I wanna start by saying that I am not an ‘Alan’, I would say that I am very much the opposite of the characteristics that he possesses. While reading Wardles “Identity, Authority and learning to write in new workplaces”, some people did come to mind when I got a glimpse into the mindset of this slightly unstable man. I feel like he reminds me of my Father, willfully headstrong with a sense of importance that should not be granted quite yet. With the addition of Alan being a young white man, am I rash to say he reminds me of some deranged unstable individual? He strikes me as someone on the brink of writing a manifesto. Alan sounds as though he’s ten years from turning into some Ted Kaczynski type but with a lower IQ and much more narcissism and vanity. However, I want to be clear that I do not in any way think that my father resembles the unabomber but that’s solely because he is not an above average IQ white male, no offense dad (some offense obviously).
In reference to the problem that Wardles identifies, I think that in the case of Alan there was no solution, because of his stubbornness, making him change would have been incredibly hard and very unlikely. However if we are talking about solving this problem in the case of another person, some changes that could have been made were having people who have authority over a worker step in and even maybe give a guideline on how professional emails should be written. I think also if Alan knew that the message he was trying to convey wasn’t being heard simply because of how he was writing he would have changed how he wrote. Nevertheless he quit so I guess we will never know.
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