Karah’s Story: Part 1

My Teen Mania experience was kind of middle-of-the-road. There were things that I loved and things I couldn’t stand.

The Beginning

First, I never wanted to be there. I KNEW that God had told me to go, but I fought it every step of the way. I cried the entire flight to Dallas.

My initial internship experience was extremely positive – those of us who had gone on the after-Christmas mission trip were the first January interns to arrive on campus (at like 11:00 pm) and the Augusts had been waiting up for us and came pouring out of the dorm, welcoming us with open arms. Those first few days were fine. Then the parents left and gauntlet week started.

My old journals from that time are packed away and I don’t really remember most of the specifics of what happened. I just remember that I HATED every part of it. I hated having to wake up before the sun rose to go do workouts in the cafeteria. I hated that they stormed into our rooms at 3am in the morning banging pots and pans and scaring the you-know-what out of us. I hated how exhausted I was. I hated that I had to experience my first family meeting when I hadn’t even been there for a week.

At the end of the gauntlet week, everyone was asked to sign a contract committing to their year there. I did not sign mine. There were SO many things I was unsure of – I didn’t know if I could make it a whole year if it was going to be anything like those first few weeks. If I recall correctly (and I could totally be remembering this wrong – I wish my journals weren’t in our storage unit!) those of us who hadn’t signed yet (maybe 4 or 5 of us?) were sat down for a meeting with Mr. Hasz where he talked about the importance of signing it. There was DEFINITELY pressure there. I think they gave us a deadline – we had until x date to sign it. I think the shame I felt was more from other interns than from the staff. (Kind of like a “You must not be as spiritual as us if you’re even HESITATING to sign that.”)After much prayer and many discussions with my Intern Advisor and my parents, I ultimately decided to sign.

Work

And then life went on. I just went with the flow and did what I was supposed to do, when I was supposed to do it. I was put in the call center (I guess it’s called Events Promotions now or something?) which was fine. But within the first month, I was moved to another department – definitely a “promotion”. I had NEVER had a job prior to the internship. I had zero experience with managers or bosses or even co-workers. I was the youngest intern there (17). Very mature for my age, but still so young and unknowing. My new manager told me I was moved there because I had shown the Call Center managers that I had a lot of “initiative.” She said that was the most important thing to her – that I “take initiative”. I had no clue what she meant, but I had just been PROMOTED! So of course I just went along with it. The first few months there were great – we had a fun time with the few of us there were in our little department. We had fairly normal hours. I had a set of jobs that I was comfortable with.

And then the criticism started. I would be pulled into a closet to be reprimanded for “not taking enough initiative”. I STILL didn’t know what that meant, or what I could have done to change it. I did everything I knew to do and she still wasn’t happy with me. And didn’t teach me or train me. I guess I was just expected to read minds or instinctively know what I should take initiative on. But I didn’t. It soon became obvious to me that my manager just didn’t like me. Her attitude towards me compared to her attitude toward the others in our office was very different.

When we went on our summer mission trips, she happened to be my Project Director. I thought things were ok until I found out that I was not going to be an MA. I was upset, but understood that they couldn’t have a bunch of MAs on the trip so I made my peace with it and was fine. It wasn’t until half way through our mission trip that my Team Leader confided in me that she had picked me to be an MA but that the PD (my manager) had told her no. I just didn’t understand what her problem was with me. Shortly after we returned from our summer trips, she took me outside and “fired” me. I don’t remember exactly what was said – she just basically said that I wasn’t working out. When I told her that the only reason she was doing this was because she didn’t like me, she didn’t deny it. I was demoted (of course at TM there was no such thing as promotions or demotions, but we all knew that’s what they were) to the mail room. I know it doesn’t sound that bad, but at the time it was devastating to me. Enough so that I met with Mr. Hasz to discuss what had happened (and he actually agreed with me that it had been handled very poorly – he even got me moved back to the Call Center where I remained until I graduated).

Abuse(?)

