In the article “Identity, Authority, and Learning to Write in New Workplaces”, Elizabeth Wardle discusses how new workers must learn to participate and write in manners appropriate to their new workplace communities, adopting their conventions, codes, and genres, with conformity level of the newcomer dependent upon authority and cultural capital they either possess or cultivate as needed to accomplish the work effectively. Wardle asserts that the capacity for and willingness to learn to communicate and write in new venues is intertwined with issues of both identity and values; and entering new workplace communities is more than learning new skills but “fielding new calls for identity construction”. However, when the formed identities in our new work roles conflict with values or identities we have within other communities we belong, we are presented with the decision of the extent to which we participate in the practices of these new networks. Wardle’s case study of Alan as a workplace-newcomer, demonstrates potential consequences for refusing to engage and to write in ways deemed appropriate by the community. In Alan’s particular case, there is a discrepancy between the title he grants himself as a “systems administrator” in his technical role for a college department, and the role perceived by the staff as “support personnel”. Through Alan we see how the sliding scale of authority moves, as the institutional authority afforded to him based on his position and technical expertise, is degraded by his ability to communicate his competence and his function within the department, as a direct result of his resistance to their discourse conventions.
Alan fails to make rhetorical choices that will work toward constructing the social identity he had hoped to assume. Instead of finding himself in a respected position, he is dismissed. There is an expected learning curve during onboarding and in a given adjustment period thereafter, but Alan refuses to change his way of seeing and performing his identity and values, to align with his workplace community and instead finds himself as an outsider, including to as he related to the work-flow process. The failure is in his lack of flexibility and willingness to cooperate to the extent needed to effectively do his job, and advance his own initiatives. Awareness of the rhetorical situation in which communication takes place, is critical to preventing the breakdowns Alan experiences.
While I don’t consider myself to be an “Alan”, I have found myself as a newcomer in the workspace inadvertently marginalizing myself by choice of nonparticipation, because the values and identity I had, and wanted to construct, felt at odds with the ones I was being asked to assume. At work, I have consider myself serious and focused. It never occurred to me that could be seen as a fault. That is, until I had a job that placed a certain degree of value in participation in social activities. I rejected stepping away from my desk during the work day for what all prior experiences had informed me were frivolous activities, frankly at odds with my own work ethic. I viewed my decision to stick to business and get the work done, as being part of the coordinated effort. However, what I failed to recognize was that my work community viewed this as team building, which I was rejecting. Unlike Alan, as I began to sense a degree of separation forming, I saw that in order to function cohesively within the dynamic of the workplace, I needed to be seen as a member of and for the team. And while I believed what I was doing was for the team, it was not communicating those values, in an environment where I needed to be accessible and approachable, not an outsider. If we wish to learn from Alan’s mistakes, we have to be flexible and we have to have perspective of rhetorical situation in which we participate, and the rhetorical choices we make in the workplace or in any new venue for that matter.
Leave a Reply