***
Spang, Frank J. (1991, Summer). Training for religious support to families in transition. Military Chaplains' Review, 143-147.
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This section is titled "Alienation.""It is important to realize that those good things about Army life are those which are going to make this process so difficult. While we have always had QMPs (quality management programs) and there are those among us who remember the RIFs [reduction in force, i.e., layoffs] after the Vietnam War. When an organization which enshrines "selfless service" and sense of community begins to make cuts, the cuts hurt. The corporate culture of the Army is rooted in interdependence, and reducint the force by other than attrition tears at the interdependence. ACAP [Army Career and Alumni Program] does beyond the outplacement assistance given by corporations to individuals laid off.At least I those downsizing were because of the slowing down of the Cold War and not because of some kind of irresponsible bookkeeping (how it was told to me by missionaries affected) that resulted in about one third of the home office salaried staff to be laid off on the spot, and because they worked for a nonprofit they had no unemployment insurance. And the icing on the cake was bringing seasoned missionaries home from the field to fill their place... They were on faith support so they're pay wouldn't come out of the central budget. These missionaries were so devastated by this. I'm talking about missionaries mostly in their 50s who had been 20-30 years on the field giving their life their and just unceremoniously jerked off because of this very, very bad management. This was one of the main reasons I didn't want to go with this mission. I felt like the mission was run with a secular business mentality, and I worked part time for the director's wife right in the belly of the beast, so I got a whiff of it. I didn't see enough Christian spirit in it. This was arguably the most influential East European mission during the Cold War bacause of its expertise, language and cultural specialists, etc. Others came to them for advice, and they did virtually everthing and worked all over the globe wherever there were Slavic people, whereas other missions had niche ministries. And they were one of the missions on the board of the Vienna mission and had at least one missionary there too. They were one of the founding five missions.
How it hurts. Individuals losing civilians jobs can usual preserve some of the pillars which support their lives. In some cases the transition is merely from doing a job with one employer to doing the same thing for another employer. Sometimes a worker can shoose to remain in the same area but begin another kind of work. Very seldom will a worker have to both move and change fields of work at the same time. In most cases soldiers who leave the Army face geographical and employment transitions.
The risk here is alienation, both of thos transitioning and those remaining. To some degree everybody involved must make the break. It is inevitable that interpersonal and organizational connections must be severed to some degree. The paramount concern for the Army is to limit the destructive effect of hostile alienation on the organization. Those who are leaving must come to see the transition as being something better with promising new opportunities. Those who are staying must recover their balance and their faith in the organization." (p. 145)
But back to the text. The mission had it, I think that people always had to leave only when their term was up or else if they left in disgrace they had to leave with their head muddled to one degree or another depending on how much of a threat the mission thought the person might be back home. For example, if a person couldn't stay out their term because they developed fibromyalgia while in Vienna, but otherwise there was no other reason, the mission and the person would agree that the person needed to take care of his or her health and so it could be agreed with an amicable parting. Or maybe there was an urgent family matter and one was needed at home, such as to care for an ailing parent or something.
But if it became clear that there was some other reason like dissatisfaction or disagreement, as in my case, it would need to be taken into account how much of a problem the person could be (back home I mean), but also how credible the person might be. So basically, they'd be thinking damage control. I'm not sure if anyone else ever left the mission dissatisfied, in disagreement with the mission, in disalusionment, but the mission used all the power and knowledge it could muster to basicly force new missionaries to cooperate and accept the mission's way of seeing the world and doing things. After they considered all these things they'd figure out how to treat the person en route to leaving the mission. That's what I think.
If the reason they treated me so badly at the end, shunning me, putting me on the receptionist position, etc. was that they thought I was such a potential threat to their image (i.e., in need of great damage control), then I am very honored to have been thought of in that way. They certainly wouldn't have treated me like that at the end for my dad's sake; that wouldn't make any sense at all, as far as I can make out. Although it's possible they might not have wanted anyone to know if they were involved in anything to do with my dad's work affecting my treatment by them.
I have to take a pause here for church, but I'll be back to finish...
As for my transition to "civilian life" from nonprofit religious life abroad in a secretive mission that treated me like so much trash to be shoved around from place to place for reasons that no one back home could possibly be expected to understand and no one would have the time to wait for an explanation that would be convincing enough, because it would be so unusual and unexpected that it would take a lot of time.
So I was coming home as if from Mars or something, but everyone thought I was coming from Vienna, Austria, and I had to act like I was coming from there for the bulk of people because of the logistics as explained above. But because I was, in fact, a forever changed person I could not really live as if everything was just the same, because everything was horribly changed forever. I probably had post traumatic stress syndrome, if it's okay to diagnose myself. But I did dust myself and pick myself up and do okay... if it weren't for politics again interfering.
I didn't have an ACAP to help me. And because no one understood what happened or the stand that I had taken and the significance of my values involved, I felt terribly alone. I was fortunate that my parents supported me, even when I wasn't always so gracious to them (because I was angry about my what I viewed as my father's role - whether directly or indirectly - in affecting my career).
Sometimes I've wondered how my having been with the mission and how I was treated affected the others at the mission. What did the others think of it all? I mean I had a response to how the missionaries were brought in from the field at the other mission I worked part-time with earlier in my career (because of the budget problems), even though I wasn't directly involved, so maybe others who witnessed how I was treated had a response to that at the Vienna mission. I expect the Vienna mission tried to somehow create an organizational myth about me or something, adding select details that others might not have known. That would be the limiting of "destructive effect of hostile alienation on the organization." (last paragraph)
In any case, if the mission, like the army, wanted those who are leaving "to see the transition as being something better with promising new opportunities" (also last paragraph), they failed miserably with me on that count. All they succeeded in doing with me is to get me out of there confused about anything going on in the mission and with a sense that the people there really don't want to continue relations with me (the shunning of me made that clear). They didn't give a rip at all about my future or what happened next in my life and I didn't give them any indication that it was any of their business, either. That being said, however, my tenor with them in parting was just unfriendly, but not angry or sad either. I don't think either side trusted the other, but that was me vs. the leadership, not me vs. the the other workers, because it was the leadership that had treated me so badly.
***
That was really a long comment for one passage. We're moving on to another article in this series now though. These articles are all short.Actually there was only one other article that I might possibly want to discuss, but it might be a short discussion:
Barnes, John H., & Tyson, Granville E. (1991, Summer). Volunteerism in the chapel. Military Chaplains' Review, p. 153-158.
Here are my comments at the cop of the first page of the copied article:
"cp. Vienna International Chapel - Was it run on military chaplaincy principles? (or [the Vienna mission's] controversial control in it at least?)"
Reading the article the ideas for volunteerism in the chapel would fit a lot of different church settings, so I don't think they're terribly unique and I don't think they're worth discussing. Probably my comment is there just because it was triggered indirectly by the ideas so I jotted them down there. In going through some letters I mention some things about the Vienna International Chappel (not this issue necessarily, though, so I'd rather wait to discuss this issue in a context like that, but it is worth talking about because the Vienna mission was building itself a whole microcosm to live in that would sort of protect itself and its families from wandering eyes. It started an English-speaking Christian school while I was there too.
