Matt, a new college grad in Austin, Texas, wants guidance about what kinds of things are appropriate to share during conversations in the workplace. Sociolinguist Janet Holmes has extensively researched and written about this topic, including in Power and Politeness in the Workplace with Maria Stubbe. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Talking As Equals in the Workplace”
Hello, you have a wait with words. Hey there, it’s Matt. I’m calling in from Austin, Texas.
Welcome to the show. What’s up? I called in and I mentioned that, you know, I always kind of think about those who have graduated recently from college and the norms and, you know, social type of normalities that we should know or don’t know when entering the workforce and just the kind of do’s and don’ts and what is okay and not okay in terms of just navigating the professional versus personal kind of workspace and communication facets of your job. Are you new to the work world yourself?
I am. I just started my first real position here in Austin with Oracle, actually. And so it’s been a great experience. I’ve been here about 25 days. And, you know, so I’m just learning every day and then really enjoying it as, you know, a 22-year-old entering the workforce, working with a variety of different age of co-workers.
When it comes to, like I said, just the professional versus personal things that I would share, whether it be at work or, say, during lunch, it was really interesting because I make music personally. And so one of the things I was calling about was, you know, am I allowed to share that I make music? Is that too personal? Do my bosses want to know that I do that? Or should I just kind of focus on the formalities, you know?
You mentioned something about lunch, and you remind me of some research that I read by Janet Holmes. She looks into workplace formality and the differences between the ways that we might behave with our bosses and with our peers, people that are roughly the same level. And one of the things that she noted that is often the case in the workplace is that food changes the tone of a meeting.
For example, if food is present in a meeting, then a meeting is more likely to be informal. When you have a formal meeting and there is food, it causes this dissonance, this problem, this conflict in people’s minds because it’s not what they’re expecting and it’s not what the tone should be. And so food can reduce the intensity of the conversation and can take the level of seriousness down a notch.
And so sometimes people will find this old joke or saw about bringing an apple to the teacher to be true. Bringing food to your boss can actually change the relationship with your boss. Or bringing food to, say, the break room can actually change your relationship with your coworkers. So a lot of this is cultural. You have to learn just how workplaces in general operate or a specific workplace operates.
That’s super interesting. You’re more vulnerable when you’re eating, right? There’s something about if you’re all eating croissants that changes the tone. That’s very interesting.
Another thing that I’m reminded of is this scene in the movie Bold Durham. I know this is an older movie now. Have you ever seen that movie, Matt?
I haven’t. It’s a classic baseball flick. It stars Kevin Costner and Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins. There’s this scene where Tim Robbins, he’s this up-and-coming baseball pitcher, and he’s a big goofball. And he’s got these shower shoes that are covered in fungus. They’re the most disgusting things you’ve ever seen.
And Kevin Costner says, clean your shoes. And Tim Robbins is like, you know, they’re colorful. And Kevin’s like, no, you’re nobody now. When you’re famous, they’re colorful. Right now, they’re just disgusting. And that’s kind of how it is in a workplace. When you’re the boss, you’re funny. When you’re not the boss, you’re not funny.
And so when you’re the boss. No color. Yeah, yeah. When you’re the boss, you get away with a lot. You know, you can get away with as much fungus as you want. But when you’re a newbie or an underling, you get away with almost nothing.
That’s right. You can tell those bad jokes if you’re the boss, right? So there’s a lot of, like, I’ve worked in workplaces where the boss would, like, boy, everybody. He thought he was the funniest guy in the room. He was hilarious. Boy, but, and you see him in another environment, like, say, in front of the board, in the board of directors. And his jokes are dying. They’re all just lying there flopping around like fish out of water and nothing’s working because he’s not the boss in that room.
Yeah, Matt, I think that a lot of our listeners will have other observations about trying to strike that balance, you know, where you want to be innovative, but you also want to fit in.
Right. If you’d like to see the academic work on this, look for the work by Janet Holmes. That’s H-O-L-M-E-S. I believe she is from New Zealand, but she’s done some work in the U.S. as well. And her New Zealand work is spot on as well. So Janet Holmes, really good stuff. It’s very approachable, even if you’re not an expert in the field.
And, of course, there’s a ton of stuff for lay people. Most of the stuff you find in, like, your local bookstore is at least readable. But the academic stuff tends to be more precise. But what I’m really looking forward to is the calls and emails we’re going to get about this. Because I know that people have really good examples of workplace communication gone right and work communication gone poorly. We want to hear. We’re looking forward to that.
So, Matt, you really opened up a great topic here, and we thank you for that.
Yeah, thanks for this. I really appreciate it, and love y’all’s work you’re doing. Thank you. Take care now.
Okay, keep us posted. Thanks, Matt. Cool. Send your workplace stories. How did communication go badly? What went wrong? What broke? And what went well? How did it work? When did you come up with that magic language that just got it all working? 877-929-9673. Or email words@waywordradio.org or tell us on Twitter @wayword.
