One of the things I've thought about from time to time regarding my life is that often there seem to be certain principles at work in my life and another set of principles that seem to be true for my family functions. These are two completely separate set of principles though. I wouldn't say that they're necessarily set in cement, but they have been principles that I've observed over the years and sometimes have been tempted to test out. I'm going to discuss one of these principles in this preamble to the textual discussion. (I'm not saying that the preamble is related to the text, though, because it isn't any more than any of the other preamble-type discussions in earlier posts.)
This principle that seems to often be true for my life is what I call "The Principle of One Time". One I mean by this is that if someone does something in relation to me that, even if it's just a routine thing for the type of relationship we have, they will only do so one time. That is there seems to be a quota system at play in my life that limits people to only doing one nice thing (even if they're being paid to do it), and after that they usually turn on me. The exceptions to this rule are usually people who have known me many years. Also, I would say that this rule began to be in effect somewhere around August 1997, which is when I returned to the U.S. from Russia for good.
There are many many examples I could give of this, but recently these relationships have been mostly with medical professionals. The reason this comes up right now is that I'm losing my physical therapist, and she was one of two medical professionals who were with me from before my neck started becoming a major problem until after the surgery. As of Jan. 1 she was the only one of all the many doctors who work in her medical organization that I could continue seeing, because the physical therapy department (and presumably the hospital itself) were the only ones who didn't drop my insurance. I don't know what really was going on here, but for 2 months the doctor who'd been writing my post-operation physical therapy scripts (he's the other one who's been with me through this same period) hadn't received any reviews to know how I was doing in p/t (physical therapy). So I'd been talking to my physical therapist about that trying to get a review in before my last appointment with this doctor, but she was sick and didn't have the other person filling in for her do, and I thought she must have submitted the report. Meanwhile, I saw the doctor and found out he hadn't received the report so we decided I should continue my physical therapy at his facility. Since he's the last one left who's known me this whole time, I'm just waiting for something to happen so that I can't see him, or maybe he'll all of a sudden start failing me somehow. At least one other doctor did that, I think, but that's another story.
So, you see, these two medical people, the physical therapist and this other doctor did a good thing by helping me through this time and getting me the treatment I did. So that was their one time. This happens to me a lot, which is why I've begun to think of it as a principle. It's not a fool-safe rule, but it's common enough that I'm beginning to get an idea of when it might happen. For example, I asked my neighbor if she could help me with something, so if she does this one nice thing (well she's done other nice things, but nothing I've asked for specifically like this; mostly she accepts packages for me when I'm not home, which is very nice for sure) then something will happen in our relationship and it will go sour.
Sometimes this rule is similar to the "You can never return home again" rule (you know, things change, so it won't be like it was before, right?). For example, in hind sight I can see that it probably was foolish for me to think that just because I got an M.A. in Adult Education and my professor really was amazing in working with me so I could finish my degree from Russia (via a thesis and independent study project, especially). So why on earth would I think that I could have 2 good experiences in Adult Education? Completely stupid of me, I know, but I started doctoral studies in Adult Education (at least I got admitted), but soon realized this was completely different than what I expected and not what I wanted.
You may think that this is silly, but it happens so much that no one sticks with me to get to know me or to even be my doctor for any length of time!
Here's another rule I've noticed in my life. Wherever you study (i.e., whatever city or general geographical area), you should stay there to work, because as soon as you leave that geographical area you're going to have job problems, or at least more job problems.
I'm almost afraid to say that I'm excited that I got my new computer glasses today, because knowing my luck I'll lose that doctor too. She's known me a few years now and has done a lot from her end, but because of her specialty hasn't been a central figure like some other medical people might be, considering my most debilitating conditions are spine-related, fibromyalgia and now this new autoimmune C.U. Index condition.
Sometimes I feel like I'm a hot potato or something that everyone is anxious to pass along to someone else.
Oh, man... I just realized I've been typing along and I forgot to hook up my stimulator! Well, we'll see how far I can get in 45 minutes (the duration of the programmed stimulator session) once I get it set up.
***
This next text is:
Jones, Gareth R. (1986). Socialization tactics, self-efficacy, and newcomers' adjustments to organizations. Academy of Management Journal, 29(2), 262-279.
***
This is another research article and the author uses a base concept that I've already discussed here, but he puts a new spin on it. That is he uses the different socialization continua, but further classifies the continua. He visualizes this using 6 boxes - 2 columns and 3 rows. Each continua ranges from more institutionalized to more individualized, and the tactics of each continua are concerned mainly with either context, content or social aspects as follows:
Context:
Collective - Individual
Formal - Informal
Content:
Sequential - Random
Fixed - Variable
Social Aspects:
Serial - Disjunctive
Investiture - Divestiture
***
This quote comes from a paragraph discussing the content-focused continua, and I'm picking up the part about the individualized aspects of these continua, random and variable tactics:
"By contrast, variable socialization tactics provide no information about when newcomers may reach a certain stage in a learning process and, when a process is random, they do not know the sequence of its stages. Thus, random and variable practices will increase newcomers' level of uncertainty since they are missing information concerning their organizational futures." (p. 264)
I would say this pretty well fits my Vienna experience. First of all, I suspect the mission deny there were any socialization efforts (not just for me, but in general, for any newcomers), especially any intentional ones. So asking when a person might know s/he was socialized would have been irrelevant in their minds because there was not socialization, other than accidental totally unplanned socialization that might happen naturally, sort of like spending the summer in Madrid, for example, where you were just on your own to learn how to do things and interact with people.
So it would be virtually impossible to know when this supposedly nonexistent socialization was achieved or otherwise ended. And as to randomness, I think even this at least assumes that there was a socialization effort on the part of the organization, but it just happened to be a random effort. Nonexistent (in the minds of the mission leadership, supposedly) socialization is not random and neither is it random, because it is nonexistent. In fact, maybe this discussion on socialization is a lesson in futility because socialization didn't happen in Vienna, according (I suspect) to the mission leadership.
On the other hand, here's my perspective, irrespective of what the mission leadership might claim or not claim. I think that there was a point when a newcomer was sort of reached the cusp and become accepted more as a full (trustworthy, dependent) member. But this wasn't so much a hard and fast place, but was dependent, mostly, I think, on the person's "attitude" and bearing towards the mission. It was necessarily random (or seemed random) because it depended a lot on the individual and also, to a certain extent on the role they were to play in the mission and on their relationship to those closest to them in the organization.
So far, however, I've only been talking about whether socialization existed or not in the mission and what I think it was like (in juxtaposition to what I expect the mission leaders might say). But this text also has something to say about the effects of using variable and random socialization tactics, which I think the mission did use. The effect mentioned here of these kinds of tactics is uncertainty. I think this also fit the mission.
***
"Previous research (Van Maanen & Schein, 1979) suggested that divestiture also results in custodial responses because organizations explicitly intend such tactics to mold newcomers into forms that the organizations wish." (p. 265)
Basically, newcomers subjected to the divestiture approach to socialization (which the Vienna leadership would vow didn't happen there) are cowed into being afraid to take initiative, which is where the organization wants them so that they will be ready to take on their new identity. The mission leaders can vow until their blue in the face that this didn't happen in Vienna, but I'm sticking by the assertion that it did.
***
That ends my 45 minute stimulator session and I'm tired. Next time we'll start on the hypotheses of the research reported in this article.
***
I'm really tired. I was gone from about noon until 5 and came home and laid down for about an hour than did a little in the garden, but those 5 hours I was out sort of maxed me out. I'm half afraid I might have chronic fatigue syndrome, although I think we're still going on the assumption that it's just the healing process from the surgery.
