439. Military Chaplaincy, pt. 46 (Seidel (b), pt. 1)

I'm sorry, in the shuffle of things, I forgot that I hadn't finished going through the military chaplaincy file.  It's so hard to keep up with things and it's doubly frustrating when I want to do things but half the time I don't feel up to doing most of the things I want or half to do.  So right now at least I can do some things at the computer (some of the time - I have to lay down some too).  There's all this stuff at home to do, too, and, of course, that says nothing about what I would do if I were healthy and could get around like a healthy person. 

But we all have our limitations, and I've always been able to somehow make the best within the limitations I have.  But that doesn't mean there isn't an adjustment period.  So every time there is a change there might be a bit of adjustment, depending on the situation.  Maybe you can relate to what I'm saying.  It's just that I've been through it in some pretty extreme situations, from Vienna isolated where I had to figure things out on my own (as I thought, anyway), to Siberia, to dealing with family where I thought my father was part of my problems but would never admit it and I couldn't trust him completely. To employment problems that have left some family members to this day as pegging me as lazy or just dealing with living alone in a strange city with all these health issues and trying to rise above it. 

It's really hard, I admit.  I don't really want people to feel sorry for me, but sometimes it would be nice for mom or a good friend, for example, to put their arms around me and let me have a good cry.  I'm only human after all!  But I'm the epitome of the strong person that just forges ahead in the face of all sorts of adversity.  And by the way, I don't need anyone, especially if I sense at all that there might be any ulterior motives or hidden agenda in a potential assistant.  Or sometimes it's just that they naively try to associate me with a position, for example, such as, "I'm so glad you finally made it to the land of Capitalism and came to your senses about the wickedness of Communism." 

Whoa, Nellie!  This is referring, of course to my rescuing from Russia (I originally moved there when it was the USSR still) in 1997, in which my father played a part.  The thing is that 1) I never did like Communism.  and 2) I never did like Capitalism.  So please do not ever try to associate me with either one of these.  (Without going into reams of boringly repetitive materials from earlier posts, I think Communism errantly assumes humans are fundamently good and will of their own free will share everything.  Balderdash.  On the other hand Capitalism is sheer greed and anyone who has any understanding of sin knows that the love of money is the root of all evil.  So how can Capitalism be good, especially from a Christian standpoint? 

Just don't try to ask me, then what kind of economic system I do believe in, because I do not claim to be an economist.  I'll leave it up to the economists to try to come up with something that more closely resembles scriptural Christianity.  Of course, some might say that the early church practiced early socialism or comunism or something of that nature.  If they had the new nature and the Holy Spirit living in them, then that deals with the issue of humans not willingly sharing prossessions with each others.  The problem is, however, that, unfortunately, Christians still can sin, so even this is going to be problematic.

The other issue was that the missions I went to Vienna with were more or less openly right wing.  While I was in Russia I joined Americans United for the Separation for Church and State which seems to be represented more by liberal than conservative churches (as well as other religions), although they deal with issues across the board.  But Conservative and Fundamental Christian churches tend not to like them and the very concept of separation of church and state.  For example, conservative churches tend to want prayer - Evangelical prayer, to be specific, or the Evangelical version of the Lord's Prayer - in schools.   I think I would have been persona non gratis at the Vienna mission on the basis of my membership in this organization alone, had they known.  I would have been the enemy or at the very least not someone they would chose to divulge anything more than the route to the W.C. to, which in Austria, was usually right near the entryway, anyway.

What am I trying to say?  I guess it's just that one of the things I've had to deal with in my transitions is that when people have helped me it seems they inevitibly have preconceived ideas about me when they do help me.  But those ideas often misrepresent me.  In the USSR they were not in my best interests no matter how you look at it, although I was able to turn some things around and make some good come of it eventually.  Other times when people helped me I didn't understand; it seemed like I was being set up for something that missed the mark of where I was and what I'd become.  It's like people were thinking of me as I was years prior and not in the then and now.  I inevitably ended out tearing myself free of these shackles, as I ended out feeling them as, and I was very much misunderstood and not a lot of good came of it.  It smelled to me like it was related to dad because there were themes like there had been themes for years since the whole debacle leading up to my move to Russia.  But no one believed me any more. 

This was way after Vienna, so I'm getting ahead of myself.  When I left Russia, I knew I had to change my profession.  I changed profession after I left Vienna, so that I got a Master's degree in Adult Education and teaching certification in teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages.  I tried to get into a doctoral program in sociology with a focus in peace studies, but I wasn't accepted (presumably because I didn't have a sociology background). 

Then I was accepted into a doctorate program in Adult Education, but I was interested in social justice issues, and I didn't realize that adult education in the US was so business and corporate-oriented and even ESL and literacy is so top-down focused and concerned only with making learners conform to society rather than create and have an impact, be a force for good in society, etc.  So I couldn't stand it.  That's not what I'm about.  And I got stuck with a professor that I had a feeling he might make me look bad with sexual inuendos.  A couple other doctoral students told me about rumors going around.  The thing was that I put out a post on the list serve that I wanted adult education for community development and there wasn't a program.  He'd been brought on staff the year before I came as a student, but nothing had been done yet.  So I didn't want my reputation ruined by him either, and I was being told by these two professors that I would be a professor and I was looking around at the schools and I was gagging, thinking, where do I want to be a professor?  and I jumped ship.  I wanted to direct a community program and/or do applied research (participatory, community-based, evaluation, needs assessment, etc.)

After that I had to take time out to get treated for Hepatits C which I most likely contracted in Russia in 1992 in a blood transfusion.  (Ironically, I'd gotten tested for AIDS on a trip to the USA after the operation in which the transfusion was administered, but I hadn't heard of Hepatitus C to get tested for it.]

Then I was accepted at another doctoral program I felt very excited about, but it was in Canada, and I didn't get a grant of fellowship there and I couldn't work there, because I was not Canadian.   I mapped out a nearby U.S. city and I thought I did pretty thorough study of the districts, current nonprofits and activities, the demographics, etc., etc.  I put together a plan and whatnot, but I just couldn't get funding for it.  I even found a building and had professionals come out and run estimates as to how much it would cost to fix it up, make it handicap excessible, etc.   I was really excited about it.  I know I could do it.  If my health were up, it would have been a fantastic thing to get started with inheritance monies and just prove to people, because people never believe what I can do, until I go out and prove it to the world.  So that's why I'm a loner and I like to do things on my own, because no one seems to believe in me, I guess.  And if people believe in  me, they ignore my conscience.  But my conscience, is who I am.  How can you just ignore a person's conscience?  In Vienna they did it?  They did it without a care in the world.  My dad even did it.   The Komsomols did it, but that's a no brainer.  The professors at my doctoral staff even seemed to do it.

Conscience.  Is it something that you can just take and try to make over to your image?  (like the Vienna mission) Is it something you can try to humiliate? (like the Komsols) Or is it something to just ignore and deny exists? (as dad seems to have done, not wanting to admit I changed)

All I wanted was ministry to a people I felt called to reach with the gospel.  That was my initial conscience. 

***

I wasn't going to do that... it just evolved.  That's one way to look at my life from 1987-2000.

Returning to the discussion of our texts... in my haste to just jump back in, I overlooked the fact that I hadn't finished with the Military Chaplaincy file yet.  So I'd better finish that one and then we'll go back to the Discipline & Justice File.

This article is:

Seidel, Andrew B. (1981, Summer). Developing a healthy self-image. Military Chaplains' Review, 49-59.
 

***

"Given the biblical antagonism against selfishness in all its forms, it is not surprising that christian [sic] psychologists and theologians began to react to the unfortunate equation of a good self-image with self-love.  Paul C. Vitz in his book Psychology as Religion: The Cult of Self-Worship, writes:

... Certainly Jesus Christ neither lived nor advocated a life that would qualify by today's standards as 'self-actualized.' For the Christian the self is the problem, not the potential paradise." (p. 49)

So the issue, remember is not just the teaching and what I think of it, but how it relates to my experience in Vienna.  In my experience and memory of them, the leadership - my boss, the secretaries who were mentoring me (my boss', boss' secretary in particular) and the infamous H.R. director who was the reserve U.S. military chaplain - could sort of pull these kinds of things out of a had and tweak them or focus on particular aspects according to the situation at hand and as they thought, it seemed to me at least, in their best interests. 

