Continuing with the types of stories in organizations...
"3. Stories about whether a little person can rise to the top." (p. 125).
I'm not aware of anything like this and it doesn't particularly seem like the kind of story that would fit the organizational culture. For one thing, there were only a very limited options for advancement, and that mostly would mean the current person in a position leaving the mission so that someone else might be able to advance into it. The organization had a pretty flat structure, anyway, which went something like this:
1. The support people: secretaries and layout/design people.
2. The rank and file "professionals": the instructors, textbook writers and the non-management h.r. staff person.
3. The "country coordinators" and "layout/design" supervisor: served under the manager of instruction and publishing manager, respectively.
4. The major department heads: heads of publishing, instruction, and h.r.
5. The assistant director
6. The director
I think this is pretty much how it was, and management meatings, for example, would have been lumped together like this. The only possible exception is how I've placed the h.r. people; I might not have put them in exactly the right levels. For example, the director of h.r. might actually have been more on an equal keep with my boss, the assistant director, or on a level all to himself between levels 4 and 5.
While most of the staff could and did teach some, probably about half or so of the staff were full-time instructors, including the ones living "in-country." So all those people only had very limited advancement opportunities anyway. The only way I could have advanced probably, would have been to get my Th.M. and join the women's ministry team. But things didn't turn out favorably for that to be a very serious consideration, but there were some comments and situations that suggested that as a possibly, and this was when the mission thought I'd properly submitted and internalized their values. One of these such events was attending a seminary class one day while I was at the U.S. office. I may have attended more than one class but I just remember the class in church history, because they presented it the opposite way from how I had learned church history, which was interesting to me. That is, I'd learned church history by going slowly through history and at each point considering the different aspects of theology (e.g., bibliology, soteriology, theology proper, etc.) at that time, whereas that class took each theological subject and followed it straight through history, then went back and did the same for another subject. Isn't it funny how certain things stick in your head like that? I don't remember what subject of theology they were discussing though.
Anyway, the possibility of moving up to women's ministry via earning a Th.M. (they did give that much of a nod to the seminary model of operations) was still subject to my agreeing to the norms and values of the mission. So that ends that.
The other issue pertinent to this type of story (a little person rising to the top) is that cooperation and camaraderie were valued much more over competition, and this kind of story would not have fit this aspect of the mission which was pretty strong, I think. A big part of why cooperation and camaraderie was so valued is that when you were on a ministry trip in Eastern Europe you had to get along well with the person you were with and trust was a huge part of this too. So this kind of story wouldn't have fit the Vienna mission culture no matter how you cut it.
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"4. Stories about getting fired. These stories include employees who fear losing their jobs and employees who must make the decision to lay off or fire people. A reason for the layoff or firing is given, and the company's decision is announced along with justification for the decision." (p. 125)
You may remember that about 150 (!) posts ago I told about the mission I had some on and off again connection with before my Vienna days and how they rather suddenly both laid off a large chunk of their home staff and then brought missionaries in from the field to take over those positions, and how this was explained as having been done for financial reasons (the original staff workers were paid from home office coffers, whereas the field missionaries were paid by way of supporters who specifically supported them - and they maintained that as their source of income when they went to work with the home office - quite against their will). Some of these missionaries told me about how this happened and how it affected them; I think it was really awful for some that had spent literally decades on the field and that's where they felt they were called to work. So, whether the mission wanted it or not, this probably became story that was passed on behind the backs of the mission leadership, much as I was told about it soon after it happened. This was one of the issues that made me question that mission too, as far as wanting to work for them or not full-time. They wanted me to though, and leadership asked me sometimes when I was going to start working full-time for them.
But returning to the Vienna mission from that little side diversion, I can only think of 2 things that might fit under this story type. The first example is my being told that how the mission was sending me back to the USA had happened to 2 other people before (2 wives of senior workers). This was told to me by my boss's boss's secretary and also my boss's wife, that is they both told me different parts of this happening. I was told this to make me feel, I think, that it wasn't so unusual to have this happen, like to reassure me or something. And the other thing was that it might just be for a few days and they I'd be back there. One of the persons sent back to the USA as I was was sent back to her family, however, whereas I was sent back to where the mission's U.S. office was, a place I'd never been to before nor since.
The thing with this story was it didn't really explain what was happening or why, so I was left to my own devices on that regard, and I have come to some conclusions about it. First of all, because the other two people who experienced, more or less, what I was experiencing, were women, by virtue of their husbands and the roles they were expected to play in that regard, probably had a similar cause, I think, and that was stressors being put on them by the mission and their not responding in a manner that would have alleviated the stress, thus resulting in their being sent home for a while.
I am making quite a few assumptions here, but if this were just a sort of run of the mill thing that had nothing to do with the mission other than its good intention to help workers function to the best of their ability, it seems that this kind of thing might have happened to others too, such as in-country workers, some of whom were living in very stressful situations. So the fact that it was only me and those other two highly placed women who experienced this being sent back to the States, makes me think that their experiences might have had at least some other similarity to mine, namely, that the mission 1) induced stress in order to pressure the person to submit appropriately (as it defined "appropriately"); then, absent appropriate submission which would have led to (at least some) stress alleviation, they took it to the next step, by sending the stressed-out unsubmissive woman home. In this manner, the woman would realize that her options were limited: either submit or leave as being emotionally unfit. The mission, of course, would vehemently deny that the stress was mission induced at all, let alone intentionally induced, which I hope you will take with a grain of salt as comparable to the head of h.r. (one of the military chaplains) telling me I had culture shock, when I spoke German, went to an Austrian church, on my own found out about and took a German language class, etc. I hope you understand by now that it was no kind of culture shock but pure and simple mission-induced reality-shock (shock from the new work environment - from the mission comprised of 90% Americans, of which I was one - an American).
This "story" fits in here, because it's really, I think, a sort of threat to be forced out of the mission if you don't submit. The mission couldn't really fire anyone unless they did something really immoral, illegal, and/or harmful to the mission. So the other way out was for the person to become unfit for service.
The other possible story about "being fired," and here I'm speculating, is that there might have been a myth or two developed around me and my experience at the mission. I don't know this for sure, but I expect it is so. I can only imagine what such a myth might entail, but I have no way of knowing.
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I have to take another break again, but we have 3 more story types to go through. I think these have been helpful in hashing out aspects of the mission that might not otherwise have come to mind, at least not in these ways.
