over the previous several years Pat had been redirecting her habitual finding of fault with Way leadership towards other Way people in the area. She was the originator of many accusations which resulted in people being confronted and marked and avoided. After running out of targets she focused on my shortcomings. Of course every marriage has its bumpy spots. One of the spouses drinks too much, or spends to much time with buddies, or is rude to the other. Sometimes it's just minor things like the toilet seat gets left up. But in The Way, everything was spiritual. Everything. And my ex-wife was more willing than most to find a spiritual explanation for any behavior that she didn't like. What do I mean by a spiritual explanation? Devil spirit possession. That's right, things as simple as paying a bill late or allowing the kids to stay up late to watch 'Seinfeld' were evidence of being possessed by Devil spirits. Pat became convinced that I was possessed and that somehow if I was out of the picture, things would be alright. On two occasions she disappeared for several days at a time, once leaving a note that said "It has been a disgrace to be unequally yoked with you" which one of the children found before I did. The children were convinced that she had abandoned us. Local leadership allowed her to come to them and complain without bringing me into the conversation.  

Eventually Pat found out about the mountain of credit card debt. Rather than confront me personally Pat went to the local Way leadership. I came home from a work conference to an empty house which was soon filled with several Way leaders who confronted me on my "sin" of being in debt. I was rather relieved to be found out, and looked forward to putting all the lying behind and moving forward. For some reason I was not, as I had suspected, marked and avoided and thrown out of The Way. The Way had instituted an intermediate punishment that they called Spiritual Probation. This involved a six month period where the probationer would be banned from attending any Way functions, prohibited from contact with any active Way people and required to write a letter to the Way state leader outlining how he was "getting back in fellowship". Oh yeah — still required to keep tithing 10%+. I guess they figured that if expulsions continued at the rate that they were, soon there would be no one left. Probation was just another method of control. 

Pat thought that by going to leadership with evidence of my sins The Way would kick me out and she would be able to live her life without my "satanic" influence. But The Way had other ideas. They decided that she would be banned for six months along with me, which angered her even more — she believed that I was wholly at fault for our situation vis a vis The Way and resented being exiled along with me. But as far as The Way leadership were concerned, my sin was not what Pat alleged — that I was harboring Devil spirits — but simply that I was in debt and had lied to leadership about it. One of the leaders even asked her how she could have missed the fact that I had accumulated so much debt and that there was virtually no money in our joint bank account. This of course did nothing to help the situation at home. 

The six months dragged on. I took a second job in order to pay down the debt without affecting the family finances and faithfully wrote my letter every month. (And sent in my tithe) At the time we had two sons who were legal adults and lived in an apartment across the street from us. They were allowed to participate in Way functions during my probation — an arrangement which contributed to more division within my family. My eldest son, who among other things had serious anger issues, would go to Way leaders whenever he and I had a disagreement. At one point Roger, the local fellowship leader, informed me that he was stepping in as a father for my son, implying that I was incompetent to do so, further dividing the family. 

I was readmitted to The Way in August 1999, when the six months were up. It was a tense time. On the surface things seemed normal with my interactions with other Way people. It seemed like all had been forgiven. In our area I was the only one who had successfully navigated the so-called Spiritual Probation and re-entered full fellowship with The Way. The leaders were convinced I had mended my ways. But Pat was not convinced. She was convinced that I had pulled the wool over leadership's eyes and was bound and determined to show them that I was evil. And I'm not being metaphorical — she was 100% convinced that I was evil. I'm not pointing at Pat's words and actions to suggest any kind of delusion, but that her position was in line with what Way believers had been primed to believe. It was exacerbated by her "it's always someone else's fault" personality, but the conclusions she reached were incubated by her several decades in The Way. 

In January 2000 it was announced that Craig Martindale, president and de facto spiritual leader of The Way was being sued by former Way members as the result of an extramarital affair that he claimed was consensual but the ex-members claimed was coerced. Rumors flew. The biggest difference in the world between the current uproar and the chaos that followed Wierwille's death and the subsequent fracturing of The Way in the eighties was the internet. In the late eighties and early nineties information moved slowly. Letters, phone calls, furtive conversations at larger gatherings. But now, with a few clicks, you could communicate with anyone in the world. We were told to not start searching the internet for information about the lawsuit, which of course I did.

I discovered not only information about the current scandal but other people who had some of the same doubts and questions that I had. 

Start from the beginning: Part I

So, You Want to Join a Cult - Part XXXIX - More Purges

In the previous installment I brought up the purge of gays (derided as "homos") as well as anyone who was suspected of having gay fantasies or even sympathies for gay people. But this was only one of a series of purges of the ranks of Way "believers". 

Predating the "homo purge" (their term, not mine) was the "no debt" purge. Despite common sense and even a cursory knowledge of modern economics indicating that reasonable debt could be a good thing, Martindale banned all debt based on a verse that read "Owe no man any thing, only to love". Obviously unsecured long-term credit card debt should be avoided, but how many people could afford to pay cash for a house? Or even a new-ish car? Understanding the future value of money might cause one to finance a purchase of a home appliance rather than pay cash up front. But Martindale was insistent. No debt. Period. No exceptions. If you were in debt you couldn't be a fellowship coordinator, you couldn't enter or remain in The Way Corps, you couldn't attend the Advanced Class. But people were in debt. People owned homes, had car loans, student loans, home improvement loans. All things that no one thought would be "off the Word" as recently as the previous year. People who owned homes were counseled to sell their homes and start renting. There was utter chaos. As usual Martindale gave no thought to how his pronouncements would affect people. Once this new edict filtered down to the rank and file the "confrontations" started. In our area there was a man who appeared to be developmentally disabled. He usually dressed very shabbily, and leadership talked to him about buying some new clothes. Which he obediently did — with a credit card. Bam! Debt! Confronted! Marked and avoided! My eldest son, who at the time was living with Fred Brown, the aforementioned local leader, worked several part time and temporary jobs throughout the year. As anyone who has ever been in that position knows, none of the part time employers withhold enough taxes — the withholding formula assumes that there isn't any other income, so when it comes time to file, there is a tax liability due rather than a refund. Fred told him that he was in debt and therefore "off the Word". When asked to explain his reasoning about how paying taxes was debt, all Fred could come up with was "Tell me how it isn't". Of course some leaders managed to work around the new rules. Some lived in homes that were in their parents' names; one local man had concocted an elaborate workaround to convince himself that his debt wasn't really debt. 

There was also a series of new classes that Martindale recorded, all of which were mandatory. Advanced Class graduates who had not taken the old class were no longer considered Advanced Class grads — for what that was worth. Anything from before this time period was called "old wineskins" Anyone speaking nostalgically about "the old days" was suspect — and confronted and marked and avoided. The little blue pin that WOW Ambassadors received and which they had always worn proudly as a reminder of their service was no longer approved. An old nametag indicating an old class, the same. Anyone who had been around for a long time was derided as an "Old Grad", not as someone honored for their long service, but one whose opinions and input were disrespected or ignored. Men and women who were not in The Way Corps themselves but were married to Way Corps grads had always been given the courtesy designation of "Spouse Corps" and were treated as Way Corps, but no more. Any Corps married to non-Corps were no longer considered Corps grads and were relieved of any leadership responsibilities unless they submitted themselves to four years of Way Corps training. Some of these couples had served faithfully in leadership positions for 20 years or more. More thinning of the ranks. 