And when they went in counseling mode it was hardest for me to trust them because I was always certain it was a lure.  The emotional aspect of things was a lure, because they were not going to deal with things point blank.  I mean, they weren't going to deal with the kinds of things that were bothering me, at least, in a direct manner.  I think I I broached my issues directly to them they'd somehow come up with a cannon that would shoot me straight back home, and believe me, I would NOT pass go or collect $200.    I'd be out of there so fast I wouldn't know what hit me. 

The mission leaders, H.R. director included, would probably have agreed with this quote, although I knew that while I was with the mission there was one woman staffer that wasn't full time on the woman's ministry team, but did a lot of trips with them and she didn't agree with some of the staff that had nice homes in the suburbs.  Some of them, and I only saw a few, actually, were pretty well appointed I must say for missionaries.  So she really thought that missionaries shouldn't live so high on the hog, and she was somewhat disgruntled about that. 

That's not exactly the same thing, but I think it might be related to what this passage is saying.  So there may have been some variance of conviction regarding how exactly this passage might be applied in daily life.

As for myself, well, it's no great secret that my "self-actualization" was at level "0" by the time I left Vienna, so maybe I was at the perfect place for God to work in me.  Maybe that's a good way to look at it, that I hadn't seen before, and maybe I need to actually thank the mission for breaking me to make me more vulnerable for God's work.

I'm not sure if what transpired after I left Vienna, though, might be understood as God's leading necessarily.  But that is getting ahead of myself, isn't it?

At any rate, I don't think that at time in my stay in Vienna can you say I had self love.  I never really was caught up in myself, I don't think.  Even outside the mission, when I was going to the Austrian church, I worked under the auspices of the church's leadership.  But in the Austrian mission I just met nonsense after nonsense so there wasn't much for me to follow.  I'm not into a lot of games.  So I don't put up with that kind of stuff.  You either want me or you don't. 

***

"It is self-acceptance, not self-exaltation of self-depreciation (nor indeed self-love) that is commanded in scripture. Self-acceptance is taught in scripture because an adequate self-concept is necessary to function successfully in life.  Any pastor or chaplain who has been involved in counseling has noted that those who struggle with strong feelings of inferiority have a difficult time living a satisfying life.  The same may be said for those who are conceited.  Both have a very difficult time relating to other people.  Speaking of the need for an adequate self-concept, Lawrence J. Crabb has said, ".. people must accept themselves as adequate in a truly significant role if they are to honestly  regard themselves as worthwhile and so to enjoy the fullfillment of being a real person, he must be able to help him develop a realistic, accurate, and adequate self-image." (p. 51)

This passage follows a paragraph discussing Romans 12:3 " For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you."  So the context specifically is not to consider our role or position in the church as greater than you should.  The journal article is taking the liberties to expand the application of this verse beyond the original intentions.  I don't want to completely preclude that use of the verse, but I must admit that it is wanton use of it without any mention of the original limitations.  Things like that tend to put my guard up.  You really can say anything with Scripture if you want to.

Now let me show it in context so you can really see what the verse is saying:

Romans
³ For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you. ⁴ For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, ⁵ so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. ⁶ We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your^[a] faith; ⁷ if it is serving, then serve; if it is teaching, then teach; ⁸ if it is to encourage, then give encouragement; if it is giving, then give generously; if it is to lead,^[b] do it diligently; if it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully.

So the author is making it to be anthropology (the theology of man) whereas I think it's really eccleseology (the theology of the church).  Romans 3:3-8 is a microcosm, one of several places in Scripture, showing us what the church should be like.  And the church just happens to be made up of people, so of course it has to describe the people that make up the church. 

But the author of this text takes out one verse and chooses to make that one verse be anthropological - actually, not even that, he makes it psychological, so it's not even a religious study, but a secular study.  So he uses a religuous basis, a weak one only tangentially drawn out of context and uses it to support his secular thesis. 

At least the vast majority of the Vienna missionaries didn't do that, except for.... you guessed it... the U.S. military reserve chaplains.  My contention is it's because they were raised on drivel like this.  They had spent too much time in the military and instead of being salt and light they themselves had been affected by the military and came away less salty and shiny than when they went in.

Consistent with everything I just said, the author ignores why Paul admonished the Romans to not think of themselves more highly than they ought, etc., by ignoring the very next verse, which says that we all have different gifts and members and we need each other.  We're not an island!  Now this is what I'm talking about.  It's simple, and get past all the psycho babble and gobbledy-gook and if you're going to use Scripture, get down and roll up your sleeves and really do it, not to just pull out one verse and take it out of context!!

***

"What is Our Self-Image?

The self-image is a collage of images, feelings, and value judgments pertaining to oneself. (p. 51)

I guess I just put this reference sake.  I know my self-image is all over the place and that's why I feel like it's hard for people to relate to me; because I've had too many unusual experiences between Vienna and Russia and a few others thrown in and it really feels lonely, believe me.  I miss Grandmother, because she was the one that I really could talk to, but I think dad was going to sway her about my problems in the USA because she wasn't going to believe me about those for long in opposition to what he would tell her.  It's very lonely.  If it weren't for the health care I might well be better off in Russia.  I might have friends, at least teacher friends, if not among Christians.  The Orthodox might accept me; same with the Quakers.   One of these days I should try to make it down to the Quaker meeting here.  It's close to where I used to live though, at my old condo, so it's like 20 miles (42 km) away.

***

A person's self-concept is also the product of his own evaluation of his experiences.  All of us react to our experiences by making value judgments about them.  When we succeed in accomplishing something something we desired to do, we feel good about ourselves.  When we do not succeed, we place a negative value judgment on ourselves for failing and feel bad about ourselves.  If we usually accomplish what we desire, we tend to have a positive self-image.  A number of failures to meet our own goals would tend to produce a negative self-image. It is, however, extremely difficult to talk about value judgments as being strictly individual because our goals and values are so heavily influenced by other people. (p. 52)

The part about being influenced by other people has been a real stickler with me.  I've tended to chose the people I might let influence me and if I think people are way off and don't understand something, such as family back home not understanding what's happened in Vienna, then I sort of cardone off a part of me, or I might become silent or just drift off or look for work where I might be able to reach my goals, and the like.  So my family has on one hand been through the most of anyone with me, but on the other hand, they misunderstand me up the wazoo.  If I felt like they wanted to understand I might be willing to open up, but I feel like they'd just deride me, especially since the only ones left now are my brothers. 

I think the way other people's judgments influence me the most now is by the fact that now I have ended out at a time in my life alone.  I can't contribute that completely to these judgments, because my moving around had a very large amount to do with it too, but I think friends sort of lost faith in me and began to misunderstand me more and more as I moved around more and  more so that it became harder and harder to keep friends.  So that was a kind of judgment perhaps.

Otherwise, I have tended to have been a person of strong conviction and I've often run against the crowd in difficult situations or poked my head into difficult situations and being sure of my values haven't necessarily wanted to change with the values of the new group or setting.  Sometimes I've ended out tweaking my values a bit as I've thought through things.

So, in the end, I think that I'm not the type that's directly very vulnerable to direct influence in the area of values.

The author is probably thinking of things like being influenced by parental upbringing and at church and the like.  Well certainly as a child I was influenced by my parents and also at church and then in my formal schooling.  So those things I would say did have affect on my values. 

***

Even later in life a person's self-image is significantly affected by others' responses to him.  Particularly in a highly competitive professions such as the military... A low efficiency report or missed promotion can be devastating to the self-image." (p. 53)

Of course, no matter what I thought about whether I could work with the mission or not, by the time the end of my two year commitment had come my self-image was on the floor.  Missed promotion?  I had been demoted and sent back to the US and tossed around like a hot potato and you'd think I was spy or something.  Even though I didn't show it on the outside, I was a shambles on the inside and it all came to light once I returned home to the USA after my term with the mission was up. 

***

"Physical attractiveness is a major source of human worth.  After describing the powerful influences of physical attractiveness on children, Dobson states: "Most of the major choises made by adults are influenced one way or another by the attribute of beauty."

