Challenges of Adapting to My Workplace

This whole semester we’ve been talking about identity kits. When we leave San Diego State in order to pursue a career, we’re going to have to adopt a whole new set of customs, behaviors, and, as we’ve discussed in this class, new genres. I’m a business administration major with an emphasis on management, and I know that once I begin my business career, I’m going to face a great many challenges to craft an appropriate identity kit.

I was introduced to this concept in undergrad when I took my business RWS class. The purpose of the class was to introduce students such as myself to the types of genres that I would be using in my career. The first assignment wasn’t too difficult, a resume applying to a business of my interest. It was easy to empathize with the assignment because I am so close to that position in my life where I will actually have to apply for work. It got harder when we moved on to the next project. We were told to write a letter to our “boss” explaining why we could not attend an important meeting. Of course I had never been required to write something like this before. It was difficult to think of where to start. How do I communicate with a boss that I’ve never had or interacted with before? It took me a lot of time looking at examples and studying business values before I was confident enough to even approach the letter. And that wasn’t even the worst of it, because after that I had to give a presentation in a group as if we were pitching an idea to investors. This meant learning a whole new set of values and engaging in a bunch of new genres.

But this was all done in a still very familiar academic setting. Though we were writing for a different purpose than what is idealized by the academic essays from previous RWS classes, our audience remained roughly similar, a professor. There are grave differences between writing to your business professor and your boss. Though we were crafting the same genres, with my professor I was still able to express my uncertainty in the assignment and use large sums of time to study how it should be written. When I have write these sorts of papers for my boss in my actual career, my boss will likely expect that I am already well versed in the genre, and require little to no mentoring. As for time, I’ll need to be ready to respond as quickly and efficiently as possible. These are all impossible to simulate in a class setting, you have to actually be engaged in that environment, and without previous experience of course it’s going to be difficult. Not to mention how for the group project, working with my fellow students is a lot different than working with co-workers. We were all able to maintain the student identity kit that we had all become so well adjusted to. There wasn’t much thought put into how we communicated with each other. It’s arguable if the communication was more genuine, but it did come to us with great ease.

In the business world there are going to be workplace politics with our co-workers, and everyone will be expected to use methods of communication that are consistent with the workplace identity kit. I think the hardest part will be embracing the values and norms of my career environment. Once I do that, it should be relatively easy to build an appropriate identity kit and use the genres that embrace the same ideals.

Wardle’s article raises an interesting point about authority that I had never considered before. I think it’s fair to say that most people believe there is a stringent hierarchy in every business, but else than the manager, it’s honestly hard to say who has authority over who. In Alan’s case, he believed himself to have intrinsic authority over others because his coworkers required his technical expertise to use computers to perform their job functions. Along with this attitude, he would talk down to his coworkers. On the other hand, Alan’s coworkers noticed that he was not effectively using workplace genres, and thus saw him as a tool to fix computers so they could continue to perform the important functions of the business. After reading this article, I believe that authority isn’t about being above someone. Rather, it is that one can use genres effectively, thus building a credible identity kit that can persuade others to work with them. As a management major, I need to understand this concept so that I can maintain my own authority and ensure my employees work well with their coworkers.