For years the top leadership had been extremely stingy with funds, requiring reams of red tape for the smallest expenditures, so it came as a surprise in the mid nineties when Martindale decreed that all active Way Corps would be receiving a salary as full time employees of The Way. As part of the "benefit" of not having to work a secular job (Fred had been a drywaller) the Way Corps had to submit to a ratcheted up level of control, including prohibitions on smoking and other habits and having to ask permission before starting a family. In order to justify having Way Corps with small numbers of people to "oversee", Martindale changed the definition of a branch from seven twig fellowships to two, basing this on a misunderstanding of a Hebrew phrase in Exodus. Like most excrement, it all flowed downhill. Free from working a "9-5", Way leaders had all the time in the world to snoop into the affairs of their flock. Fred and his new wife Elaine started scheduling "witnessing" excursions mid-day and popping over for inspections and meetings. I worked at home and we home-schooled our children, so these visits were quite disruptive. We had to keep track of who we talked to about God, the Bible etc., who we invited to twig fellowship, who attended and reasons for being turned down. The 10% tithe wasn't enough — we were now pushed to increase our "abundant sharing" to higher percentages. It went on and on. Along with this, the confrontations increased and people were thrown out. 

A weird addition to the Way Corps becoming full-time employees was "no gift" policy. Way protocol for many years had been for the "believers" to present their leaders with some kind of gift at the completion of classes or at major events. Martindale at this time became convinced that gifts to leaders constituted bribes and were banned. Once, my five-year old son wanted to give Fred a little trinket — I think it was an animal-shaped pencil eraser — but Fred turned it down, reiterating to us the "no bribe" policy. 

Despite Martindale's claim that he got the idea to make all Corps full-time employees from God, the idea soon hit the brick wall of reality. The Way International was hemorrhaging money. In addition to the salaries, they had to remit payroll taxes on all of it, and none of these people, who had previously been gainfully employed, were tithing or "abundantly sharing", reducing The Way's gross income while expenditures had multiplied. 

Remember that every one of these changes begat grounds for more suspicion, more confrontation, more people humiliated and kicked out of active involvement in The Way. As this state of affairs progressed (or regressed) the air of suspicion and accusations of devil spirit possession reached into every corner, not exempting marriages, including mine.

Start from the beginning: Part I

Go to: Part XL

So, You Want to Join a Cult - Part XXXVIII - Purges

Deprived of their usual targets of alleged spiritual impurity, the wives of the Women's Cabal turned on their husbands. Couldn't afford whatever your wife thought was a necessary purchase? You could forget about a reasonable conversation reviewing the household budget and the state of the bank account — you "weren't believing" for prosperity. Cold or flu making the rounds at your house? Obviously the "head of the household" wasn't believing for health. What this had become was a dictatorship by the women, who made all the decisions, but all blame was put on the men when things went wrong. This was by no means a universal phenomena. Some Way men emphasized the "man as head" model and made all the decisions, relegating the wife to the role of silent enabler, nothing more than a cook and baby-maker. In Lincoln, the tendency of local Way woman to challenge decisions that they didn't agree with was strengthened by that one word in Titus: oikôdespotês. In practice, Way leaders took advantage of this dichotomy, the confusion about who was in charge (as if anyone needed to "be in charge") to exercise control, pointing out marital discord as evidence of devilish influence.

But this was all just a sideshow to the purges.

Most cults take pride in growth, pointing to it as "evidence" of God's favor. For most of its history The Way did as well. Much was made about the large number of people who attended the annual "Rock of Ages" gathering every August; the thousands of new Way believers in Zaire was celebrated as were record numbers entering the Way Corps or serving as Word Over the World Ambassadors. But after losing around 80% of its membership and leaders in the late 80's, some rationale had to be constructed to make sense of it all. That rationale was the teaching of "the faithful remnant". This was the doctrine that stated that God wasn't about quantity, but was more concerned with quality. The smaller number of active Way people was celebrated as being more pure, more godly, more "on the Word" than what had been around before. And not only were we supposed to view the shrinking numbers as somehow positive, but leadership began to actively reduce the numbers by imposing strict standards of behavior and obedience to leaders that had never been seen before. The most intense was what we profanely referred to as the "homo purge". (I'm using term and placing it in quotes because that's what it was called in The Way, I do not endorse describing gay people simply as "homos")

For most of my early years in The Way, homosexuality wasn't addressed, at least that I noticed. I didn't know of any "out" gay people and I can't recall a single sermon on the subject until the mid nineties. The times were not friendly to gay people outside The Way, and in retrospect Way people were probably as homophobic as the typical straight people of the time, but it just wasn't a focus. In 1995 it became a focus. Way President Martindale began making homosexuality THE sin to be on guard against. You know the verse about the love of money being the root of all evil? For Martindale homosexuality was the root of all evil. Everything that would or could go wrong was blamed on supposed closeted gays in our midst. In 1995 he cancelled the WOW Ambassador program with no notice in the midst of the Rock of Ages. His "reasoning" was his belief (that God supposedly told him) that 10% of the outgoing WOWs were homosexuals. Hundreds of Way followers had uprooted their lives — quit their jobs, sold their homes, said goodbye to their friends — in order to spend the year witnessing and recruiting people to The Way. And Martindale threw it all away based on "revelation". He encouraged people to point the finger at suspected homosexuals, as long as you had "a genuine spiritual suspicion" — whatever that was. Martindale wasn't slowed down by the inconvenient fact that few if any actual gay people were found to be hiding out among the believers. That deterred him not in the slightest. He came up with the terms "Homo fantasizers" and "homo sympathizers" and they became were corollary targets, based on that ephemeral "genuine spiritual suspicion". 

I'm not proud of my behavior during this time. Actually, I'm ashamed of my behavior during that time. Growing up I had taken a laissez faire attitude about gays. If I knew any, I didn't know that they were gay. I probably made ignorant jokes — because I was ignorant. When I moved to Nebraska and got involved in KZUM, however, I came in contact with a lot of gay people and became friends with many of them. This was during the time when my ex-wife and I were not actively involved in The Way, 1983-1990. Even after getting back involved with The Way in 1990, homophobia and gay bashing hadn't taken hold yet, but once the organization which I viewed as having a handle on God's Truth started preaching against gays, I'm ashamed to say that I jumped on board. I probably wasn't as vicious about it as some, but I was vocal. I'm sure there are family members who haven't forgotten my homophobic remarks made in those days. 

Fred Brown, our local Way Corps leader discovered that I had a talent for accurate note-taking. Why was this a valuable skill to have in a cult? Because the manner in which purges were conducted was a "confrontation". The local leader, along with a subordinate leader if there was one, and several witnesses would "confront" the person suspected of homosexuality (or some other sin — there were multiple, overlapping purges that I will get into in the next installment). This was supposedly the "Biblical" way to address "evil". The leader would grill the confronted one, aiming to pin some sin on him or her with the inevitable result that they were kicked out of Way involvement. My job was to take notes and read statements back to the leader when asked to, with emphasis on finding contradictions and lies to pin on the person being confronted. The term we used for kicking a person out was "mark and avoid" based on a verse which said "...mark them which causes divisions and offenses...and avoid them". Not only was a person who was marked and avoided kicked out of the fellowship, but none of the active members were allowed to have anything to do with them. Someone who was marked and avoided was cut off, not only from any friends that they had, but often from their family as well. This went on for several years and I was involved in dozens of mark and avoid confrontation sessions. 

Along with the other purges, this was my Way lifestyle for around five years, always looking my shoulder, watching what I said and to whom, including my own family, and all the while I was complicit in the evil. 