Intelligence is another quality highly values by our society... For most people it does not matter whether these values are right or wrong.  What does matter is that the majority of people hold these values.  One therefore can feel worthy and significant only if he conforms to these values." (p. 54)

In these realms I pretty much had it going for me.  Well, I wasn't a genius, but I'm relatively intelligent, and I'm pretty good looking.  I don't think I ever got overly caught up in the physical attractiveness, because, for example, when I learned many European women don't shave their legs I was all for it, and no or minimalist makeup was fine with me.  So I was an easy care person and not one to spend hours in the mirror gawking trying to get everything perfect or trying to run down the boys or anything.  But on the other hand, I was naive, when I should have been a little more cautious.  I didn't really think about the psychology of men and what they might be thinking or how I need to deal with them even if I hadn't been otherwise thinking about men until the issue came up.  So my problem was naivety mostly, I think, and maybe not being able to stand up for myself; being timid against men. 

I think that's partly because men in my family all had the upper hand.  So even if someone taught me to "just say no" (well for sex or something I did manage to say no, but before that I mean), I had no close precedent for that.  In fact just a couple years ago I asked mom if she ever disagreed with dad and she couldn't think of one time even!!  So how on earth was I ever going to learn to stand up to men based on the examples of the men in my family.  Well, as an teenager it was mom and dad, because I was the oldest, so my brothers were still just learning from dad and they were 2 and 4 years younger than me. 

As to intelligence, well I have 2 master's degrees now, a couple graduate certificates and I've presented at several professional conferences and published articles, so I must have some intelligence.  I need some intelligence to get my points across in this blog, and I couldn't do it without intelligence.  But I don't think intelligence alone is enough, either.  I think there also needs to be a certain insight, maybe wisdom, hopefully spirit-led perception and ability to communicate it. 

I must tell you though, lest you think I risk thinking of myself more highly than I ought, that I feel like this is sort of my last harrah.  I feel like I have to do this, but I don't know what else I can do.  You have to understand that my health isn't good, so I'm at home too much of the time and I'm unreliable for much of anything.  I'm just telling you as it is, really. 

***

The weaknesses that cannot be changed are best acknowledged for what they are without excess significance being allowed to transform them into fatal flaws.  Most people seem to want to work and worry about correcting their weaknesses.  A much better solution is to concentrate upon the development of strengths.  James Dobson calls this 'compensation' and says; 'compensation is your child's best weapon against inferiority.' compensation works for adults too." (p. 56)

I don't like the psychological lingo here and I'm not prone to particularly like the approach but there is some similarity, I think, to my approach, that I have used just through natural (I think) reflexes or how my personality works or something.

Basically the issue is that there is a weakness that is hindering you from doing something.  I think the weakness can be within the individual/a part of the individual or contextual  or otherwise external to the individual, but the effect is basically the same, right?

My approach is to try to figure out how to make lemonade or how to rethink the situation to make the best of it, maybe come up with a better solution, etc. 

Even now with my health limitations it works because I revise my interests and activities around what I am able to do.  So you have to take a creative, problem-solving perspective.  You have to be somewhat flexible and willing to accept a certain amount of change, which might be difficult for some people, I think.

It's been easier for me, though, because it's just me.  It's lonely, though, so I'm not sure I'd recommend that.  But if you have supportive family and/or friends they should be willing to work with you in that. 

***

Because a person's self-image is constructed primarily from interpersonal relationships (particularly with his parents), his self-image may be modified through the same process. (p. 57)

Well, there's no doubt my parents had an incredible impact on my self-image growing up.  Not only did we just have the usual family times, but our family did more than the usual family together, including a lot of camping and the like.   But the adult years are where we hit rocky roads and it's just because of the problem between my interests and dad's work.  And then my brother who lived there near them gets all hot under the collar about how dad was so upset trying to get me out of Russia and everything, but he doesn't understand everything else and how I had troubles getting jobs here and it wasn't until I became a librarian that I could get a job and all those problems were still fall out related to dad.  I'm not sure exactly how it works, though, so don't ask me to explain it, but all I know was I knew when I left Russia that I had to change professions and in fact I didn't start getting good career jobs until I changed professions. 

Dad loved me and maybe he was conflicted over me.  It hurt when he said he didn't believe me any more.  (After I dropped out of my doctoral studies, when I was being treated for hepatitis C and was in the hospital having had a very bad reaction to the Interferon.) Then that was it.  Then I couldn't talk to him for sure about anything.  I'd lost him.  I think when I dropped out of my doctoral studies he was off the hook, whereas before that things could still point back to him as my problems stemming from him.  But once I dropped out of my doctorate that was the point he felt he could free himself of this burden and he said he didn't believe me anymore.  That's how I understand it.

(I'm not sure if that last paragraph is clear so I'll try restating part of it.  Maybe Dad didn't like it  that my problems in Russia were pointing to him, meaning that it was because of him that I was invited over there and the problem was bad enough that I still had problems leaving in 1997, over 6 years later.  When I was making the appeal to try to get out of Russia it was to try to make it to a study program.  So when I dropped out of the doctoral program, which actually was not the original one even, dad decided to drop this bomb that he didn't believe me, which would sort of clear him of any responsibility.)

***

I can't quote this whole paragraph, because one line is cut off in the copy I made, but the author discusses how interpersonal relationships that become facilitative are characterized by feedback and feedback loops the evaluation and re-evaluation going on.

"The desired end result is a more accurate, balanced, healthy, self-concept." (p. 58)

This may be what my parents wanted to inculcate into me, and did a reasonably good job, I think.  But I have absolutely no reason to believe that the H.R. director at the Vienna mission desired this for me.  What exactly he wanted, I'm not sure, but the things I would hazzard guesses on are far from this description. 

What he was practicing was pseudo psychology in the service of security. 

***

I guess that's all for now.  This has really taken a long time.

311. Organizational Behavior, Pt. 37 (Bowditch, pt.4)

It wasn't much of a spiritual retreat yesterday, but it was a start.  Today I have a morning appointment with one of my neurologists.  Late yesterday evening my legs got pretty bad so that I had less control of them.  They're a little better this morning though.

***

One thing I got to thinking about over the weekend is the difference between my dad and I.  Both of us were stymied from doing what we really wanted to do, but how that happened and the effect on either of us was completely different.

Dad wanted to be a pilot - an airplane pilot.  He told me about this when I was a late teenager I think.  He said he wasn't allowed because he wore glasses and at that time he was disqualified from being a pilot because of that.

Well presumably that was something that he would have known upfront and that wouldn't have been difficult to find out about, so you'd know early on that you couldn't go in that profession.  So there was that point.  But then there was also the issue that he wasn't going to let that, as far as I could tell, ruin his life.  When he was drafted into the Korean War (although he never saw battle because the war ended before he got out of boot camp), he chose the Air Force because of his interest in flying, and then he worked for Boeing after finishing his draft enlistment.

But I never was told that I couldn't become a missionary to Eastern Europe... although after I left the Vienna mission a missionary with Campus Crusade for Christ told me that sometimes the don't let people with parents in the military work in missions in that part of the world.  (Note: although my dad wasn't in the military he was in aerospace, the "military industrial complex" end of Boeing).  So I put years and years and lots of money (and my parents' money and even my Grandmother's money) into preparing for that profession and if, say, the U.S. government didn't want me in that field I was never told about it.  It wasn't at all like knowing in advance that wearing glasses automatically disqualified one from being an airplane pilot.  I was way way way emotionally invested in this and I really felt that God had called me to that field and I still think that.

So then the other thing is after leaving Vienna I was broken but after some regrouping I was so convinced of God's call that I took another stab at it again.  By myself, Sans mission.

So the thing was that I faced all these nebulous entities, often hard to explain problems that always seemed to make my way difficult - sometimes exceedingly difficult.  It seemed that nothing about my career denial would be clearcut like dad's denial because he wore glasses.  Of course, you could always blame it on me, saying I was incompetent, crazy, or the like.  But that would only work for my Vienna years (1987-1989), not my Russia years (1991-1997), for some strange - or crazy - reason.  And I did have some problems in Russia, just different ones.

The work itself was also much different, of course, which bears noting.  Dad couldn't just decide he was going to try to work around the system and try to become a pilot despite his wearing glasses, as the airline industry is, was and always has been highly regulated regarding licensure of pilots.  He'd probably have to go to a third world country to become a pilot where wearing glasses wasn't an issue, which, if he wanted to become a pilot badly enough, I suppose was possible.