Now as for the spiritual abuse aspect of TM – I really didn’t feel too much of that. I think my apprehension going in is what saved me. I never looked at TM with the awe that everyone else did. From the day I arrived there, I had a countdown going in my journal that showed how many days until I could leave. I took many of the teachings there with a grain of salt. There were a lot of valuable things that I learned during my year as well as many things that just made me scratch my head and go “huh??” I did see many of my fellow interns fall into the TM trap, however, and even at the time I thought it was kind of ridiculous. I watched so many of them crash and burn after they left because they had been so consumed with what went on inside “the bubble” that they didn’t know how to handle real life once they got out.

The one “talk” that sticks out in my mind more than any other was the marriage/sex talk that Ron gave. Lingerie is evil. Having sex in any position other than missionary style is evil. And on and on. I just remember laughing when it was over because it was SO over-the-top ridiculous.

Now as for physical abuse, well, that’s another story. While my class did not have to endure some of the things I’ve read on your blog from the later classes, there were still a lot of similarities. The insane sleep deprivation. I don’t remember all the names of everything, but the obstacle course set up across campus. The building and fixing of the property to prepare for things like the summer missions or the new construction. The early morning exercise/runs. Preparing for Pike’s Peak. The Crosswalk. Kitchen duty. Dish duty. he physical impact was never ending. I was never seriously hurt, but I knew of many people who were.

Safety

As interns we did a lot of things that were neither smart nor safe. They asked untrained interns to use dangerous power tools. They asked untrained interns to burn piles of leaves (which ended up scorching a huge portion of the front lawn when it got out of control). They asked interns without gear or protection to do activities where they would be shot at with paintball guns. They asked interns to run around in the dark at night through the fields and bushes without flashlights, while being chased. They asked female (and male) interns without any means of defense to sit alone in the security booth in the middle of the night. They allowed interns to travel halfway across the country, unassisted and unaccompanied. The list goes on.

17 comments:

Anonymous says:
April 5, 2010 at 8:10 AM

Karah– I am sorry you went through all of this. . . I can relate on so many levels. It’s somehow encouraging to know I wasn’t the only one. Though I wish I WAS the only one!

Shannon Kish says:
April 5, 2010 at 8:24 AM

Karah, I am also sorry that you had to endure this. I have heard about the crosswalk and was VERY thankful that it wasn’t an option during my time. The idea of being placed in the middle of nowhere with nothing and forced to find your way back to campus is scary.

Brad Kelly says:
April 5, 2010 at 8:45 AM

I remember during my second year having our production manager (for ATF) confronting our entire group amidst a fairly downtrodden day before Christmas break. He asked us, “Is God Sovereign, and is He in control of everything that happens?” To which we replied, “Yes/We think so.”

He then proceeded to explain how all of our difficulties (primarily, the repetitive times that our transportation kept breaking down from event to event) where just God testing us and developing our character, and if we complained, we would miss the lesson that He had for us to learn.

*Of course, we all wanted to point out (and some did) that parts and repairs were repeatedly reported to various people at Teen Mania, and there was even several periods of time when they could have been performed… but no one really cared, and the people in charge of making these repairs happen later admitted that they just didn’t do it. No reason. They didn’t see the need, I guess. I’d like to see them in three 15 passenger rental vans for 8 – 14 hours trips with 47 people. **This was ONE of many stories like this. Another time, the guys waited around for about 3 hours in the New Mexican desert while the girls got dropped off at McDonald’s. At the beginning of the year, ATF bought a bus that would be vastly overloaded KNOWING that only 5/6 cylinders were firing to start. =)

For the record: Wes Wiley did the best he could with and for us, but he was severely underpowered and ignored.

*I would also like to state that I wrote Dave Hasz during this time, and he immediately called an emergency meeting to find out who was responsible for some of the ridiculous stuff going on with us. He defended us people and as workers on the frontline for Teen Mania, and he was able to reverse a few of the negative experiences we had. **Like coming back from Christmas break after REPEATEDLY being promised that our rooms would not change while we were gone, only to come back to Elliott hall and find all of my stuff inexplicably dispersed in the upstairs hallway.

I think we all experienced a lot of political and religious standards and opinions (mostly) and were generally made to feel guilty when we questioned our authority.