Start from the beginning: Part I

Go to: Part XXXIX

So, You Want to Join a Cult - Part XXXVII - Pointing Fingers

The "Woman's Cabal", which included my ex-wife Pat, mainly concerned themselves with criticizing local Way leadership, being part of the informal power as known as Old Grads they felt that they had the knowledge and standing to question anyone that they thought was "off The Word". Fred Brown, the newly appointed leader, freshly graduated from the Way Corps and exposed to Way President Craig Martindale's paranoid ravings for four years was not having it. He began cracking down on any dissension,  and in line with what Martindale was preaching every week, directed any dissension among the believers away from leadership and toward each other.

This was a big change. The power struggle among leadership during the second half of the eighties had caused the rank and file to question the leadership. Any problems — sickness, financial issues, even divorce was traced back to leaders being "off The Word", or — and this was an accusation that was thrown around more and more — devil spirit possession.

Now the same issues, when they arose, were being laid at the feet of ordinary Way followers to the point where if Martindale caught a cold it was blamed on lack of believing by the Way "household" (i.e. the whole body of active Way participants). I was even present when a thunderstorm that caused the campground at a Way event to be flooded was blamed on the lack of "community believing", rather than the poor planning of leaders who designated low ground as a campground during the rainy season in Ohio. 

This change in focus of spiritual responsibility had the effect of making people paranoid that their own negative believing could cause harm in the household of believers and also intent on pointing the finger at others. The women of the cabal struck out in multiple directions.  

One of the many classes that The Way created was called "Defeating the Adversary" (i.e The Devil). The Way, despite having a fair number of women in leadership positions, (usually single women) was extremely patriarchal and fundamentalist in its interpretation of verses that related to marriage. They very much believed that the husband was the head of his wife (although not that any random man was the head of any individual woman) although what that meant was left unclear. In the Defeating the Adversary (DTA) class Martindale made reference to Titus 2:3-5 where, in English, women are described as "keepers at home". He claimed that this was a translation of the Greek word oikôdespotês. Oikos means "house", or "home". As for the second part of the Greek word, I think we all know what a "despot" is. This was interpreted to mean that wives were the undisputed rulers regarding household decisions. It was left unclear how this meshed with the husband being the head of the wife. 

Deprived of the traditional targets of incompetent leadership and armed with supposed Biblical justification for being a dictator over their own households, Way women began refusing to discuss household decisions with their husbands, and if the husbands wouldn't cooperate, accusing them to leadership as "off The Word" or even possessed. Fred was happy to entertain these accusations and fostered an environment where married couples were fighting with each other, justifying their intransigence as "keeping the household pure". This bubbled beneath the surface for several years. It started to affect me in my marriage, but there were so many other accusations going around, with kangaroo courts and "confrontations" the issues in my own marriage flew under the radar for a while. 

Purges were on the horizon.

Start from the beginning: Part I

Go to: Part XXXVII

So, You Want to Join a Cult - Part XXXVI - The Pyramid

 There was a lot going on from the mid to late nineties, so I may be jumping back and forth regarding the years and events. It was around this time that the escalation in cultishness began to have an affect on my marriage. I mentioned in earlier installments that (1) My wife Pat and some of the other women constituted an informal cabal, where they picked apart the actions of local leadership and gossiped about their fellow "believers" and (2) A new leader was appointed for Lincoln who was trained from Day One in Martindale's post-"Fog Years" paranoia and iron-fist style of leadership. These two facts would come together to make my home life miserable. 

[Pat & I got divorced as the 00's began, and there were many reasons for it, some which had nothing to do with The Way, but others that very much did; I will try to only address the actual cult behaviors and avoid reliving a years long plunge toward divorce]

One of the first things that Fred did upon settling in to his new responsibilities as Way Branch Coordinator in Lincoln was to take on what I have referred to as The Women's Cabal. One thing that many people don't realize about cults is the existence of competing bases of power. Theoretically there's a leader at the top of the cult pyramid who calls all the shots and all the cult members fall into line, obeying the cult leader's demands. That's certainly true, but what that picture misses is the parellel levels on the pyramid. 

The Way referred to their organizational structure as The Way Tree, which when you looked at it, was just an upside-down pyramid with the power and authority working its way up from the roots, rather than down from the apex of the pyramid. The cult leader's title was the President, he and two other members of a Board of Trustees ran the organization from the root, the New Knoxville Ohio headquarters. Springing up from the root was the trunk, which represented the entire United States. (In theory, other countries could be categorized as trunks if they were large enough, I believe the country coordinator of the United Kingdom at one time was considered the Trunk Coordinator of Europe). The trunk was divided up into limbs, each state was its own limb. (There was an intermediate un-tree-like step, the region, which was made up of several states, and in later years as The Way shrunk, several states would be combined into one limb). Each limb was divided into branches. A branch was composed of multiple home fellowships, usually in the same city. Originally a branch was envisioned as having seven home fellowships, in the 00's Martindale, based on a poor understanding of grammar and an over-reliance on the Old Testament, decided that a "branch" was actually two or more home fellowships. The home fellowships were called twigs, with the individual members as leaves. (There were also intermediate levels between a limb and a branch during The Way's membership heyday — four branches were an area, four areas, or large geographic areas within a state were territories.) 

That was the official Way Tree, but circles of influence existed and functioned outside the official hierarchy. The Way membership was based at the lower levels on a series of classes. Foundational, Intermediate and Advanced Power For Abundant Living. Graduates of the Advanced Class were considered to have achieved a level of knowledge whereupon they could be looked upon as potential future leaders. Advanced Class grads were often called upon to teach at fellowship meetings and could have some influence on what went on in an area. WOWvets were another outside-the hierarchy caste. Veterans of the Word Over the World (WOW) Ambassador program were looked at with awe by those who never participated. Sometimes alternate sources of influence derived from people who just had natural leadership ability but for some reason weren't officially sanctioned leaders. Then there's the amorphous group informally known as "Old Grads". Old Grads weren't necessarily old in years, certainly not senior citizens, but they were Way members who had been around for as long as anyone could remember, having taken the PFAL class in the seventies or early eighties. They were usually Advanced Class grads and were often WOWvets as well. An Old Grad may have come to an area as a WOW and "opened it up", i.e. started the first Twig Fellowship that eventually grew into a branch or a limb. Several members of the Women's Cabal, including my ex-wife Pat, were "Old Grads". Several of them had come to Lincoln in 1972 or '73 as Wows and started the first fellowships. Some had left and come back, some had been here all along. 

One reason that power bases outside the hierarchy flourished during this time was what then-President of The Way Martindale called "The Fog Years", a time of internal divisions. Various leaders spent several years accusing each other of deviating from "The Word of God" as defined by founder Wierwille. When the dust had settled Martindale remained as the de jure head of The Way while other leaders started their own offshoot ministries. This emboldened Way believers at all levels of The Way Tree to question, not necessarily Way doctrine, but individual leaders' fealty to it. This is what the Women's Cabal saw as their mission, and what Martindale, through his newly appointed field leaders such as Fred Brown, was determined to quash.

Start from the beginning: Part I

Go to: Part XXXVII

So, You Want to Join a Cult - Part XXXV - Fred Brown

After the so-called Fog Years, Craig Martindale was determined that the rebellion by his senior leaders would not happen again. In his secondary role as Director of The Way Corps he made sure that anyone who made it through the four year program was not only doctrinally toeing the line, but was also personally loyal to him. Previous Nebraska state leaders had graduated from the program before the shit had hit the fan. Gary had been appointed state leader simply because he was the only Way Corps person in the state to remain when the rest of them had left to join splinter groups or start their own. Fred Brown was different. His entire time in The Way Corps was under Martindale's bullying paranoia and refusal to accept any disloyalty, which he defined rather broadly. Fred was a True Believer and was fully on board with Martindale's mission to purge The Way of any dissent. 