However, in my case, the field "Eastern European missionary" was not exactly what you'd call highly regulated - it's not as if you have to get a license to become one, for example.  Criteria for entering this profession are rather idiosyncratically set by the particulars of individual missions, positions, locations, etc.  So there should have been a lot more opportunity for me to work around any barrier, if I'd known of one.  So, for example, if it was true that children of military members might not be allowed into work in Eastern Europe, does that mean that all missions across the board wouldn't allow them?  does it mean that these potential workers wouldn't be allowed into any position in any country under any circumstance?  etc. And this assumes that all missions cooperate with the U.S. government in disallowing these types of workers.  Otherwise, how do they find out that these potential workers are children of military?  I don't remember being asked about it, so were the mission leadership informed about my dad?  (Considering they had 2 military chaplains on staff this isn't a completely unreasonable supposition, I think.)  Also, it is not completely unheard of for missionaries to work on their own or to set up their own mission.  Even one of our administrators had done that very thing instead of going through a regular sending mission.  So who's to say that I had to go through a mission anyway and be subject to their determination that I was disqualified from ministry to that part of the world because of my dad?

So you see, my area of work did allow a lot more opportunity to try to get around the system than did dad's line of work.  He would have to have left the country to work as a pilot.  As for my line of work, however, there was no way, really, for me to know up front who I could maybe work for and who I couldn't, but then I didn't know that there was a roadblock out there in the first place.  So dad's roadblock was black and white, but very unforgiving, and mine was hidden and only discovered by trial and error.

Another issue, of course, is the gender one.  For me, I began to see more and more that giving up on my dream meant becoming Susie homemaker, and some Christian men thought missionary experienc and the like was very noble and attractive, like it made one more of a trophy wife in Evangelical circles.  That really is demeaning to me.  Is that all it means?  That's it?  That's not what it means to me and that's never what it meant to me.  And I fiind it very disgusting to have it trivialized like that.

Anyway, that's it for the comparison between dad's and my work roadblocks.

***

This next main subject heading is "ORGANIZATION-ENVIRONMENT RELATIONS," and this is from the introduction:

"This section looks at some of the ways in which managers and organizations deal with their environments in terms of: 1) managerial efforts to reduce uncertainty by controlling the environment; and 2) attempts to structure organizations so they "fit" environmental pressures and demands." (p. 165)

***

The first sub-heading is: "Controlling the Environment."

"Thompson has noted five basic ways in which organizations attempt to exert control over their environment to reduce the level of uncertainty in their planning.  First, under 'norms of rationality,' organizations try to buffer or isolate their core technologies (inner operations) from external influences.  Through both input (e.g. stockpiling of inventories) and output (e.g., marketing) mechanisms, managers attempt to ensure that the core task of the organization is not directly affected by external conditions such as scarcity of materials (input) or changes in consumer preferences (output)." (p. 165)

The other 4 ways are basically an escallation if the first one doesn't work, but I don't think those other methods are very helpful for my purposes here.

The "core technologies" in the Vienna mission case would be the various secrets, including names of students, when classes are being held, what the classes are, who the missions are, where the money comes from, how textbooks get to the students, etc., etc.; basically all the things that the security system protects.  So this "buffer or isolate their core technologies" is more or less part of the security system, and marketing might include some of the misinformation ("We're an international publisher.").  But the marketing, especially back home, also serves the purpose of making sure that there are good vibes there to keep the financial support and supply of workers coming so that the work can continue.  Also, they want a certain image of the mission back home and they want to be the ones defining the image, so that everyone has a general appreciation for why it might be necessary to maintain a certain level of secrecy, etc.

They did need to make sure they had textbooks on time or ahead of schedule for the courses to be taught because it was very difficult to reschedule courses since so much advance planning went into the scheduling and it was such a complex process to get everyone on board at the right time in the right place, and even then something could go wrong.  So having the logistics taken care of on the mission's side was very important, leaving only changes to happen on the Eastern European side of things, so they did try to plan ahead for the environmental uncertainties.  They couldn't control much on the Eastern European side of things, so they focused more on controlling what they could of the part of the work that took place in the West to minimize disruptions.

***

The next sub-section is "Struction-Environment Fit."

"As the earlier discussion of mechanistic and organic forms of organization, and the concepts of differentiation and integration pointed out, there is no one ideal form of organization structure... As Burns and Stalker argured, the most effective structure is one that adjusts to these environment requirements - a mechanistic form of organization in stable, certain environments, and an organic design in more unpredictable, turbulent fields." (p. 168)

I'd just say here that the formal structure of the mission was pretty stable, but I don't think my changing position is exactly organic - I didn't choose to change, for example.  One area where the mission might be considered contingent is the constantly changing instructional teams.  They had to keep changing to defy the attention of the authorities at the borders, for one thing, but there were other reasons as well for this, such as bringing in outside experts, introducing other potential recruit missionaries to the mission, etc.

None of the structure descriptions are particularly helpful in describing the mission.  The closest one, I think is "professional bureaucracy," but even that is not that helpful.  Basically it would just say that the theologians on staff couldn't be easily regulated, decisions were decentralized and there was less formalization than in some other structures.  This was largely true as far as the strictly theological aspects of the work was concerned, except that they had to get everyone on board with every single theological jot and tittle - all the missions, all the denominations represented by the students in each of the countries the mission taught in, etc.  So all of a sudden things don't seem quite so decentralized after all, because of the environmental complexity that was integral to the work the theologians did.

***

That's the end of this chapter.

I saw one of the neurologists today. (I have 2).  This neurologist isn't that helpful, but I am afraid to leave him because the other one, while I like him better, when my legs are very bad (from spinal stenosis), then it's hard to get out there to him.  It's frustrating.   He wants to wait to get my heart taken care of before anything else, though, which is probably a wise thing.  He knows my cardiologist and says he's good.

258. Organizational Behavior File, Pt. 7 (Ouchi, pt. 5/Argyris, pt. 1)

I've been going through mom's old address books to put together a list of who I should send out notices to regarding her death. A lot of the people I don't know at all or I maybe sort of remember but am not sure exactly who they are, especially in relation to mom. I'm almost done with it though.

***

The name of this last sub-section of the Ouchi article is "A Few Closing Observations."

"The student of organizational control should take care to understand that clans, which operate on ceremony and on ritual, have forms of control which by their nature are subtle and are ordinarily not visible to the inexperienced eye." (p. 845)

The significance of this sentence vis a vis my experience with the Vienna mission is that I was inexperienced regarding this type of thing and as such it was difficult for me to make sense of what was really happening and distinguishing meaningful cues from the seeming chaos. This sentence validates my assertion that although it is hard for me to describe what happened in Vienna between me and the mission, that doesn't mean nothing intentional (on the part of the mission) wasn't happening.

***

In discussing the two issues of "clarity with which performance can be assessed" and "goal incongruence" the author says:

"In everyday language, people must either be able to trust each other or to closely monitor each other if they are to engage in cooperative enterprises." (p. 846)

In Vienna I think trust took preeminence, and the mission seemed to only trust people members that had been thoroughly socialized and internalized the mission's norms. Performance, especially aspects of the work in Eastern Europe itself, such as teaching courses there, was often difficult to assess, so trust filled that gap. And it seemed the mission was slow to trust people and very demanding as to what it would take for it to trust someone. At least that was my experience of the mission.

***

Since this seems like too short of a post, I'm going to start on the next article, a book chapter, which is:

Argyris, Chris. (1989). The individual and the organization. In W. E. Natemeyer & J. S. Gilberg. Classics of Organizational Behavior, 2nd ed. Danville, IL: The Interstate, p. 21-34.

***

"One might say that an independent person is one whose behavior is not caused by the influence others have over him. Of course, no individual is completely independent..." (p. 23)

Independence was most emphatically not a mission-approved value. In fact, the mission seemed to go out of its way to create dependencies and my experience was that it censured personal independence of just about any kind.

