Real-SelfÅÆFake-Self Dichotomy
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(Hochschild, 1997); and c) practicing what we terming “auto-dressage.” Organizational actors
who adopt the preferred identity are likely to share this worker's view: “I feel like [if] they're
paying me to do something I'd better be doing it to the best of my ability” (Deetz, 1998, p. 161).
This employee's language demonstrates his/her entrepreneurial “spirit” as well as his/her
investment in managerialism where self-worth is represented by money.
Organizations have much to gain from employees who often tirelessly harness their
“real” selves in service to organizational goals, needs, and interests. The organizational literature
is replete with examples of employees who willingly adopt organizationally prescribed identities
and engage in strategized subordination (e.g., Deetz, 1998; Tracy, 2000), a process in which
employees actively engage in self-surveillance and subordinate themselves on behalf of
management goals, even when management is not looking (Burawoy, 1985). Deetz (1998), for
instance, details how (primarily male, white, middle-class) technical consultants voluntarily
under-reported their work hours and willingly chose to sleep on cots at client work sites in order
to meet unrealistic deadlines.
Self-subordination also often occurs through “escaping to the public” (Tracy, 2000).
Hochschild's (1997) study of employees at one fortune 500 company, Amerco, revealed that even
for those primarily white, middle-class workers who claimed to want more time at home with
families, they routinely offered up their best (most rested, drug-free) self to the organization.
Amerco men curtailed their time at home in order to put in more time at work. Hochschild
claimed, “it was hard for most of these executive father figures to imagine pulling themselves
away from work. It was simply more satisfying being Dad here than anywhere else.” (p. 63).
Likewise, Trethewey (2001) found that many white, middle-class midlife women willingly
articulate their own entrepreneurial identity in terms of professional or public growth, rather than
private, personal or community development. For example, Maureen, an attorney, revealed that
she is “continuing to develop increased proficiency in my profession. One of the beauties of the
law is it is a continual learning experience. You always learn. You're always developing”
Convention