Of course dissent was framed as devil spirit possession and loyalty reflected being "on the Word". 

Convenient. 

At the time each home fellowship met twice weekly. Once mid-week and again on Sunday morning. At this period in Way history, at least in Nebraska, most of the active participants were married couples with children, so oftentimes family commitments such as sports, or sick kids too precedence over Way fellowship meetings. It was now mandatory — and attendance was taken. "Witnessing", or organized attempts to recruit, were, pre-Fred, casual affairs and consisted of "believers" talking to people in social situations. I personally recruited a guy named Donnie at O'Rourke's tavern one night. In the new administration witnessing nights took place at regular times, also mandatory. We were to keep track of how many contacts we made each week and how many of those ending up attending a Way fellowship meeting. Little by little, all aspects of our lives were tracked by Way leadership. But it still hadn't gotten as bad as it was going to get. 

The real purges hadn't started yet. 

Start from the beginning: Part I

Go to: Part XXXVI

So, You Want to Join a Cult - Part XXXIV - The Nineties (for real)

Like any organization, how precisely theory and practice coincide depends on the people who are tasked with executing the rules and regulations. We've all worked for companies where everything changed when a new manager was brought in. The Way's leaders were no different. The chaos that followed Wierwille's death and the proliferation of splinter groups led by former Way leaders resulted in a culture where non-leaders would push back against leaders that they didn't like, convinced that they held the true and accurate interpretation of how things should be. 

When we reestablished our relationship with The Way the state leaders were Way Corps graduates Gary and Mary Ehman. For the most part Gary was an easy-going guy. Oddly, for an organization that put so much emphasis on reading and researching the Bible, Gary was functionally illiterate. This made it difficult for him teach the finer points of the definitions of Greek and Hebrew words, which The Way put much stock in, when he could barely read English. In contrast to Gary's friendly and non-dogmatic approach to leadership, the President of The Way, Craig Martindale, was continually teaching his version of fire and brimstone, which included no room for those who didn't toe the party line. It wasn't as if Martindale's polemics were only heard by the top tier of leadership as Wierwille's were — his weekly Sunday rantings were sent out in cassette tape form to anyone who wanted them. Often an area would be "dialed in" directly to hear the teachings live. Several women in our area, inspired by Martindale's clear direction on what was "on" and what was "off" informally anointed themselves as the arbiters of what was "off The Word" in the lives of the local Way "believers". My then-wife Pat was one of them, Gina, the wife of a Lincoln fellowship overseer, was another. 

Even though the actual local leader was not pushing the extremism of the head man, the women's circle was doing the work of evangelizing behind the scenes. Fingers were pointed, people were being accused of being "possessed" by devil spirits, even Gary was the recipient of these accusations. It was a bubbling cauldron of suspicion and judgement. And since Gary wasn't getting involved, neither taking their side or condemning their actions, there was no outlet. The pressure was building. 

Each year, around summertime, the Board of Trustees and other top leaders would work on Way Corps assignments. New graduates would be given their new jobs, veterans would find out if they were staying in their positions or being moved around. That year, Gary and Mary would be reassigned and our new state leader would be a single guy — Ed Wentworth. Ed was also pretty easy going, so nothing changed. Ed lasted a year. His replacement would be a newly minted Way Corps graduate named Fred Brown. With Fred's arrival everything would change — things were going full cult!

Start from the beginning: Part I

Go to: Part XXXV

So, You Want to Join a Cult - Part XXXIII - The Nineties (prelude)

A lot was going into the nineties. My first wife, Pat, and I completed our family — Steven, our youngest of six children, was born in December 1990; another child became deathly ill due to mold and bacteria after our rental home was flooded; there were continual changes and challenges at my job in circulation at the Omaha World-Herald newspaper; we started home schooling; and we were adapting to the changes that re-involvement in The Way was causing. 

In late 1990, when we got back involved with The Way, Pat and I had been married for nine years. We had developed a routine that had nothing to do with organized religion, including The Way, although we still believed broadly in the doctrines taught by The Way. It wasn't really obvious back then, but Pat and I had two divergent world views. Pat would have fit right in with today's right-wing Christian Nationalist types. She had a down-in-the-bone conviction that there was a literal spiritual battle going on in the world, literally believed that the Devil and his minions were actively working against Christians. As we had isolated ourselves from, not only The Way, but from any type of organized religion, she didn't have the vocabulary to articulate those beliefs. I, on the other hand, wasn't as literal-minded in my beliefs. I still had some residual thoughts about devil spirits, prayer, etc., but didn't really make it part of my daily life. The other characteristic in which we were opposites was that I was usually willing to compromise, or reach a consensus, whether it was in my marriage, work life, or personal relationships, while Pat was more of a black-and-white thinker — no grey areas whatsoever. Most of the time this didn't present any problems — areas that she was uncompromising on, were often areas here I could go either way; when it did present problems, I acquiesced to her wishes in order to maintain peace. This difference in personality would become important as our nineties in The Way progressed. 

The main divergence in opinion came about when our two oldest were in fifth and third grades respectively. Ben, our oldest, got bullied a lot at school. Chris, two years younger, didn't have that problem, but was habitually behind in his schoolwork and had continual struggles with reading and understanding. Pat thought that the solution to these problems would be home schooling. 

I'm not saying that home schooling is always a good choice, or always a bad choice. I certainly don't accept the criticism that home schoolers are socially awkward and have no friends, or never leave the house. My kids were involved in sports (and in fact were outstanding in track), 4-H and several of them achieved the rank of Black Belt in Tae Kwon Do. The younger children were involved in Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts. But home schooling, if done right, takes a lot of time and effort. Initially, Pat put in that time and effort. She had gone to college to be a teacher, although she did not graduate. She was organized and for the first several years did put in the time and effort. My role was more peripheral. I had a full time job that took me out of town several days a week, so Pat did most of the work. Maybe the fact that the bulk of the work of home schooling would fall upon Pat made it easy for me to give in. I also didn't have any strong arguments against home schooling. 

Although the initial impetus for considering home schooling was Chris' need for more one-on-one attention, and Ben's being bullied, the rationale changed to more of an emphasis on spiritual warfare. The local home schooling support group was dominated by evangelical-fundamentalist Christians, who believed that the public school system was the Devil's playground and that public school students were being actively taught to turn against God. Pat absorbed this mindset; it meshed perfectly with The Way's position on the so-called spiritual battle, even though The Way did not encourage home schooling. 

As we transitioned into Way life, we (at least one of us) was primed to see everything as a God vs. The Devil struggle, yet not at all prepared for the increasing level of control that being involved in The Way necessitated. Yet we both had retained a belief that Wierwille, the original leader of The Way, had hit upon an interpretation and application of The Bible that was, not only correct, but not to be found anywhere outside The Way. Problems that we had encountered in The Way we chalked up to people, leaders who had strayed from the path set by Wierwille, not to The Way itself. 

In some ways we were primed for the increased cultishness of The Way in the nineties, in others we were ticking bombs of rebellion, waiting for our moment to explode.