***

"Another argument for planning offered by the formal organizational experts is that the organization created by logical, rational design, in the long run, is more human than one created haphazardly. They argue that it is illogical, cruel, wasteful, and inefficient not to have a logical design. It is illogical because design must come first. It does not make sense to pay a large salary to an individual without clearly defining his position and its relationship to the whole. It is cruel because, in the long run, the participants suffer when no clear organizational structure exists. It is wasteful because, unless jobs are clearly predefined, it is impossible to plan logical training, promotion, resigning, and retiring policies. It is inefficient because the organization becomes dependent upon personalities. The personal touch leads to playing politics, which Mary Follett has described as a "deplorable form of coercion."" (p. 25)

The Vienna mission did seem to have a structure, but it was, if this article is correct, less than complete. For example, while I did not have "a large salary" I did have supporters, but my position within the mission was, shall I say, somewhat less than "clearly defined". Not only that but it was constantly changing with all the positions I was moved around to. So, at least on the face of it, the mission was illogical in this deficiency.

I did indeed suffer by not having adequate work guidelines or even sufficient work to keep me busy. So in this regard, the mission was cruel.

It was also wasteful because not only did the mission not make good use of my skills and knowledge, but it wasted supporters' money in shuffling me around like a hockey puck, and not having clear grievance procedures in place made it impossible for any mutually satisfactory resolution to my unsatisfactory treatment.

Lacking these organizational structures and meaningful policies (i.e., policies that they actually adhered to) the mission became an instrument of the whims of its leaders. As such, efficiency was not something the mission excelled at, although it's possible that in the publishing end of things this was otherwise.

Now, if I were to ask for support from the average Christian in the pew who might be interested in supporting a missionary to Eastern Europe, how likely is it that this person would support an organization known to be illogical, cruel, wasteful and inefficient?

***

After discussing principles of task specialization from the field of industrial economics, the author goes on to discuss weaknesses in these principles:

"First, the human personality we have seen is always attempting to actualize its unique organization of parts from a continuous, emotionally laden, ego-involving process of growth. It is difficult, if not impossible, to assume that this process can be choked off and the resultant unique differences of individuals ignored. This is tantamount to saying that self-actualization can be ignored." (p. 26)

I don't think the issue of task specialization fits the Vienna context, except that there was a segmentation of knowledge for security reasons, but it didn't result in an assembly line type of situation, which would be more closely illustrative of what the author is talking about here. However, this statement about the human personality, can be taken, I think, apart from any consideration of task specialization. The Vienna mission clearly tried to "choke off" my self-actualization efforts in several ways. First of all, they pressured me to leave off my Austrian interactions. Secondly, they denied me meaningful work. Thirdly, they did not seem to value my unique assets (in as much as my background was significantly different from others' in my European Studies specialty).

***

"Proposition I. There is a lack of Congruency between the Needs of Healthy Individuals and the Demands of the Formal Organization.

If one uses the traditional formal principles of organization (i.e., chain of command, task specialization, and so on) to create a social organization, and if one uses as an input agents who tend toward mature psychological development (i.e., who are predisposed toward relative independence, activeness, use of important abilities, and so on), then one creates a disturbance, because the needs of healthy individuals listed above are not congruent with the requirements of formal organization, which tends to require the agents to work in situations where they are dependent, passive, use few and unimportant abilities, and so forth." (p. 31).

I wonder if the military chaplains who comprised the Vienna mission's h.r. department knew about this kind of thing...

In any case I would say I was "predisposed toward relative independence, activeness, use of important abilities, and so on," which, according to this author, describes someone of "mature psychological development". I would also say that I was required to work in situations where I was "dependent, passive, use few and unimportant abilities, and so forth," and the incongruity between me and the role I was to play caused "disturbance" because my needs were not (evidently) congruent with the requirements of the mission.

Since I was at a great disadvantage in not knowing the inside workings of the mission before arriving in Vienna, it would have been difficult for me to deselect myself beforehand. So then the onus is on the mission as to why they would take me on knowing that such an incongruity existed. That is why would they accept someone with my education and work background to do the kinds of work they had me do? For all the advanced degreed workers at the mission it is hard for me to believe that they didn't know there would be a clash between me and the position(s).

***

"Corollary 1. The disturbance will vary in proportion to the degree of incongruency between the needs of the individual and the requirements of the formal education." (p. 31)

The degree of incongruency was increased, I think, by the mission's disallowal of my compensatory efforts of Austrian ministry and their cutting off my outside contacts. So, in other words, not only did I have this incongruence, but the mission wouldn't even allow me to make up for it externally. Basically, it seemed to want this incongruence.

***

"Proposition II. The Results of This Disturbance Are Frustration, Failure, Short-Time Perspective, and Conflict.

If the agents are predisposed to a healthy, mature, self-actualization, the following results will occur:

1. They will tend to experience frustration because their self-actualization will be blocked.

2. They will tend to experience failure because they will not be permitted to define their own goals in relation to their central needs, the paths to these goals, and so on.

3. They will tend to experience short-time perspective, because they have no control over the clarity and stability of their future.

4. They will tend to experience conflict, because, as healthy agents, they will dislike the frustration, failure, and short-time perspective which is characteristic of their present jobs. If they leave, however, they may not find new jobs easily, and even if new jobs are found, they may not be much different." (p. 31)

I felt all of these things in my work with the mission. However, in the case of my experience with the mission, I think the mission might have actually wanted me to have this response to the incongruencies, or at least to some of the incongruencies. That is, the "disturbance" wasn't just a product of a neutral organizational structure, but was intentional.

***

That was it for that article, so I'm going to close with this.

247. Vienna Mission Years, Pt. 7

"The Mennonites are Anabaptists of Dutch and German origin who found sanctuary in Russia from the eighteenth century, and were by and large well treated under the Tsars. The Soviets found about 100,000 in their territory after the Revolution - and within a decade had set about rooting them out completely, a process accelerated during the purges. They were suspect partly because of their Western origins, but even more because of their traditional pacifism - a key feature in their religious outlook. It should be emphasized, however, that there is not hint of extremism in their religious make-up. A recent Soviet writer on the subject F. Fedorenko (Sects, their Faith and Practice, p. 153), admits that a new wave of activity began in the sect in 1956-7, when active preachers began to return from prison - in other words, the effort at total suppression by Stalin had signally failed. The Soviet Union Remains the only country of the world where there is a major Mennonite colony which has no right to set up an administrative body. Since 1963 they have been encouraged to throw in their lot with the Baptists which means being forced to give up their pacifism and other special characteristics. In 1967 came the first news of registration of a Mennonite congregation in its own right (Bratsky Vestnik - 'Fraternal Herald' - the official organ of the Russian Baptists, No. r, 1967, p. 42), and others have followed."

Religious Minorities in the Soviet Union: A Report, rev. 4th ed. (1984). Minority Rights Group, report no. 1. London: Minority Rights Group, p. 12-13.

***

I think the month of August, my second full month in Vienna, the great welcoming fanfare subsided... the honeymoon period of my relationship with the mission ended. I guess all the people that felt like they had to make initial acquaintance with me had done so, although I wouldn't have thought of it in these terms at the time. I do know, however, that it didn't bother me so much that the fanfare ended (since the welcome seemed overblown to me anyway), as it did that the stressors increased. That is, I hadn't expected so much apparently positive feedback right away nor so much negative feedback that followed.

Actually, I had been getting negative feedback in the form of non-work (reading software manuals) and the mission's continued effort to set me up with a roommate from the very beginning. But the negative feedback at work kept building up even after the positive welcome dwindled. As my mission-centric social engagements tapered off, however, my Austrian activities increased, so that it began to look more and more like my relationship with the mission being a 9 to 5 affair with somewhat more social interaction than one might have at a regular office job back home. So in this way, I was treating the mission as an office job with no real intentions, on my part, of pushing for more than that. Neither did I particularly feel an obligation to anyone to tell the mission what I was thinking nor what I was intending to do in my off hours. So the vacuum left by the mission by way of dwindling off-hour social activities I gradually filled with Austrian activities.

Besides my feeling comfortable in the Austrian context in general, my personality also made the withdrawal of excess attention rather insignificant to me because 1) I hadn't expected such an overblown welcome in the first place, but also 2) my personality is such that I don't mind alone time. That is, the drop off in mission-centric social activities and the resulting alone time didn't particularly phase me, where it might have been meant as a stressor and it wasn't.