Like you, Karah, I went in with questions and hesitancy, and I think that this helped me get over some of the pretty ridiculous times I experienced during my first two years with Teen Mania.

And beyond that, God has been so gracious to me, so in the end, while I would love to help others heal and help Teen Mania grow somehow, I really have little to complain about.

Brad Kelly says:
April 5, 2010 at 8:45 AM

Thanks for sharing, Karah. =)

CarrieSaum says:
April 5, 2010 at 10:18 AM

Karah,

Thank you for sharing your story. I think you have excellent perspective, and I appreciate how you convey your experience. I can relate about your experience with your boss…the over-importance of initiative, the overall lack of training and constant confrontation. Ugh. I’m sorry you had to go through it all, but I am thankful for your voice here.

1security1 says:
April 5, 2010 at 11:02 AM

“They asked female (and male) interns without any means of defense to sit alone in the security booth in the middle of the night.”

Not necessarily true! We could lock the door and we had very large mag-lights 🙂

Anonymous says:
April 5, 2010 at 12:52 PM

My dad killed a fish one time with a mag-lite, so they can be deadly! *If your a fish recently caught in a net.

Anonymous says:
April 5, 2010 at 2:33 PM

@ brad:

we went to Day 1 in a bus that we nicknamed “Frankenstein” because it was made up of all these other bus parts, and they somehow made it work. we broke down twice on the way up to michigan, and it finally died for good in hope, arkansas on the way home. thankfully, brenda and mercer were in charge of that bus, so there was no super-spiritual reasoning about the breakdowns. but i’m still unclear as to how TM can put 30 people on a bus that they KNOW is unsafe and not road worthy. if our parents only knew….

Brad K says:
April 5, 2010 at 5:24 PM

One of the school buses that came to meet us for an ATF event actually crashed, if I remember correctly… the breaks completely went out. *School buses are not really designed for LONG hauls across the country! =)

Anyway, everyone was fine.

I believe we had 13 ministry team bus break downs my year – not counting the merch truch support vehicles.

No matter. Vehicles are the least of my concerns… they’re just fun stories now. =)

*One bus that broke down in October (in Chicago) was out of service until the next year’s team. Oops… it caught on fire during that team, and everyone had to get out fast! A guitar player’s (friend of mine) amp smelled like smoke months later. =)

Anonymous says:
April 5, 2010 at 6:15 PM

brad no need to bash my ole box truck breaking down over and over again.

Recovering Alumni says:
April 5, 2010 at 6:54 PM

Brad – I’m glad to hear Dave took the vehicle issues seriously…and I definitely had my share of breakdowns during my 2 years there. I laughed them off as well…But, from a parent’s perspective, these are real safety issues, and not something that can be taken lightly. Brakes going out? Buses catching on fire? Purposely overloading the buses and neglecting maintenance? Sleepy drivers? These aren’t isolated incidents – and to me parents should be concerned about the overall lack of care for the intern’s safety.

Maurice Moss says:
April 5, 2010 at 7:58 PM

Cue jokes about the “Bus LTE”. Come on, you know you had at least one during your time at TM… I sure did.

gc1998 says:
April 5, 2010 at 9:04 PM

raise your hand if you ever laid hands on your bus?

Anonymous says:
April 5, 2010 at 9:12 PM

Where did all the comments go?

Karah says:
April 5, 2010 at 9:40 PM

Thanks for all of the feedback! 🙂

I’m cracking up at all the vehicle stories…

Once (and no names will be used b/c I still love the people involved and it was totally accidental) we were on a big weekend trip and
on our way back, one of the buses was driven up a curb and it totally messed up one of the wheels. Then later that night while we were waiting around to see what was going to happen, someone else went to back the bus up so it was out of the way and crashed into another car in the process. That was a fun night. Hanging out in Denny’s for 5 hours with no money to buy food. LOL

Anonymous says:
April 6, 2010 at 10:32 AM

when I come to the home page, it says there are 15 comments. But when I click in here there are only 10. ?

Nunquam Honorablus says:
April 6, 2010 at 11:18 AM

GC- *sheepishly raises hand*