Start from the beginning: Part I

Go to: Part XXXIV

So, You Want to Join a Cult - Part XXXII - The Man of God for Our Time

Back in the seventies and early eighties, pretty much anyone who was interested could show up unannounced to a Way meeting, and unless you were disruptive or argumentative you could keep coming back for as long as you liked, although you weren't really considered "in" until you took the PFAL class. Things were different in 1990. Part XXX - From The Frying Pan outlined what was going on in The Way during our absence, the splintering of the organization that accompanied a rebellion among top leaders. Trust wasn't as easy to come by as it had been. 

So, we had our meeting with Gary & Mary, the Limb (state) Coordinators for The Way of Nebraska. While from our point of view the meeting was simply to touch base with the Way leaders and find out where fellowships were being held and when a PFAL class was going to run. That meeting looked a lot different from the other side. Gary and Mary were checking us out to make sure we weren't trying to infiltrate The Way from one of the splinter groups — to make sure that we would be good little cult members and not rock the boat. 

The first thing that we were asked to do after we were contingently invited to be part of The Way was to attend a weekend presentation of what was euphemistically called "The Leadership Tapes". As I referred to in Part XXX - From The Frying Pan, Way President Martindale at some point decided that he was going to assert his de jure authority and demand that Way Corps leaders at all levels decide whether they would stand with him, the one anointed by Founder Wierwille, or to the instigator of the rebellion, Chris Geer. This resulted in an exodus of roughly 80% of Way leaders and membership. In order to regain control of the narrative he taught a series of seminars, first to the remaining leaders and later to non-leaders, explaining his understanding of what had happened to The Way and to him during what he began to refer to as "The Fog Years". These seminars were taped and were initially called "The Galatians Tapes", after Galatians 3:1 — "Oh foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you?", but later were renamed "The Leadership Tapes". A group of us gathered at the home of Gary and Mary outside Syracuse (a small town a half hour east of our home in Lincoln) We spent the whole weekend listening to Martindale's rationale for allowing the organization he was entrusted with to explode and his plans for moving forward.

Martindale's long and rambling explanation was predicated on the belief that 

1. The Way was more than just an organization. It was literally all that was left of God's "household"
2. V.P. Wierwille was ordained by God to bring new light to this generation 
3. L. Craig Martindale was anointed by Wierwille to be his successor and to lead this "faithful remnant"

This put anyone who opposed him in the position of opposing God. 

While the belief in Wierwille and The Way being on a special mission to reestablish First Century truths was widely accepted and taken for granted, in the past it had been viewed as Wierwille accepting a divine commission to study and teach, rather than some pseudo-infallibility. Sure, there was an expectation that Wierwille's word was law and his interpretation of The Bible was not to be gainsaid, but it was more due to his skill at Biblical research rather than an intrinsic inability to be wrong. Now we were being encouraged to believe that there was some kind of magical-spiritual something that was conferred by God on Wierwille and passed on to Martindale that made any argument an argument against God.

Game changer.

The tapes broke down in minute detail, according to Martindale's point of view, the steps that his main antagonist, Wierwille's former bodyguard Chris Geer, took to undermine his authority and plunge The Way into chaos. Geer was portrayed not merely as power hungry, or a trouble maker, but almost wizardly in his abilities and demonic in his inspiration. Throughout the seminar, Martindale identified what he said were specific "devil spirits" (some Christians refer to these simply as "demons") operating within, not only Geer, but virtually every other person who opposed Martindale. This was not something being discussed as theoretical, or behind closed doors, or as a fringe idea; this was now the out-in-the-open, officially sanctioned policy and position of The Way. Martindale is "The Man of God for Our Time" (later jokingly turned into the acrostic MOGFOT) and anyone who opposes him, in any way, is possessed by devil spirits. 

Why didn't we run away as fast as we could after this? Mainly because we still harbored the thinking that the teaching found in The Way was as close to truth and Biblical accuracy as you could get, and we had missed the years of internal conflict, therefore missing out on hearing the other side's version of the conflict. At any rate, we were in the thick of it now.

Start from the beginning: Part I

Go to: Part XXXIII

So, You Want to Join a Cult - Part XXXI - Getting Back In

The Way did not consider you one of them until after you had taken what they called the foundational class, Power for Abundant Living (PFAL). You could show up to their meetings, even contribute time and money, but without graduating from PFAL, you were just another "unbeliever". Even though my wife and I were not involved throughout most of the eighties, we still considered ourselves believers, and still viewed PFAL as the way to gain a basic knowledge of the Bible, even though we were not at the time involved with The Way. The usual minimum age that children were allowed to take PFAL was twelve (with parental permission). Toward the end of the eighties our two oldest children were approaching that age, so we tried systematically teaching them from the PFAL syllabus and collateral material. It was somewhat less than successful. 

Those of us who got involved in The Way in the seventies were generally high school or college students. We were also enthusiastically looking for answers. Part of the appeal of what The Way provided was that it was different from the religion that we were brought up with, different from our parents' religion. It was a way to rebel. We were unsophisticated enough in scriptural study to be unaware how shoddy Wierwille's "Biblical research" actually was, but curious enough to care about the minutia of things like "four crucified" or whether Jesus was or wasn't God. Those of who got involved when we were teenagers were now raising teenagers of our own, and PFAL was just "Mom's & Dad's religion" to them. However I didn't realize at the time that the lack of enthusiasm that I was seeing in my own sons was pretty common among second generation Way kids. Wanting to give our children the foundation in "Biblical truth" that I had, we decided that we would seek out the local Way leaders and get our oldest son enrolled in a PFAL class. 

At the time I don't think we wanted to get wholeheartedly back involved in The Way, but just get our kids through PFAL. We knew a few people who were still active in The Way and asked them to set up a meeting with the local Way leaders — Gary & Mary, Way Corps graduates who were the Limb (aka state) Leaders of Nebraska, who also ran a home fellowship. That meeting was to affect the next ten years of our lives. 

Start from the beginning: Part I

Go to: Part XXXII

Workin' Man - Part XXXIII - Remote Work

Well, I get up at seven, yeah

And I go to work at nine
I got no time for livin'
Yes, I'm workin' all the time

It seems to me
I could live my life
A lot better than I think I am
I guess that's why they call me
They call me the workin' man

'Cause I get home at five o'clock
And I take myself out an ice cold beer
Always seem to be wondering'
Why there's nothin' goin' down here

I guess that's why they call me
They call me the workin' man

"Workin' Man" - Words & Music by Lee & Lifeson 

 Remote work on a large scale was approved in April 2020 in response to the Covid pandemic. I was given equipment and remote access to Department of Revenue computer systems and worked from my home. In late 2021 the Tax Commissioner directed that, while remote work was still permitted, all employees would have to work in the office on a regular basis some of the time. My group was only required to come in once per month. Department-wide, productivity did not suffer, and many of us were in fact more efficient. If we wanted to work from home we had to sign a remote work agreement which stipulated that remote work was a privilege, not a right, which was somewhat insulting given that there were mutual advantages to the arrangement, but there was no getting around it. When I was promoted to Senior Agent in the Refund Claims Group I was told that the standard was one day in the office (Monday) where the whole team was in the office together and one additional day at our own discretion. If I was actively training a new person the requirement increased to four days each week. I thought this was fair, since a new hire definitely benefitted from face-to-face contact with their trainer. One of the up sides to remote work, was if you were feeling under the weather, rather than taking a sick day, you could still be productive by working at home and sparing your coworkers from catching whatever bug you had. 