That being said, however, I think it was in August that I began having more and more troubles at work. These are hard to explain and I would have had to document them step by step to be able to get them across to you very well now. But what happened for the next two or three months was that I began having more and more problems getting things done at work. That is, when I was given anything to do that involved any interactions outside of my office, such as phone calls or even needing to get supplies, I started having problems in carrying out these responsibilities. But everyone else seemed to have a "logical" explanation for any particular problem I was having. In this way, it made it look like everyone just thought that these problems were normal and to be expected but they seemed too contrived and limited to the work setting for me to believe that. Nevertheless, I felt like I shouldn't open up too much about my frustrations.

A lot of times it felt like I had to do things over and over again to get them right or problems with the phone system, for example, were unpredictable. In this way, my attempts to figure things out was always thwarted because nothing ever worked the way I thought they should or the way I'd been explained. I did express my frustration too, although I wouldn't say I got angry exactly and nor did I let on that I thought these things were intentional tests, but I did think that. The thing was, a lot of times I couldn't explain what the possible mechanisms for these things were, and if I thought I could explain them that would attribute actions and, therefore, qualities, to my fellow workers that I knew wouldn't be believed.

I should also say that these problems at work were particularly a part of my experiences until I was sent back to the States and after that they subsided. Also, this is the only time in my life where I've experienced this kind of thing and it was specific only to my experiences at the office. That is, my experiences in my outside relations and activities did not include these kinds of stressors. This meant that my Austrian activities allowed me to maintain a sense of grounding in the face of my mission-centric problems and shifting sand foundation. My mental map of how to function in Austria grew stronger and continually more accurate, whereas my understanding of the mission grew weaker, if anything.

Now this is a strange thing, when you think of it, because I was working mostly with Americans with a very similar background to mine in many ways, which I've discussed at some length elsewhere in this blog. But then, the problems at work seemed to be more things that just "didn't work" rather than strictly with people. So the main way the people would have been involved would have been if I attributed to how things didn't work to them, and I didn't have concrete enough proof to do that, although I was sure it was true. So I never told anyone I thought these things I was experiencing were contrived.

So through all this what were my complaints that I expressed to others? My complaints were just the problems I was having at work getting things done. So that was the one hook they had to catch me with, the work-related stress.

***

The month of August is rather sparsely populated in my calendar. On Saturday, August 1 I invited the director of human resources and his wife over for dinner. I don't really remember that evening, but in hindsight, considering what eventually transpired - several months later - it's rather ironic that they seem to have been my first dinner guests. They might have been being friendly to me in an effort to try to get to know me, because they would be key people in deciding on the mission's path to take with me. In any event, by that time I was set up enough to feel comfortable entertaining already.

***

As I continued at the Austrian church, there was a wedding Saturday, August 15 and I brought a green salad for 10 people to it. So I was beginning to get settled in there a bit too. This might be a good time to discuss the church.

The church, Evangelikale Gemeinde Döbling, at that time was a church-planting effort led by an American couple. The attendance was about what my current church is, that is around 30 people or so on any give typical Sunday. The people there were very friendly and received me well. Since the pastor and his wife, my colleague from the mission and I were all Americans and the idea was for it to be an Austrian church, I was mindful of wanting to work under their leadership. That is, despite the fact that the American presence included more Bible and theological training than would have been so for the Austrians, many of whom were young Christians, the point was to let them have the leadership. Of course, my German wasn't so great anyway at this point, although I was able to function well enough, as we'll see as things move along here. I expect that bringing a salad for the wedding was my first contribution to the church functioning.

In any case, the problems I had at work most definitely did not carry over to my relations with the church.

***

On Thursday, August 20th I had another appointment with my doctor to get new prescriptions.

***

Then on Saturday, August 22 I had two of the young families over for a picnic. Both of the men in the families were instructors in the ministry to Eastern Europe. I remember this picnic really well, so I'll go into more detail about it.

The reason I had them over for a picnic was because my apartment was so small and I thought the younger kids, especially the ones of the new family, would enjoy being able to run around.

I spent a lot of time preparing for the picnic, including a salad and dessert. I packed everything up and they men helped carry it all to the picnic site, because it was at the edge of the Wienerwald (Viennese Forest) near me, so we walked to it from my place, about 1/2 a mile (ca. 1 km.).

***

Here is one of the recipes I prepared:

Corned-Beef Picnic Buns

6 oz. corned beef, chopped
2 tablespoons chili sauce
1/4 cup mayonnaise
1 tablespoon pickle relish
1 tablespoon finely chopped onion
2 ounces Monterey Jack cheese, diced
1 (8 oz.) can refrigerated crescent rolls
1 1/2 teaspoons butter or margarine, melted
1/2 cup crushed potato chips

Prehead oven to 375F (190C). Grease 8 muffin cups. In a bowl, combine corned beef, chili sauce, mayonnaise, pickle relish, onion and cheese. Separate refrigerated dough into triangles. Place about 2 tablespoons corned-beef mixture on each dough triangle near wide end. Pull up sides of dough over filling. Roll to opposite point of triangle until filling is completely covered. Pinch edges to seal. Place buns in greased muffin cups with point of dough on the bottom. Brush tops with butter or margarine. Sprinkle potato chips over bun. Gently press chips into buns. Bake until lightly browned, about 20 minutes. Cool slightly on rack. Wrap warm buns in paper napkins or paper towels. Serve warm or at room temperature. If buns will not be served within 3 hours, refrigerate. Rehead buns on a baking sheet in a 350F (175C) oven 10 minutes. Makes 8 servings.

Deeming, Sue, & Deeming, Bill. (1983). Soups & Sandwiches. Tucson, AZ: HP Books, p. 91.

***

I think everyone had fun. After eating the women stayed chatting around the picnic table while the men and young boys walked around a bit. The boys had a bit of excitement when they found a harmless snake. Then we had dessert later on and eventually walked back to my apartment.

I always have enjoyed entertaining, so it's been difficult when I've been in situations that I haven't been able to do as much as I'd otherwise like to. I am resourceful, though, and always manage to find something else to fill my time with. Still, it's not like I don't know there's some compensating going on for what I'd maybe rather be doing or at least what I'd be happier doing.

***

This is the end of my August 1987 entries in my calendar, and I'm going to take another break here because I have more files I need to go through here before I reach the 5th month crisis point.

243. Vienna Mission Years, Pt. 4

"Letter Styles

It has often been said that an ideal letter should resemble a picture in an appropriate frame, but this is not always practical today because of the many different letterhead styles; therefore, letters must be arranged and typed according to the style of the letterhead as well as the letter style which the company has chosen. Most organizations have a procedural manual for their employees giving the letter style and explaining how they want the various parts of the business letter typed.

The various letter styles being used in the business world are here listed and examples will be shown on the following pages.

Full block style (Letter 1). This style is the full or extreme block style with all lines beginning at the left margin.

Simplified style (Letter 2). This letter style is very similar to the full block letter style with the exception that the simplified style omits the salutation and complimentary closing. A subject line typed on the third line below the inside address in all capital letters replaces the salutation. The writer's identification and title is typed in all capital letters three lines below the body of the letter...

Modified or regular block style (Letter 3). The date line, complimentary closing, and typewritten signature lines begin at the center of the paper and ll other lines begin flush with the left margin...

Semiblock style (Letter 4). This style is very similar to the modified or regular block style letter. The paragraphs are indented five spaces, the inside address is blocked, and the date line, complimentary closing, and typewritten signature lines begin at the center of the paper.

Hanging indentation style (Letter 5). This style starts each paragraph flush with the left margin, the rest of the lines in each paragraph are indented. The date line may be centered under the letterhead or it may be typed starting at the center of the sheet, as is the complimentary closing and the signature line.

Indented style (Letter 6). This style indents all lines five spaces, except for the main body of the letter. This letter style is almost obsolete, but may be encountered by the secretary in letters from foreign countries."

Webster's New World Secretarial Handbook, rev. ed. (1981). New York: Prentice Hall, p. 66-67.

***

According to my calendar, On July 11, 1987 I went to a potluck and brought green beans. I don't remember this, however, so I don't know where it was or who was there.

On Wednesday July 15 I had dinner at my boss' house. This would probably have been the first time at their house, although I think I would have met his wife before this, if not his kids yet.

