I had another heart flutter today. It was pretty brief though, at least as far as I was able to catch on the oxymeter. By the time I caught it all I got was a jump from 113 to 58 and then back to about 90 and then it stayed around 88-90 or so. I think these things could happen without me really knowing it, though. It's not like the SVTs where your heart just starts racing and you have to lie down and you're pretty well wiped out for the rest of the day.
Another piece of big news... I'm so tired of this roller coaster life. Last night after my dinner guests had left and the dishes were done in the dishwasher. I got a call from security. It was around 10:20-10:30 at night. My neighbors below me were complaining about me moving furniture and asking me to stop it. Huh? What was I doing to raise such ire? Emptying the dishwasher! Now, granted, a few minutes prior I was ironing, so maybe they were refering to my setting up the ironing board as "moving furniture". I told the guard that I was emptying the dishwasher (which I was at that moment when he called) and was not moving any furniture.
Because there was a whole history of this, which I've documented, and I'd already decided I needed to call the police to start a harassment case about these calls, I did call the police. So the police officer came about 20 minutes later and opened a case about it. I told her about the history of this, such as the last time when I was putting a glass shelf in an empty display cabinet when I got the call from the guard. The police officer suggested I consider suing the neighbor for the stress affecting my health. (Stress does affect fibromyalgia and migraines.) I really don't want to do that, but if the neighbor downstairs is stupid enough to push me too far that may be a possibility. I hate to imagine how many calls I'd get if I didn't wear slippers at home (most Americans don't) and wore noisy shoes on the tile floor.
In case you think that only "problem" people cross my path, I want to tell you about this wonderful customer service agent at Book-Cases-Shelves.com. I ordered 2 bookcases/cabinets from them, but one came with faulty doors. It's been a long process to get that taken care of, but she's been really good at trying to figure things out, despire several mishaps, and she's been very good at communicating and keeping me abreast regarding what's going on. Really, she's a paragon of customer service, a gem in a world of automation. Someone should give her a raise... So when I have contact with people like her I remember that no matter how I feel like the whole world is against me (the remodelers doing poor work, thefts, the neighbor downstairs, etc.), I am reminded that maybe not everyone is against me. Maybe just most people.
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This next text is actually part of a book chapter. The book is:
Luthans, F. (1989). Organizational Behavior, 5h ed. N. Y., N. Y. : McGraw-Hill.
We'll be taking sections from chapter 3, "Organizational Culture."
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The first quote will be from the section "The Nature of Organizational Culture" and the first sub-ection "Definition and Characteristics.""Organizational culture has a number of important characteristics. Some of the most readily agreed upon are the following:
1. Observed behavioral regularties. When organizational participants interact with one another, they use common language, terminology, and rituals related to deference and demeanor." (p. 50)
When mom came to Vienna the second time to help me pack and leave I knew enough of the culture to be able to point some irregularities out to her - things that were happening that were out of the norm for the group and hence specific for how they were treating me/us (in many of the cases). She didn't recognize these because she didn't know what was normative for the group and what wasn't. Although there were a lot of things I never really understood, because I never felt I was a true insider, I did understand some things.
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"2. Norms. Standards of behavior exist including guidelines on how much work to do, which in many organizations come down to 'Do not do too much; do not do too little.'" (p. 50)There were norms a-plenty in the Vienna mission, but regarding work, I think the norm would have been more like this: While work is important and we all need to work together well, and do the best work we can, we need to keep our tasks in perspective. At times relationships, or security or other concerns might need to be juggled with work and these other areas should not suffer for the sake of work. We need to work together as a group to make sure that all of these various issues and concerns are met, starting at the department level.
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"3. Dominant values. There are major values that the organization advocates and expects the participants to share. Typical examples are high product quality and low absenteeism, and high efficiency." (p. 51)In the case of the Vienna mission the dominant values were a lot deeper than this. Theological match is a no brainer. But once in Vienna, to me it became clear that one was expected to become so security minded as to 1) indicate lack of faith in God and 2) paranoia. In addition, the license that this security mindedness provided (deception, etc.) was another major value that the mission "advocated and expected" the missionaries to share. To me it also seemed that while one was in Vienna one had to be pretty much 24/7 devoted to the mission, whatever it wanted. I guess that would have been okay if it would have been a better fit, but it wasn't, and I was very clear before arriving in Vienna about my intentions about after hours ministry in Vienna, yet the whole time I was there I was under pressure to quit that effort.
"4. Philosophy. There are policies that set forth the organization's beliefs about how employees and/or customers are to be treated." (p. 51).
I'll start with how customers were to be treated (because that's easier to answer). The mission's "customers" were the students living in the Eastern European countries, and they were to be protected at all cost. Under no circumstance did we want to cause any harm to them. You have to understand that Westerners, if found to be connected to them, could by that very connection, even if the nature of the connection is otherwise unknown, cause thelocal believer problems with the authorities. This varied from country to country as to the severity of the consequences, etc.
I'm not sure what the mission's beliefs are about how "employees" (i.e., staff missionaries) are to be treated, but I know how I was treated and, although a sample of 1 might not, on one hand seem very generalizable, on the other hand, since my ill-treatment was more or less constant the whole time I was with the mission, you have to account for how they were able to sustain that kind of treatment of me for so long and so there must have been some kind of policy and/or belief provision for cases like me. Such policies and beliefs might not have been general knowledge of the group, or maybe they were known among many, or at least the department heads.
In any case, when they sent me back to the States I began to believe that anyone was expendable. That is, no one was so critical to the mission that it couldn't function withoit him or her, so, given the right provocation, the mission could expel that person (in one way or another, depending on the situation, I expect). But I also came to believe that the mission thought that the US military interests were more important than a Christian heeding the call to serve Christ with them. (This is assuming that they treated me as they did - at least to a great extent - because of my dad, who worked in S.D.I. at Boeing.)
My experience also taught me that the mission didn't really care whether the missionaries used their gifts or not. In my case, I felt very stunted and held back from most things I might have been able to offer and I wasted a lot of time with the mission, because they didn't give me enough work.
I'm sure I could go on, but I'll leave it at that for now.
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"5. Rules. There are strict guidelines related to getting along in the organization. Newcomers must learn these 'ropes' in order to be accepted as full-fledged members of the group." (p. 51)This is socialization, which I've talked about at length elsewhere, so I won't belabor it here. The 'ropes' as far as the Vienna mission was concerned could be summed up in two words: total submission. That's what the mission required and once you'd proven yourself in this regard, then you'd be accepted as a full-fledge member. This is precisely why I never completely felt like a full-fledged member (because I never totally submitted to the mission.)
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"6. Organizational climate. This is an overall 'feeling' that is conveyed by the physical layout, the way in which participants interact, and the way in which members of the organization conduct themselves with customers or other outsiders." (p. 51)
To the casual observer, the untrained eye, the drop-in visitor or the short-term helper the "feeling" that would be conveyed by the mission would be one of warmth, caring and attentiveness.
I'm not sure how insiders view the mission, but I think that the mission leadership would still want members to perceive those same things, but maybe some other things also. There's a lot of stress in the work so they work to keep that down also, but that is something they would need to control as far as organizational climate is concerned. I also think that once you've been an insider for some time you really get to trust the other members, so there develops a high level of trust between members, especially within departments, but not only. So then trust would also be part of the organizational climate. Another aspect is the sense that there aren't any secrets. That is, it feels, I think, like there is someone in the organization (say a boss or mentor) that knows you perhaps more than you'd like.
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That's it for that sub-section, and I'm getting to tired to try to go farther, so hopefully I'll be able to keep with this and finish this text soon.
