The first subsection is: "Positive Consequences for the Individual."
The only comment that caught my eye in this section is: "Low levels of commitment can be a source of individual creativity and innovation (Merton, 1938)."
I didn't relate to the reasoning that followed, however, so I ignored it. For me, I felt that the mission was stifling and they just had their own narrow way of doing and seeing things, so in that particular situation, a low level of commitment I thought was very conducive to individual creativity and innovation. They just kept squeezing me into their narrow idea of what they seemed to what of me that seemed so degrading to me and counter to all my values and what I believed in.
So having a low level of commitment in my case allowed for more creativity. I think that this was true even for creativity in the mission, not just for creativity on the side (i.e., with the Austrians). For example, if I had just dropped everything and done everything the mission had asked right away, such as had a roommate and the started going to the English speaking church sooner, then I'm sure I would not have done near as much entertaining because I was have been more demoralized and not as eager to reach out to others. I would have been more chained to the secretaries and that identity they set up for me, which I didn't see myself as, except as the job I'd agreed to for 2 years.
So the point is that for me having a low level of commitment to the mission was actually better, I think for me and the mission, although I'm sure the mission wouldn't have thought of it that way.
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"Positive Consequences for the Organization."
"On an organizational level, the higher turnover and absenteeism typical of individuals with minimal commitment may be functional if those employees are either disruptive or poor performers. The potential damage done by these employees may be limited; attitudes of others in the organization may improve if the undercommitted employees are absent; and replacements may bring in employees with new skills (Mowday et al, 1982)."
It should be noted that I did not have high absenteeism and I fulfilled my 2 year commitment, so the turnover & absenteeism complaint can't really be used against me, unless it were to say that I should have stayed longer. If they (the mission) were to say that there was lost time when I was in the USA I would really blow my top because that was there doing, so I hope they won't even go there because I have lots more you guys don't even know about that I haven't even begun to show you yet, so they better not even go there with that one.
I wasn't disruptive, as I've said a million times. I had a good attitude the whole time I was there and I never complained about anything. It's not like I tried to sabotage them or something. And I did my job well, and there never was a complaint about that. So what could be wrong, really. I was a good worker, I was always there, I had a good attitude, I even took initiative to reach out socially, which is a nice extra since everyone's strangers away from home. So why did they treat me so badly, then? Really, why did they? What could I have done to make them so mad at me to treat me the way they did, considering every other job around would be just very happy to have me. Even when I went on trips, I did great. There was not problem.
Oh, yeah, commitment, that ugly "c" word. Because of all the stuff I saw right from the beginning I was a tad (!) weak on commitment so if they figured that out that might have fueled their fire and made matters worse. But the thing is that they had things set up before I even arrived to be very abhorant to my ethical and moral standards. So I hadn't done anything to deserve those things because I couldn't have because I hadn't arrive yet. I take that back... if something from the U.S. somehow preceded me perhaps I had done something to deserve it, but if so, it was unbeknownst to myself, because I didn't know it was coming.
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The next section is titled "Negative Consequences for the Individual.""Whistle-blowers in particular may suffer severe negative consequences to their careers by making known illegal or harmful conditions to a governmental agency, a news reporter, or media personnel (DeGeorge, 1982).... Whistle-blowers often are cast in the roles of Judas Iscariot (Walters, 1975) or muckrackers from within (Peters & Branch, 1972). They commonly experience heavy personal costs including loss of income, loss of job security, isolation, defamation of character, exclusion from staff meetings, lost perquisites, less desirable work assignments, heavier workload, Harassment, and more stringent criticism of work (Ernmann & Lundman, 1982, Miceli & Near, 1984; Parmerlee, Near & Jensen, 1982)" ( p. 463)
I wasn't a whistle-blower, but I wish I'd been one. But I was lucky to come out as together as I did; to even attempt a whistle-blower act would be like suicide, I think. It was all I could do just to keep myself together. I doubt anyone's going to take anything seriously against them because everyone's too much in bed with them. And no one takes biblical mandate seriously enough nor holding each other accountable. The stuff that I experienced there was absolutely horrible.
I'm not sure how they described me after I left, but the way the treated me like anathema makes me think they thought I was a real threat to them. They really shunned me to the child at the end, so that was serious stuff and it was coming from the top for it to be so unified.
Even though I wasn't a whistle-blower I knew when I left the mission there weren't many other mission options left (I knew virtually all the missions and I'd written to almost all of them and the ones that responded most of them treated me like I was a spy trying to get secret information from them! I was just trying to decide which mission to go with). So it was going to be a huge change in my life after I left the mission because I wasn't going to be able to go the usual route into my chosen field. So I was more or less side-lined, really.
Also, while I was with the mission, I experienced isolation (working at the US office when I should have been in Vienna), less desirable work assignments, and harassment. I think that they caused some problems that to me were harassment, I'm talking about things like computer issues, when people wouldn't cooperated with me, and things like that where it felt like it was intentional but they always acted innocent like they didn't know what they were talking about or had some lame excuse or other that wasn't very convincing to me, especially when it or something similar happened repeatedly.
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The final section is "Negative Consequences for the Organization.""Low levels of commitment among professionals also create problems for the organization. Due to their outside referent groups, individuals with a cosmopolitan orientation may be more difficult to control than those with a local orientation (Gouldner, 1957; Gouldner, 1958). Further, commitment and identification to a profession may be inconsistent with the requirements for success and advancement in an organization (Raelin, 1984). " (p. 463)
You'd think that some of the theologians on staff would have had memberships in professional organizations where this might have been ans issue, but I don't know for sure about this. I just don't understand even how the theologians could agree to the values and norms of the mission anyway, so I guess anything is possible there.
As for myself, I didn't really have a membership or outside professional group, per se, that I recognized. The things is that professional groups usually have ethics statements and professionals might feel bound to that statement and this can cause clashes at work.
The thing is that for Christians we should always have and "extra-organizational" authority that we adhere to, and that is God and the Bible. The thing is that if you let them, the mission and its leadership, if you let them, will gladly twist the Bible and misinterpret God's will for you until you willingly agree to something you otherwise would say is clearly sin. So much for external authority. They just hijacked it for you.
But not for me. The secret I learned - while in the USA - was not to talk and not divulge weaknesses and not to express deep thoughts. It's best, I learned, to keep everything on the surface level, nice and light. I lived like that for 18 months, and pretty successfully for the most part. I mean, as far as duping them and keeping myself from completely falling apart is concerned. And at least I didn't get hijacked.
I had values that I held above the mission, but not organizations, like profesional organizations. Still, my values I think worked similar to how ties with a profesional organization might work, as far as it being in the way of employee management.
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That's it for tonight