On Thursday July 16 I went to a Bible study. I think the first month I was in Vienna I went to the English speaking church most of the others went to, mainly because I was still just getting settled in and so that was the easiest thing to do. There were several mid-week Bible studies around town from that church and one of my closest mission neighbors had one of these church-related Bible studies, and I'm pretty sure this would have been their Bible study. At the end of my time in Vienna when I was beginning to wear down from the constant pressures from the mission and finally gave in and started going to the English church, then I started going to this mid-week Bible study again too.

On Friday July 17, the next day, I brought garlic bread to a singles dinner two of the single guys on staff were hosting. We all (the singles, I mean) switched around hosting these kinds of gatherings, although I think some of the singles were more geared to entertaining than others.

The next Monday, July 20 I went to the monthly women's meeting, which is surprising to me, because they usually stopped the women's meetings for the summer. These women's meetings were quite the affair though. This was the main event that regularly drew the wives in and they took a lot of responsibility for it and also for the monthly staff newsletter. If I remember right, it was often a soup and salad affair, and it was potluck. But there was a program and decorations, sort of like you'd maybe imagine a women's church luncheon or the like. Complete with all the frills and foofera. Also, each women's meeting had a different theme. The wives also often came to our monthly all-staff meeting, but these women's meetings were something they were more integrally involved with.

Tuesday the 21st I had my first doctor's appointment at 4:00 (door #12). I remember this doctor. He spoke English well and I'm sure someone at the mission had recommended him. In a later appointment I have noted something about a prescription in the calendar, and I just found a xerox copy of some prescriptions from later appointments; they're all for Uniphyl (Unifil in German), which is a bronchidilator - an inhalant for asthma. And it looks like there's a second medicine too, "OP 1 à 50 gr.," which I think would have been the pain medicine for my really bad menstrual cramps that last until I was about 30. I'm assuming the "OP 1" is a type of opiate. The prescriptions are the same for all the appointments.

This information about the doctor is, I think, relatively important, in light of later developments.

***

I'm going to end there because the next things that happen will require more explanation. However, again, I'm still reading software manuals at work...

237. Pre-Vienna Comments 9

I was out all day, but I've been working on this this evening. I'm missing a couple documents - one of which I had together with the others, but now I seem to have misplaced it. But I found other documents that together I think make a rather interesting story, and maybe it's better this way for now.

This post is "My Life in Libraries" (abridged version) (I'm sorry for the sideways pictures, but I'm tired and I'm not going to fix that right now.)

1970. These first three images demonstrate that I had a relationship with libraries from rather young. I trust some of my readers also remember their parents taking them to the library when they were young and helping them check out books.

I don't know how common this is around the world, but in the USA at least it's very common for public libraries to have reading programs of the nature these images represent. Usually the child, after having read 10 books gets some kind of acknowledgement for their efforts.

About this same time (5th or 6th grade) my school library had an arts/crafts contest to create something depicting something from a book. I made a papier mache scene of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn on a raft in a river. The reward that time was a hardbound copy of "Five Little Peppers." I still have the raft from the scene and also the book I was awarded, but I didn't think you needed to see those too.

1984. Of course, like all college students, I used the university library too, but I'm going to move on to other aspects of my relationship with libraries. Next we see the second (of 2) contracts that I had working for Slavic Gospel Association in their library. This was interesting work, really. They have a largish room all on materials dealing with religion in Communist countries, or other pertinent information close to that subject. The cataloging I did of the videos was not standard cataloging (like Dewey or Library of Congress systems), but it was a system that worked for that size of a library. I also helped patrons find materials, and we had a lot of college students use the library (there was a relationship with Wheaton College). The other interesting thing I did then was peruse recent newsletter from other missions, including some in French and German and collated them into a packet to be sent to the various stations where the mission had workers. For the German and French articles I either translated them or wrote summaries. The second page is the list of duties I was to perform under the contract.

It was during this contract that the Vice President of Finance told me that they got money from the CIA for their radio work. It was also during this time that I made the appointment with the director to talk with him about some concerns I had (which I've written about elsewhere). After that contract ended I began a second year at Bible school.

1990. I've mentioned that the year after I returned to the States from Vienna my spirit was really crushed; they did me a good one, that's for sure. I had begun to believe that I was I was awful bad and couldn't do anything.

About 3 months after I returned home I got a job at my old alma mater in the library as a library assistant. Those were the days before computers, although it wasn't long after that that the university joined the Western Library Network, which eventually joined with OCLC. How things worked when I was there is that we'd get the printed cards (I can't remember if it was from a jobber or Library of Congress), but they wouldn't be complete. So I'd type out the call numbers and also the headings at the tops of the cards. That was mainly it.

The people there were very nice and so supportive. I still stay in touch with one librarian who's now retired. The library was very nice about working around my schedule to go back to school and then also when I was meeting with Galina Grischenko, wife of the man being treated there for leukemia from flying over Chernobyl dumping materials to contain the spread of the radiation. That job was a real godsend, for sure.

But the thing about that job was that when I got that first review I was shocked that they actually had some good things to say about me! Really, before I went to Vienna that wouldn't have been an issue, but after that ordeal (2 years with the mission) it was a very big deal to me to get that kind of affirmation. It's hard to explain how much that meant to me.

1991. It wasn't long after that, though, that I got a call offering me a job in Siberia. After a second call when I thought I asked about everything a person could ask (I had a very long list of questions. After all I'd been through I finally decided I'd better take the offer because who knew if there would be another opportunity. I had a 4 month contract, but I ended out staying 6 1/2 years, but not working for those same people. During the time of the contract, though, the city where I was had a 30th anniversary celebration and I was invited to say a few words. Like many things during that time, I felt set up. I was not very confident with my Russian, at least not to speak in front of a group like that, so someone wrote a few words on this waxy paper that virtually soaked up the ink and I could hardly read it. Then I felt stupid having dressed so casually, but I had asked (the people who invited me to work there) what I should wear and they said to come as I was. Yeah, right. I felt like people probably thought I was drunk or something because I couldn't read what was written and then I was dressed inappropriately on top of that. That was only one of many problems though that I had with that group, and a relatively minor one at that.

1991. Actually this one was on the way to the job in Siberia. I flew in to Moscow and then took the trans-Siberian train to where I was going to be teaching. While in Moscow I managed to visit the Russian State Library and got a library card for hall 1 where the social sciences were.

2005. I returned to the States in 1997 and had a lot of escapades of various kinds, until I decided to get a Master's degree in Library Science. So you see my diploma there.

2006. My first professional librarian job was as a contract librarian to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Central Library, where I cataloged mostly English books, but also some French and Russian and even a couple Korean (!) ones. For the Korean ones all I could do there was make out the publisher and publishing location, and fortunately most of the other stuff was available at least by way of a summary or abstract. I worked on cataloging a collection of materials from another NOAA satellite library that had down-sized, and that collection included a few videos. Also, I did a few serials too, especially the Russian ones. So what you see here is a book I was cataloging in OCLC. Our policy was to catalog in the OCLC catalog and then download the card to the NOAA library system and then tweak it in our catalog for our unique specifications. I really liked working there and the people, but being contract you didn't get all the benefits, but there contract librarians there who'd been there 10 years even, because it was a nice place to work and they did treat us pretty well. But I was thinking I wanted to have a retirement plan, for example, so I ended out accepting a job offer where I am now in southern Florida. Of course I immediately got sick and ended out losing that job after less than 6 months because I was sick and didn't know what was wrong with me and didn't have doctors there. They did give me a severance package though. I had to fight too to get any benefits from the Long Term Disability insurance I got when I was with them.

2010. I did eventually get somewhat better and got a job offer as a librarian for the county library system. I started work 1 week before I saw the neurosurgeon and he wanted to operate (on the thoracic) right away. So I worked a couple months and then was out almost the same time and had trouble working full-time right away so when my physiatrist (rehabilitation medicine) sent them a note that I could only work part-time the administration went into gear trying to negotiate to come back full-time. The wanted me to go from 20 to 30 to 40 hours a week, over 3 weeks. I thought that was too fast, but I didn't even have a chance to ask my doctor. They asked me to come in on my day off for a meeting and we were supposed to discuss my schedule for returning to work full-time and that there was nothing wrong. I had barely just walked in to the room when they said they wanted to offer for me to quit or they'd terminate me. I was devastated, because even while I was out on leave after the surgery I had spend hours and hours on the computer working on collection development, when I wasn't supposed to be sitting that long (I was supposed to mover around more). They had no complaints about my work.

