Picking up on those gender comments at the end of my last post, I'd just like to say that whatever my disagreements might be with the mission I worked with (part-time, short-term, or contract) before joining the mission in Vienna, I didn't feel so constrained because of being female. My complaints against them, anyway, didn't involve how they treated me personally, because they treated me very well within the limited work constraints I had with them (i.e., not being full-time & permanent).
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I just did a little gardening and I'm all sweaty, so I need to do something sitting down for awhile until I cool down again. Ever since I've had fibromyalgia my internal temperature control has changed, and one of those changes is that I sweat easier and take longer to cool down. I understand that this kind of thing is common in fibromyalgia patients.
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But back to the text. The next major article section is "Propositions for Future Research" Under that is "Anticipatory Adjustment" and that sub-section is further sub-divided. I'm going to start my comments with the "Individual Factors" sub-sub-section.
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"Work in the socialization, surprise and sensemaking areas suggests that the accuracy of the expectations held by individuals is a key to effective anticipatory adjustment and actual development. The more accurate expectations individuals can form, the more uncertainty they will reduce and the better their anticipatory adjustment will be... However, in the case of international adjustments, there are several distinct areas about which individuals might form expectations: (1) the job, (2) the organizational culture, (3) the host-country nationals, (4) the general culture, and (5) daily life in the foreign country (Black, 1988; Bochner, 1982; Brislin, 1981)." (p. 305)
I'll take these 5 area one by one, as I've done with other such lists.
1) The job: I thought I was going to have enough secretarial work to justify my raising support and them bringing me over there to Vienna. I was wrong. And then I was shifted around and none of my positions ever met my preconceived idea of what I would be doing in Vienna, which was meaningful secretarial work that was vital to the operation of the organization.
2) The organizational culture: I was way off track here too, and this made even worse by the fact that I was pretty sure I understood East European missions, at least well enough to not be wrong, even if there were a lot of details I wouldn't have known about the knitty gritty aspects. So my being way wrong on this count was made worse in that I was pretty sure I knew what to expect.
3) The host-country nationals: I was right on this count. No problems here.
4) The general culture: I was right again. No problems here either.
5) Daily life in the foreign country: I was right, but there might have been a bit of adjustments to things like grocery stores closing early (except Thursday, if I remember right) and on the weekends only open half a day on Saturday. So I had to learn to plan my shopping around that. But this kind of thing was no big deal and certainly I don't remember it being a source of stress, for example. But then I'd had to grocery shop, for example, when I lived in Berlin studying German.
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We're still under the same sub-sub-section heading, but now we're starting in on the propositions (suggestions for future research), which we'll find throughout this major article section. As usual, I'm skipping sections that I don't think are so pertinent or don't offer new insights, so we'll be skipping some of the propositions.
"Proposition 2: Previous work-related experiences will facilitate the formation of accurate work expectations, and previous nonwork experiences will facilitate the formation of accurate nonwork expectations." (p. 306)
Again, the issue for me was the "work-related" experiences and expectation formation. A lot of the people who came to the mission had never worked in Eastern Europe (although some new theologians had come from the States once or twice before to go on teaching trips to Eastern Europe with the mission, sort of as guest lecturers, if you will). Since I had never experienced anything before in my East European ministry experience that could have prepared me for what I saw and experienced with the Vienna mission, that aspect of my prior experience might have strengthened my belief that what I was seeing and experiencing in the Vienna mission was unnecessary in order to work in Communist countries. It was a shock to me to find what I did in Vienna (i.e., in the mission), but my past experience also served to buttress my conviction that they were not only wrong morally but also wrong in feeling that they had to operate the way they did. I had something from my past, some concrete experiences and examples of mission operation, that contradicted how I saw the Vienna mission operating.
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Next we're moving on to another sub-subsection: "Organizational factors."
"During the anticipatory phase, perhaps the most important organization factors are the selection criteria and mechanisms. Research in the socialization area suggests that the closer the selected individual matches the needs of the firm, the easier the individual's adjustment after entering the firm." (p. 307)
I've already discussed the fact that I don't know what they used as selection criteria in their acceptance of me to the mission, other than theology and being Christian. As to mechanisms, I don't think I've discussed this too much. There were 15 missions working together in the one mission in Vienna. In one sense, the mission did not exist except as an arm of those 15 missions.
I'm not sure exactly how they decided on personnel needs in the mission, but I suppose it was tied to organizational goal, as worked out, no doubt at the semi-annual board meetings (at which representatives of each of the missions would take part along with the top leaders of the operating Vienna mission). How I was hired, at least what I know of the process, is that I applied to the North American office of a mission that worked in Eastern Europe. Since I hadn't applied in time for these steps to happen before candidate's course, I had to wait for their international board to meet, for their East European board to meet and also for the Vienna mission board to meet, although I can't remember exactly the chronological order of all those board meetings, but they all had to agree to accept me. I suppose they all would have had their own criteria by which they decided whether to accept me or not, but I don't know what those were. Then I still had to raise prayer and financial support so I could actually get to the field.
I'm not sure where they messed up in selecting me, but I do know that there were some things that I discussed with the North American office of the mission that sent me, such as wanting to have an apartment to myself and also being interested in ministry to Austrians outside my secretarial work, and they had no problems with that. And I know that they did tell the Vienna mission (probably via my sending mission's Eastern European office) did pass on my request to live alone, because when I got the call from the Alaskan secretarial candidate about sharing an apartment I had to ask my North American sending office about the call and they said they had relayed my request so they didn't know why I got that call. So it is likely that at the very least the North American office of my sending mission didn't know certain aspects about the Vienna mission that might have become a problem, and it could well be that if I'd worked with their Eastern European office, instead of the Vienna mission, things might have turned out a lot better than they did. I don't think they had an opening, though, in their Eastern European mission.
I should say, also that my sending mission was not a U.S.-based mission and a lot of their workers were European and/or from the U.K. and Ireland. So if there was anything going on to protect my dad, it is highly unlikely that they would have been privy to such things. It's the Vienna mission itself where there could have been more of that going on, if it was.
There are 2 propositions suggested in the text regarding organization factors, but they both involve selection criteria, and, since I don't know enough about this, I can't come to much by way of conclusions or helpful insights, but I might be curious to know what criteria they - especially the Vienna mission itself - considered when selecting me. Knowing that could be very helpful in understanding what I saw and experienced during my time with them, and might give me a better idea of what their intentions for me were.
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I'm cooled off now, so I'm going to do some other things around home here.
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