I did finally get to sleep and I guess I got maybe 6 hours sleep last night. I think my "second wind" must have just happened too late, because I got home about 5 pm yesterday and was pretty beat for about 4 hours or so afterwards. So then my second wind would have started about 9 or 10 pm, which is too late. I don't know how to get around this kind of thing, other then try to make my more draining activities be earlier in the day.
Also, I've been fighting a cold for some time, and it was getting better when I upped my vitamin C to 8,000 mg/day, but it started coming back last night (and this morning is still a bit worse) which makes me think that being out so long yesterday was still too much for my body, and I'm over 2 months out from the surgery now.
***
Returning to the results discussion of our text:
"...[I]ndividualized socialization programs were associated with relatively high levels of role conflict and ambiguity plus innovative role orientations. This implies that high levels of role conflict and ambiguity are associated with performing roles in innovative ways. Either newcomers self-generate dissonance through how they perform their roles, or their actions lead others to question how they perform. For example, organizational incumbents' resisting newcomers' attempts to redefine their roles will raise the level of role conflict and ambiguity that the newcomers experience." (p. 270)
I think that this is a reasonable interpretation of the results and it also fits my situation. That is, absence explicit guidelines, the newcomer (e.g., me) is left to his/her own devices in trying to navigate the treacherous socialization waters, which invariably would involve a lot of trial and error. Whenever there would be an "error" that might be recognized as such by others, their response would likely involve some version of withholding of "carrots" or use of "sticks." If there was enough of this going on, it might be difficult to figure out what exactly the response was to, for example: Was the response to the way I typed the letter? Did I deliver the letter in the wrong way somehow? Am I dressed inappropriately? Did I laugh when I shouldn't have? Etc. Depending on how the individual interpreted the response, his/her response action could either help clarify what was going on or make things even murkier.
In my situation, I eventually hit on a broad (macro) interpretation of what was going on that seemed to fit pretty well, but I never did become very good at interpreting the the specifics (at the micro level). That is I had a pretty good idea of the overriding idea about the "why" and "what" (was wanted of me) but not necessarily of the micro level "whys" and "whats" for any specific "clue" (although even determining what might be a clue - that is have any significant meaning - and what wasn't was even often difficult).
This is important because since I had trouble with the micro-level events it is possible that my broad brush macro interpretations were off to one degree or another. This is why I'm not 100% sure, for example, if there really was a sincere effort to try to socialize me or if there might have been something else going on related to my father's work, for example. Anything related to my father's work would, I think, most likely have been aimed at sidetracking me away from anything that might have compromised my father. I also think it's possible that different people involved with me could have different intentions in these regards; that is, it's possible that if there was anything going on related to my dad's work it is, I think, pretty likely that not everyone would have known about that aspect of my experience.
***
Continuing on in this same paragraph:
"Newcomers will be forced to trade off their desires to perform their roles innovatively against their desires to reduce uncertainty by lowering levels of role conflict and ambiguity. Conversely, custodial role orientations are associated with low levels of role conflict and ambiguity, as might be expected." (p. 272)
The text, at least in the context of their study findings, has already shown that individualized socialization tactics lead to innovative role definitions, so the custodial role orientations would have been associated more with the institutional socialization tactics. Since we know that the Vienna mission used individualized socialization tactics, this is somewhat of a moot point vis a vis my experience with the mission. In other words, this confirms again at least one probable cause of my experiencing "role conflict" and "ambiguity" while there.
The conflict between desiring to perform ones role innovatively and desiring to reduce undertainty "by lowering levels of role conflict and ambiguity" also deserves commenting on. In my case any desire I might have had to "perform my role innovatively" would have been mitigated by the fact that I didn't see myself as a professional secretary and had other intentions of how to use my skills and knowledge in a more fulfilling way, which would entail extra-mission activities and relationships. Thus, I was willing to live with more role ambiguity than other newcomers would have - I am not aware of anyone else coming to the mission with this kind of mindset of intending to have external ministry and activities. I had shared this intention with my sending mission before arrival in Vienna and they hadn't had a problem with it, but my experiences seem to indicate that that desire wasn't communicated to the Vienna mission nor (probably) the Vienna office of my sending mission.