So then I filed an American Disabilities Act complaint and was given a "right-to-sue" letter by them. But I didn't have any money to hire a lawyer, so I had to file pro se. The thing with filing pro se is that it's your responsibility to keep up with what's going on regarding the case. But meanwhile, my cervical problem was getting worse and worse and the country responded requesting the case be dropped and I didn't respond in the given time so the case was dropped. I don't know what else I could have done though, because I was so sick and having so much trouble with doctors that my health was all I could think about.

So there you have it. I haven't told you everything I could about me and libraries, but I think this is an interesting way to look at my life anyway. When I met a Russian about a month ago at a doctor's office we got to talking (in Russian) about various things. I felt like we sort of hit it off like we understood things the other was talking about and finished each other's sentences even a few times. She mentioned that if I had stayed in Russia I would have died by now of Hepatitis C (which I got there from a blood transfusion - "graznyi krov'", dirty blood). My response was, "Maybe so, but at least I would have had a good job until I died."

130. Socialization File, Pt. 13 (Dubin, pt. 12)

I woke up with a cold this morning... as if I needed another ailment!

Even so, the show must go on, as they say...

***

This next chapter section is titled "Task Factors" and discusses socialization as pertains to tasks on the job.

"Schein... suggests that one of the primary reasons for a new member's organizational disillusionment (and perhaps his subsequent withdrawal) is receiving, upon encounter, an assignment which is either too easy or too difficult. Both types of assignments upset and disconfirm some of the major assumptions a new person holds about himself or herself. If a person's motivation to belong is not sufficiently strong to induce the personal changes that allow the individual to adjust to the situation, if able, he or she will leave the organization." (p. 98)

I've discussed something similar to this elsewhere about how some organizations might give quite intentionally give them something way to easy or demeaning to do in order to humble or break the person, and that the Vienna mission took this tactic with me. But this text sheds even more light on this treatment I received, indicating that such treatment could backfire (my interpretation of this text) and actually serve to alienate the individual because it "disconfirms" what s/he think of him/herself and or his/her view of the organization in selecting it (agreeing to the job offer).

In my case, I never really identified myself as a secretary, but I agreed to take the position, thinking of it as just an entry point or stepping stone. It's possible, however, that the mission thought of me pure and simple as a secretary like all the other secretaries. The mission I'd worked with prior (part-time, short-term) would have known otherwise, however, and they were part of the 15-mission make-up of the Vienna mission, but whether or not they divulged any of my skills to the others I don't know.

But the real clincher was the initial task they gave me, which I think I discussed before and I'll get into in the chronology, which could have been completely avoided. That is, during deputation I'd offered to take a computer class if I knew which software they used, but they wouldn't tell me and said that was necessary (for me to take the class). So immediately (that is, upon beginning work ca. 3 days after arrival) upon arrival I'm shown a stack software manuals!

This seemed clear idiocy to me, a waste of time and very much intentional. But, as was my way the whole time I was with them, I did not grumble but chearfully took up the task set before me. If I ever grumbled at all about anything during my time it wasn't much, and they probably wanted me to grumble more so that I'd show a weak side and could be put back together again how they wanted me. In other words, to break me in.

This did nothing, as you might be able to imagine, to strengthen my ties to the mission. Au contraire - I looked outside of it for the ministry I really desired, although I don't think I ever said that, which would be tantamount to complaining about the work I was given with the mission. I was conscious of doing this at the time, but learning things like what this current text says helps me understand even more what I was doing and what the mission might have been doing.

***

That being said, however, the next paragraph describes, in short, how the level of control one has over tasks set before him/her can also affect one's attitudinal orientation towards the organization. More control leads to more satisfaction by the individual. What this translates to in terms of my Vienna experience is that although I was given this task that seemed to me to be idiotic, unnecessary and manipulative, I could tackle it basically however I wanted and I wasn't even pressured time-wise to get it done. So this much I must say, that the mission didn't breathe down my neck (I don't know about you, but I can't stand bosses like that) in performing my tasks. I guess they trusted me at least to do what I was supposed to and do it quality-wise within acceptable perimeters. I think that was the way things operated in general at the mission, and wasn't specific to me. Whenever I took initiative in doing something to improve how my position was carried out that was generally appreciated (like how I organized aspects of a reception position I was in at the end). So this much I must say: despite all the awful stuff I encountered with the mission, they at least let me make the best of unfulfilling, crappy and sometimes needless jobs I was given. But it also could be that they gave me that latitude to watch and see how I'd take it, which could either mean seeing if I could work unattended or testing me. If they'd provided a lot of guidance it might not have been much of a test. If this latter was the motivation (or a major motivation among others), I was probably tested pretty much the whole time I was there.

***

I'm summarizing some of these texts, because it seems the best way to approach them for my purposes.

The next paragraph explains how it has been shown that either too many "continual changes" can lead to frustration or "settings which leave a new member with the same task" can result in restlessness and boredom. (p. 99)

In my case I faced mostly the "continual changes", and, I think, each change made it harder for me to connect with the mission and think they were serious about wanting to work with me. But these changes were also confusing, which quite possibly could also have been intentional. After all, they had all this secrecy about details of their work in "closed" countries, and if they didn't feel they could trust me (because they couldn't get me to break and take on their norms), they may have felt they had to keep me on guard. If they were sincere in wanting me to work with them, it's possible that they were torn somewhat between whether to hold out carrots (e.g., meaningful work, actual or promised) or lambaste me with sticks (trivial & degrading work, actual).

***

"Some systemic evidence has been compiled by Hackman and his associates which indicates that five so-called "core" dimensions of work tasks are critical vis-a-vis one's satisfaction and performance in the organization... The dimensions include: skill variety (the degree to which the job requires one to use different skills or perform different activities); task identity (the degree to which the job requires the individual to complete an entire process); task significance (the degree to which the job has a perceivable impact on others, either inside or outside the organization); feedback (the degree to which the individual receives information from significant others as to the effectiveness of his work); and autonomy (the degree to which the job provides one with freedom, independence and discretion in scheduling and carrying out work assignments)." (p. 99)

I'll address these dimensions one by one.

Regarding skill variety, I wasn't given much variety, and what I was given seemed mostly menial (especially considering the frequent job changes). It was difficult for me to see myself as performing a role that was at all integral to the functioning of the organization. After all, with so much moving around I never got a chance to fully develop any one position so I was always pretty much at stage one and if I'm so apparently expendable in so many positions, how valuable could I be to the organization, anyway? Also, even the range of skills required between the various positions wasn't a lot; that is, they required very similar basic skills. There were a couple exceptions, in that I found working in-country, when I took ministry trips there, to be fulfilling, but I wasn't a central person in that work either.

As to task identity, I already explained (when I discussed reference groups) that I didn't see myself as a secretary; that wasn't who I was, but just a position I held as a stepping stone to using my "real" professional skills.

My feeling about most of what I did was that it wasn't very significant, or even not significant at all except as a tool to socialize me. The leadership would vehemently and profusely deny this, however, with all kinds of wonderful commendations and flattery about importance of the position(s) and also how well I fulfilled them. I thought this was a bunch of bunk, even then, and a few months after I left the mission I got a post card thanking me, yadda yadda. That post card disgusted me even then.

I did get feedback and it was always positive and encouraging (flattery?). But it apparently didn't matter how well I did my job, as to how much responsibility they were going to give me. If anything, my positions became more menial as time went on (except for a few ministry trips). So it didn't really seem like the quality of my work was what they really wanted, although I suppose if I hadn't performed well there might have been even more negative repercussions.

I already discussed autonomy in this same post, and I don't think I have anything more to add to that right now.

Taking these 5 dimensions all together, there wasn't much to endear the mission to me task-wise. On the contrary, tasks were undoubtedly one of the alienating driving forces from my side of the equation (i.e., my attitude towards the mission). And we've already discussed how important attitude was to the mission, so I guess it was a cyclical downward spiral, where the mission and I were feeding each other reasons to be alienated from each other, or at the very least, mixed messages that inhibited our relationship from maturing.

***

That's all for now and I need to get going to get some things done.

~ Meg