One huge change was paperwork reduction. Even though we all had computers, and the claims we were working often came to us online, we still printed everything out. Multiple copies of forms had to be signed and distributed to various stakeholders. Once most of us decamped to our domiciles however, this couldn't be maintained. At first a handful of people would come in and print out everything and walk it over to its destination, but after a few months we had successfully transitioned to doing all of our work online. The savings on thousands of reams of paper every quarter should have been a legitimate reason to continue the remote work option. But...

In December 2023 the Governor announced that remote work was ending as of January 2024. For a big change like this I would have expected to receive the information via an all-department email from the Tax Commissioner, however we found out from media coverage of the governor's announcement. No follow-up from department leadership was forthcoming. The only communication that we received was an email from Human Resources during the last week of December "reminding" us that remote work was ending in a few days. The union immediately protested the change and a judge put the governor's change on hold. The following day the Tax Commissioner announced that he was ending remote work, stating that this was completely separate from the governor's order. The court ended that as well. These holds were temporary until the union could goth rough the process of protesting the change. 

The governor chose this time to visit various state agencies, including the Department of Revenue. We were treated to a speech from the governor telling us how he wasn't a politician and how much he loved Nebraska and then asked if there were any questions. I had one: "When you make decisions like this that affect thousands of people, do you look at the evidence, do you talk to experts, or do you just make decisions based on feelings?" He rambled on for a few minutes without really answering the question. My manager was horrified, but dozens of people stopped by my desk to thank me for speaking out. After around six months of back and forth the union lost their protest and remote work was ended for good. 

This change resulted in an exodus of experienced personnel. People had gotten used to working from home, and there were many people who were hired with the understanding that remote work was an option. In the Incentives Group three experienced auditors left to take jobs outside the department. Several more quit within a few months. This was taking place throughout the department and positions were remaining vacant for months at a time. 

I immediately brought back all the state-owned equipment from my home. If I wasn't permitted to work at home, I certainly wasn't going to be responsible for storing their equipment there. I was already working three to four days a week at the office due to my training responsibilities, so it wasn't that much of a change. However one day the power went out and we were told that we should work remotely by taking our laptops home. My manager's manager told me that I should be taking my laptop home every day. Previously the state was required to pay us for a full day if our work site was inaccessible. (This had happened only once since I started)  I refused to do this, since there was no remote work agreement in force. Later, an update to the remote work policy gave us the option to work remotely if Lincoln Public Schools closed due to weather. I took advantage of this once. 

In addition to remote work, one of the advantages to working for the Department of Revenue had been scheduling flexibility. If you needed to adjust your schedule due to an appointment or other personal reasons, you just did it, you didn't need to ask permission. This worked very well for me if I had a wedding or wanted to see a show at The Zoo Bar. But a few months before I retired, this flexibility was taken away. Any deviation that resulted in more or less than eight hours per day had to be approved by Human Resources or the Front Office. Permission was often not granted. (This was a violation of the union agreement, but I wasn't a union member, nor did I want to make too many waves this close to retirement, so I let it slide)

I didn't know what direction the micromanaging was taking, or which informal benefits would go next, but with the difficulty everywhere in staying fully staffed, I can't say that these are good ideas. But I was retiring soon, as I said...

Start with Part I

Go to: Part XXXIV

So, You Want to Join a Cult - Part XXX - From The Frying Pan

I'm skipping over the years 1983 to 1989, since I wasn't involved with The Way during that time. Even though I was still very much "Waybrained", I wasn't under the daily influence of their way of thinking. I still bought into Way assumptions and theological conclusions like speaking in tongues, the non-divinity of Jesus, the "law" of believing and all that. But beliefs, no matter how non-mainstream, do not a cult make, it's the behavior of its adherents and the influence of its leaders and we were not in touch with any Way leaders at that time. But while we were gone there was a lot going on in The Way. 

In 1980 Victor Wierwille, the founder and president of The Way "retired" and appointed the Director of the Way Corps, Craig Martindale, as his successor. The handing over of authority was a big deal. For many years Wierwille had encouraged the rank and file to view him as "The Man of God For Our Time" in the mold of the Apostle Paul, Moses or Elijah. So the presidency of The Way was not simply a corporate title and his role as the teacher of The Way's foundational class, Power for Abundant Living (PFAL) was not simply that of an academic or scholar. No, Wierwille was ordained, anointed, chosen by God to bring new light regarding the Bible to our generation. I don't believe he ever came out and said it overtly, but he certainly allowed the sentiment to proliferate. Therefore the passing of the mantle to a new generation was literally the passing of a mantle. An elaborate ceremony was conducted in October 1982 (the supposed 40th Anniversary of The Way), with enough pomp and circumstance that would not be out of place in a royal coronation, Martindale had an actual mantle placed on his shoulders, was anointed with oil and took a "salt covenant" and had Wierwille and the other two Trustees lay hands upon him. Within three years Wierwille was dead.

The early to mid eighties were the peak years of The Way's numbers and influence. There were Way fellowships in all 50 states, including flourishing branches in the major population centers. There was a Way presence of over 40 countries outside the United States. The United Kingdom was a major center of Way outreach and had a European Way Corps training center located in Scotland. The central African nation of Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) rivalled the U.S. in the number of active Way fellowships. Things were looking good in Wayworld. But looks could be deceiving.

The choice of Martindale as the new president of The Way was not a universally popular choice. The hierarchy was no different from any other organization, secular or religious, in that it was populated by many ambitious men (women too, but The Way was basically a patriarchal organization). Despite the trend toward leaders in any capacity higher than Twig level being Way Corps graduates, the internal operations of Way Corps training were a virtual black box to most Way adherents. Even among the Way Corps, once graduating, they were no longer effectively under the day-to-day authority of the Way Corps Director. The Twig coordinators answered to Branch coordinators who answered to State Coordinators and up the chain to the Board of Trustees. Many men who had attained high rank in the organization surely thought that they should have been called to be the next "Man of God for Our Time". Most non-Way Corps didn't even know who Craig Martindale was and had been speculating about which of the more visible and more popular leaders would be the next president. While Wierwille was still alive the fact that he supported Martindale kept everything in line.

When Wierwille died all Hell broke loose. Wierwille had been the glue holding it all together. His pronouncements had always been beyond question and his decisions could not be gainsaid. Many of the top leaders during this time had come to be involved in The Way when teenagers or college students and saw Wierwille as a wise father figure, while Martindale was just one of them, lacking the esteem that most felt toward their "Father in The Word". The focus of the unrest was Chris Geer, Wierwille's former bodyguard and driver who had been assigned to the directorship of the European Way Corps. He authored a paper called "The Passing of a Patriarch" where he criticized Martindale and his fellow Trustees and claimed to be the recipient of Wierwille's last words. He never attempted to stage a coup and take over as leader, but he did undermine the confidence that people had in the de jure leaders. Little by little state and local leaders began to look to him for guidance and direction. Other leaders began to speak up and point fingers as well. Some in support of Martindale, some in support of Geer, some completely independent of both. 

