The article “Identity, Authority and Learning to Write in New Workplaces” by Elizabeth Wardle was about a study made for a fresh out of college employee whose name is Alan. Alan, in this study, was trying to communicate with his new workplace and was failing miserably. He was a computer specialist, and one of the tasks was to learn to write the way his workplace wanted him to write, since it was the “policy”.
As Alan basically showed an attitude of ” I don’t really care” it caused his work community to look at him like he wasn’t really needed and important in the work atmosphere. In my opinion I felt like his coworkers saw him as someone who’s lazy and will just turn in anything to just get it over with and be done. His emails also were an example because they weren’t written the way the business wanted them written out.
In my own personal experience, I actually have a few people who remind me so much of Alan. I laugh about it because Alan represents those people who swear they are always right and know what they are doing, but are not even following the directions. It makes me feel like I’m doing my job incorrectly, because the way they are so set with what they are doing is correct.
For example, we needed a new cashier at my job, so we hired one. She previously worked there, but with the old system and old owners. It’s 2024, not 2019, so the system is newly updated, and it’s far from different. When I was training her, she would just dismiss me because she said she knew what she was doing. At the end of the night, I came back to do the cash-out, and she was missing $80. Now we could fire her, but we need her since the days she works, no one can work.
When I had asked her why she didn’t bother calling me or any of the other girls, she just kept telling me that she had experienced, and it wasn’t her fault; it’s $80 short; it’s the system fault. To this day, she’s always making mistakes, and even if I try to go over it with her and show her the way it’s supposed to be done, she tries to dismiss me. It just shows she’s not willing to adapt to our work environment and can make it seem like we all act like her.
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