So absent the need reconcile this conflict (between role fulfillment and lowering ambiguity), I did little to lower the role conflict and ambiguity, which would have probably facilitated my socialization. That's not to say, however, that I had absolutely no desire to lower my role conflict and ambiguity; it's just that I didn't have the same sense of urgency about it as others who hadn't intended to get involved in outside ministry anyway. This allowed me to take more of a wait and see approach and try to learn by observing rather than learn by changing in order to lessen role conflict and ambiguity. Needless to say, this is, most adamantly NOT what the mission wanted in any case.
While I didn't have the same need or urgency as others (because of my orientation to my formal secretarial role and my plans to get role fulfillment elsewhere) to change in a way that might have lessened role conflict and ambiguity, that's not to say I was impervious to these pressures, especially the ambiguity, I think. That is, as long as I thought I could have fulfilling outside activities the role conflict wasn't a very effective tool to elicit change in me. The ambiguity, however, was worse I think, because it made it harder and harder for my "watch and see" stance to result in anything understandable by way of theories as to how the mission operated and what was wanted from me.
Also, I think, my earliest responses were largely cognitive and rational, but the more I got dug into the ambiguity hole the more it became also an emotional issue, probably starting with stress. So then it also became an issue of how long I could stand up emotionally to such pressures, whether the directly from interactions with the mission or indirectly, for example, in how it affected my perceived career prospects. I think this could explain a large part of how I ended out capitulating, at least in actions if not beliefs and values, towards the end.
***
"The more institutionalized the form of socialization was, the greater were expressed job satisfaction and commitment, and the lower was intention to quit. Thus, there appears to be considerable support for the hypothesized relationship between institutionalized tactics and reduction of anxiety." (p. 272)
This fits my personal experience, I think, with the Vienna mission, but does nothing to explain why I seemed to be, for the most part, the only one with so much trouble with this way of socializing. I suspect that there were probably certain relatively unique characteristics of the mission and of the new recruits and the juxtaposition of these two that minimized any potential problems... usually. For example, the great uniformity, by and large, of the types of people at the mission probably would have minimized much of the need for socialization, and the fact that they had been socialized in very similar ways (there seemed to be a preponderance of theologians from one particular seminary, for example) would have helped. Also, I think that many of the theologians already knew other theologians at the mission and they may also have taken short-term mission trips with the mission prior to joining full-time. For those who didn't have that background (e.g., secretaries), they would have been at a disadvantage theologically and mostly would have come from backgrounds that deferred to spiritual leadership (e.g., pastors) for spiritual guidance and mission staff could easily have taken on that role with such non-theologian staff members.
I've already discussed how I might not have been so susceptible to this kind of influence, though, by way of, for example, my having been raised in a church where the Bereans were set as a standard in their searching of the Scriptures daily "to see whether these things were so." That is, they didn't just believe things because someone said so, and they did so diligently, meaning not being lead astray by some single verse pulled out of context to prove a point, for example. Also, while I did have biblical concerns, those developed later as my understanding of what was going on at the mission evolved, I understood the issues I was concerned about to be more about the East European context, which wasn't an area I could easily be bowled over in.
***
That's all for now. These discussions might seem tedious and overdone to some people, but I'm not apologizing for them, because I keep finding new nuggets that help interpret or solidify or raise questions regarding this or that aspect of my experience with the mission. Also, hopefully the cumulative effect will be to make it more and more difficult to disregard me; that is, the mission (and it's great support network) may be a bit of a behemoth, but this fly in the ointment is intent on being a torment in as much as I'm right and they were wrong. That doesn't mean they will change now any more than they would have 20+ years ago, but it does mean that hopefully others will see them more like they really were. And I also hope that others will think through the issues I raise and apply them to other contexts in order to consider what is the most biblical way of functioning in these kinds of contexts. Those are my hopes, but I'm not holding my breath waiting for this to happen, which could likely be suicide.