At some point Martindale had had enough. He sent a letter out to all active Way Corps leaders demanding that they decide who they would be loyal to — himself, as the de jure leader of The Way, or to Chris Geer. Many of my fellow ex-Wayfers would disagree, but in retrospect this was a reasonable stance to take. Many of these leaders were still on The Way payroll and were supposedly within the Way hierarchy, yet were taking their marching orders from a technically illegitimate source. Martindale's choices in reality were limited to cutting loose those who wouldn't follow him, or succumbing to the pressure and resigning himself. Any of those leaders who felt that following Geer was the right, godly thing to do should have openly done so. Unfortunately for Martindale his letter did more harm than good. Even leaders who were standing in support of him were offended at what they categorized as a demand for a "loyalty oath". Eighty percent of leaders and rank and file members ended their affiliation with The Way at that time. Former leaders, including Geer, started their own offshoot ministries (often derided as "sticks", in contrast to "twigs" by those who stayed with the original organization) with many of the Way groups outside the United States breaking away as well. After things began to settle down Martindale dug in his heels. He taught several seminars giving his spin on what had happened, painting it as a battle between the forces of godliness and Devil-inspired evil. He described those who left as becoming a "grease spot by midnight" for leaving the "household of God" and those who remained as "the faithful remnant". If Wierwille's approach was to present himself as the wise and loving father and grandfather, controlling through cajoling and encouragement, even while ruling with an iron fist and berating his intimates behind the scenes, Martindale went into full-on dictator mode. Wierwille in my opinion knew he was running a con, and did what he needed to do to retain influence and power; Martindale believed his own press clippings and really believed that he had been anointed to be God's representative. This would involve a lot of yelling and a lot of overt control.

This was the situation in The Way when we decided to get back involved after an absence of almost eight years.

Start from the beginning: Part I

Workin' Man - Part XXXII - Turning the Corner

 Well, I get up at seven, yeah

And I go to work at nine
I got no time for livin'
Yes, I'm workin' all the time

It seems to me
I could live my life
A lot better than I think I am
I guess that's why they call me
They call me the workin' man

'Cause I get home at five o'clock
And I take myself out an ice cold beer
Always seem to be wondering'
Why there's nothin' goin' down here

I guess that's why they call me
They call me the workin' man

"Workin' Man" - Words & Music by Lee & Lifeson 

One of the things that I enjoyed about my time in the Incentives Group was that I didn't specialize in only one program. There were many incentives programs, and I worked on almost all of them. There were sales and use tax refund claims, which all of us worked on; there were claims for the refund of state withholding taxes. There was a program called Microenterprise, where small businesses, those with five or fewer Full Time Equivalent (FTE) employees. There was "preliminary analysis", where examiners would do a superficial review of an application to see if there was enough information for a full audit. Shareholder distribution involved approving the use of incentive credits by individual taxpayers. This helped keep things interesting and fresh. The program that I spent the most time on was Nebraska Historic Tax Credits (NHTC). This was a tax credit where developers could receive tax credits for rehabilitating buildings that were on the National Register of Historic Places. I learned more about construction, real estate development, and associated jargon than I thought possible!

The NHTC program was the rare area where my point of view was heard and I had some measure of respect. Eventually, anyway. Initially the expectations for my reviews was a moving target. My manager would give me and Sue, the other examiner who worked these claims, some direction, then once we were done with our review, would add requirements. No one really knew what the standards were. I was delegated the responsibility of creating tracking spreadsheets, as well as the spreadsheet we used to review a claim. As time went by and other employees who knew anything about NHTC retired or moved to other agencies, I became the only one who knew certain aspects of the program. As we all ended up working from home during the Covid pandemic, I was also the only one who was reviewing these claims. About a year or so before I retired, management finally began training addition examiners, although they waited until my final month on the job before allowing me to train someone to take over my tracking responsibilities. 

Starting just before the pandemic and continuing throughout 2020 and 2021 all of the examiners in our group had either retired or gotten promoted, and I was the most senior of all the examiners. My manager started assigning me to train new employees in some of the incentives programs, which I enjoyed doing. A few of my coworkers asked me why I wasn't a Senior Agent (a step up from examiner) and encouraged me to push for the position. At the same time I was being given more responsibility, but the air of disrespect didn't go away. I was valued when management needed me to do something for them, but not when I expected something from them. 

When it was time for my performance review in early 2022 I actively lobbied my manager and supervisor to be reclassified as a Senior Agent. I brought a copy of the job description and job duties to my performance review and pointed out that I was already doing almost all of the requirements of the position. Key responsibilities included training and being a resource for newer employees. They told me that they would check with Stacey, who was the executive office director who oversaw our area, and get back to me. I expected that I would hear back reasonably quickly, but the weeks and months passed without any feedback. 

In addition to our annual performance reviews we also received quarterly reviews. These were less formal, but were a good time to give and receive feedback. During my First Quarter Review we went through the high points, engaged in some chit-chat, and then they attempted to end the meeting by asking if I had any questions. Yeah, I had questions! What about the reclassification that I brought up three months ago? They told me that Stacey did not approve it because our group was not budgeted for a Senior Agent position. I was angry that they were planning on ending the meeting without following up on my request — surely the reclassification denial had been handed down shortly after it had been presented. Why did I have to ask for an update? Why did it take three months? I figured that there wasn't anything I could do about it, and although irritated, was ready to move on. But we're not done with this story.

Another three months went by. I had been nominated by my peers for Employee of the Year and for an Innovator Award. I didn't get either, which I would have been fine with, until I found out that my own manager had nominated an employee from another group as Employee of the Year! For the Innovator Award, there were only myself and two others as nominees, one who was no longer with the department, so I figured I would at least get Honorable Mention. Nope. They gave the Innovator Award to the employee who left the agency! But the big kick in the teeth was yet to come. 

One morning, at our daily "huddle", it was announced that a member of our group who had left our work group to take a promotion to Senior Agent was coming back...as a Senior Agent. I couldn't believe it. Just three months earlier we didn't have the budget, but now we did? And they didn't have the decency to take me aside and explain that this was happening. I had about had it with the disrespect. Of course, since this team mate was leaving her Senior Agent position in the other work group, this meant that there was now an opening as a Senior Agent in an area that had quite a bit of overlap with the Incentives Group. 

The group which had the Senior Agent opening had been split off from the Incentives Group a few years earlier. There was quite a bit of overlap of work responsibilities between the two groups, although they each had their own unique focuses. There was enough similarity that I was confident that I could transition to the new position fairly easily. I had heard some negatives about how that group was run. It was supervised by an Auditor IV who had previously been an auditor in the Incentives Group. Several examiners left the group to transfer to Incentives due to her toxic management style. This was my main worry about moving — that I would be jumping from the frying pan into the fire. But I found out that she was leaving the department and her position eliminated! 

I applied for and was offered the position to start in December 2022. I never found out who I was competing with for the position, but it was evident that my background as a manager before coming to work for the Department of Revenue, in addition to my experience in Incentives, was a factor in being offered the position. The move, however, was not without its bumps.

Every State job classification's had a 40-step pay scale. Each "step" was 1% greater than the previous step. Starting pay was Step 1. Usually, if you moved from one position to another your new pay rate was Step 1 of that position's pay scale. My pay rate as an Incentives Examiner was already higher than the starting pay rate for the Senior Agent position, so I was offered the promotion with no pay increase! I refused to accept the promotion without a rate increase. I don't recall for sure what step on the examiner scale I was at, but let's say it was Step 8. I asked to be paid at the Step 8 rate for the Senior Agent position, which they eventually agreed to. 

Senior Agent positions in the Department of Revenue have a lot of supervisory responsibility, but are not classified as supervisors. This means no meetings with the top brass, no requirement to conduct performance reviews, and no responsibility to handle disciplinary actions. I was getting to do what I loved most about management: training, teaching and coaching, without all the administrative nonsense that I disliked. 

