I went to B.J.'s this afternoon to use a few monthly coupons for things I needed before the month was over and I was glad to find they had slippers and just what I was looking for too (comfy soles, slip on, washable, etc.). My last pair gave up the ghost in the washing machine last week. They were last seen in shreds of fabric which were a nuisance to pick off everything else that was in the load with them.
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Since I don't feel well and need to do something sitting down, I'm going to start another article, which is:
Randall, Donna M. (1987). Commitment and the organization: the organization man revisited. Academy of Management Review. 12(3), 460-471.
I'll try to ignore my pain.
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Randall begins with the following quote:"I would urge each individual to avoid total involvement in any organization: to seek whatever extent lies within his power to limit each group to the minimum control necessary for performance of essential functions; to struggle against the effort to absorb; to lent his energies to many organizations and give himself completely to none; 'to be laws to themselves,' as Walt Whittman urged us many years ago - for that is the well source of the independent spirit (Kerr, cited in White, 1956, p. 51)" p. 460)
I don't say that I necessarily agree with this quote exactly, certainly not everything in it, not the basis of it. That is, I don't think that men are "laws to themselves" because I believe in "a Higher Power" if you will, God, to be specific. Of course, there are those who would say that's okay but you can believe in God and leave every man to their own interpretation as to how to interpret the Bible or how to interpret the commandments, or something of that nature. In a sense the Bible actually does give us some of that leeway in our conscience and there are things that may be wrong for me to do because my conscience grieves me regarding them, but not for you (and Scripture isn't clear in stating they are wrong so there is latitude regarding the issue). So actually there is some of this type of thing allowed in Scripture I think.
But I don't believe Scripture would let us go overboard in the sense of letting us (or recommending that we) go off in solitude to live our Christian lives. The thing is that we are saved into the Body of Christ and we need each other. So the norm would be for us to be in fellowship. It's possible that there are individual exceptions, such as God setting someone aside for a ministry that results in him/her being isolated for a time. But that would be unusual, not the norm.
But as to what this quote might have to do with the Vienna mission... well, of course it does sound refreshing compared to the stifling absorption I felt while I was there that the mission just wanted to own me lock stock and barrel. So I think there is something to this quote that no organization has the right to own an employee, a missionary, or what have you to the extent that the Vienna mission did. And the thing is that they did hardly anything up front and straight. It was mostly like tightening a noose around my neck rather than sitting down and talking like colleagues or people who respect each other. Their way of treating me showed absolutely no respect for me.
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"Commitment to an organization reflects the relative strength of an individual's identification with and involvement in that organization (Steers, 1977). Organizational commitment can be portrayed as having three major components: (a) a person's strong belief in and an acceptance of the organization's goals, (b) a person's willingness to exert considerable effort on behalf of the organization, and (c) a person's definite desire to maintain membership (Porter, Steers, Mowday, & Boulian, 1974)." (p. 461)I believed in the mission's goals pretty much the whole time I was with the mission, but the longer I was with it the more I began to think they were corrupt through to the core and so then by the very end that clouded the goals, I think, for me. I was just so repulsed by the mission that the goals were lost in the repulsion. That wasn't till the very end, the last 3-4 months though that it was that bad.
Because of the way the mission greated me with lying and those stupid software manuals (when I had offered to take a software class in the States before coming if they'd have told me which software they were using, this was 1987), because of these things I started off with my heels sort of dug in and a bit hesitant about what was going on and not really trusting them, especially since I thought through ethical and theological issues involved with working in that part of the world and I had strong convinctions and I disagreed with them, biblically. So I'm afraid that I wasn't going to put forth a lot of effort for the organization. If they asked for it, I'd do it. If it was my job and I thought it was reasonable and not stupid (like software manauals), I would do it though.
There were times when I heard rumors about the mission opening offices in Russia and maybe I could go there. The thing was that I soon learned that rumors were not to be trusted, so I never trusted rumors. So I guess they knew or were looking for ways to trip me up or mess up my mind, I don't know. The only rumors I ever heard were things that were relevant to me. Either I was out of the rumor loop so didn't hear any other rumors or rumors were plain rare and these were fabricated just for me, because I was the trouble maker (well the odd one out, the one not properly socialized into the organizaton).
I think I knew by about a year into my 2-year term, though, that I wasn't going to be the one that was going to approach the mission about continuing on past the two years. So if it was going to go longer it would have to come from them, not me. They hadn't been playing straigh with me for too long and if they wanted me any longer they'd have to prove it by coming straight at least once and proving it. If not, then I'd just be glad to be out of there, my dream of a lifetime crushed beyond recognition.
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The next quotes all come in one section so it's going to be a lot, and I think I'd better stop here for now.