Start with Part I

Go to: Part XXXIII

Workin' Man - Part XXXV - Changes and Retirement

Well, I get up at seven, yeah

And I go to work at nine
I got no time for livin'
Yes, I'm workin' all the time

It seems to me
I could live my life
A lot better than I think I am
I guess that's why they call me
They call me the workin' man

'Cause I get home at five o'clock
And I take myself out an ice cold beer
Always seem to be wondering'
Why there's nothin' goin' down here

I guess that's why they call me
They call me the workin' man

"Workin' Man" - Words & Music by Lee & Lifeson 

 The previous governor had made it a goal that our operations be more taxpayer friendly. It was my view that were anything but, with rules that sometimes made it appear that we were. For example, shareholders of incentives companies often had credits distributed to them which they could use to offset their individual state income tax liability. The problem was that individual tax returns were due in April, while most incentive companies filed for extensions and did not file until October or November. This meant that a taxpayer attempting to use incentive credits didn't actually have those credits since the distribution was part of the corporate filing by the incentive company they were receiving credits from. The front office ran a report every month which indicated how long returns were in the department before they were approved. If I saw that a taxpayer was expecting a credit distribution, but hadn't yet received it, I would sit on it until the credit came through. The front office saw these numbers and decided that if, after 60 days, the credit was not available we were to deny the use of the credits and process the return. This sometimes meant that the taxpayer owed money, and at least had to file an amended return after the credit went through. Not very taxpayer friendly, but since the report showed that the number of days that we spent processing a claim was low, it looked like we were taking care of the taxpayer. It took a CPA who was frustrated by this situation to complain directly to the Tax Commissioner to change the procedures. 

One of the things that the front office began to notice was that the amount of time that was spent approving claims was excessive. (It was) They directed that a slimmed down procedure for approving claims be developed. RO had no input in the process, but amazingly it really was an efficient, shorter process. Around this time the number of claims that I would be authorized to approve expanded. Initially Senior Agents could only approve claims where the tax was below a certain amount, which meant only the smallest claims. At first it was doubled, then increased another five fold so that I was approving all but the very largest of claims. Around this time several experienced auditors quit due to the ending of remote work. Several auditors from another area were trained as approvers...and they quit too. One of the things that I did to help keep our average days for claims low was to immediately prioritize a claim that was completed by an examiner, putting it at the top of my to-do list. In most cases I could get my approval work done in one day and either sign the claim or send it back with feedback. Mainly I achieved this by not re-doing all the examiners work, not reinventing the wheel, but confirming that they had in fact done the work correctly. Due to my process our metrics were better than they had ever been. 

The other area that our group was responsible for was sales and use tax refunds for non-incentive companies. This mainly consisted of individuals and small businesses who had overpaid on sales tax or been charged sales tax in error. In some ways this was easier than incentives claims, since it didn't require as many hoops be jumped through as incentives claims, but it could be more complicated due to the numerous tax exemptions and exceptions to the exemptions in the sales tax regulations. As claims came in they were added to a spreadsheet which the team would use to decide which claims to work on. 

When I started in the area we were extremely behind. The front office had mandated that incentives claims were the priority and that nothing else could be worked on as long as there was an incentive claim that was unfinished. This mandate had just been lifted, so we were free to start working these claims. On any given day the claims that had not been started the "To-Be-Assigned" (TBA) claims exceeded 100. We were prioritizing claims that were approaching 180 days, the statutory limit. (I talked to some of my old team around six months after I retired, due to various reasons, they were back to only reviewing claims that were approaching the 180-day statutory deadline)  Taxpayers were getting frustrated and resubmitting claims, so we had many duplicate claims. It was a mess. But this was an area where the team proved to be very efficient at getting these claims done. It was my practice to train new examiners on these claims first and incentives claims later. This meant that they had a lot of practice working a variety of claim types and were able to get proficient quickly. By the end of my time with Revenue we could easily keep the TBA's down below 20 every day, with some days no TBA's! 

One of the weirder incidents involved the haunted spreadsheet. The tracking spreadsheet for sales tax refund claims was huge. Nothing was every deleted from it or moved off it. Completed items were simply moved from one tab to another. Data was becoming corrupted. Information was being added, and then a half hour later it was gone. Information that was moved suddenly was back where it started from. My manager and I decided that a new, streamlined tracking Excel file should be created. One of our Business Systems Analysts created a new spreadsheet for us and the ghosts were exorcized! Learning the lessons of the old spreadsheet, it was checked and reviewed every day and errors corrected. 

Eventually the changes I made became "the way things are". The results that I achieved was appreciated, not only be my immediate supervisor, but all the way up the management chain, including the Tax Commissioner. I was kept busy training new people, a few who ended up moving on to better paying positions in Revenue or in other agencies. Toward the end of my tenure, there were team mates from other areas of Revenue who transferred into the Refund Claim Group as soon as there was an opening. The last two new examiners had transferred from other areas. 

I had been looking at an end point to my working career for a while, I probably started thinking about it three years before I actually did it. About a year before full Social Security retirement age I started seriously looking at the financial aspect and running the numbers. I logged onto the Nebraska Public Employees Retirement System retirement webinars. I asked a lot of questions of Medicare and Social Security and familiarized myself with the various insurance options. I did income and expenditure projections. I had legal pads and Excel spreadsheets full of options. Around six months before I actually retired I set a tentative date. I gave myself the option of staying a month or so past my tentative date if the union negotiated raise was high enough (it wasn't). Finally I let my manager know my plans the December before I actually left. A pattern that I had seen in the department over the years was people leaving without management taking steps to make sure the knowledge that that person carried was preserved, that a replacement was trained. In addition to whatever the job description said, there were a lot of things that I did that weren't written down anywhere, processes that I had instituted myself. Even though it would cease to be my problem five minutes after I left on my last day I didn't want to leave a mess behind me and have all my hard work unravel. There were exceptions to the rule, and there was a procedure for posting for a position before it actually came open once a firm end date was announced. I pushed hard for them to do this. In April I notified HR of my retirement date and they posted for my position shortly thereafter.

Most of my time during this period was spent reviewing and updating procedures, and creating procedures for the tasks that were not covered by officially sanctioned procedures. I cross-trained several of my team to take over some of my responsibilities in case a replacement wasn't hired. About six weeks before I was scheduled to retire, management chose my replacement. Fortunately it was someone with the relevant experience. I was concerned that training someone from outside the department, or even from another area of the department, would require a lot of training, including in the basics. My replacement had actually started in the Refund Claim Group and had been an examiner in the Incentives Group, so training in the fundamentals wasn't needed. I was able to ease her into the position's responsibilities. Management had decided that my replacement would be classified as a Supervisor, which I had not been. This meant that she would be required to conduct annual reviews and attend meetings, which I had been spared. She quickly took over the job responsibilities until my last few weeks at work I was basically a consultant, without a lot to do!  

Finally my last day, June 13, 2025 came. The department had a retirement party for me that several family members as well as friends who had previously retired attended. The director in charge of our area gave a heartfelt speech praising me for my contributions and presented me with a certificate enrolling me as an Admiral in the Great Navy of the State of Nebraska. My immediate manager also gave a speech, recounting my contributions to the department. The members of my team presented me with gifts. One team member gave a short speech about how he viewed me as a wise grandfather. I felt both appreciated and respected. 

And that was the difference in my last two and a half years. I was respected for my contributions and my point of view was appreciated. In many of the jobs I held over the years, even when I was a key person, I was never really more than a cog in the machine. In this last hurrah of my working life, I finally was given the respect that is really the due of any employee. 

Start with Part I