Personal Narrative: My Cultural Identity In The Workplace

I would describe my cultural identity as fairly mainstream, white, male, from a working class family, middle class, American born, and first generation college student Gen Xer. I am someone who holds traditional Christian values, but is not as conservative as say many from my parents’ generation. As mentioned, I grew up in a working class household in eastern WA. My family earned a living in agriculture; therefore, hard work was an important value for me from a young age. I shared my surrounding with mostly people of Hispanic ethnicity, who also valued hard work and traditional values, such as time with family. My cultural identity sometimes is at odds with my work in IT. For example, often times someone will discuss how great it is to be part of a multi-generational family who graduated from an Ivy League school. I have also found that these people, who are from an upper income social class, to come across as very aggressive, disrespectful, and who constantly challenging to …show more content…
Discuss how at least 3 cultural orientations (mentioned in the Culture and the Workplace lecture) influence how you approach work and behave in the workplace. For example, you may identify you have a low power distance cultural orientation and really appreciate when your supervisor encourages you to call her by her first name or asks your opinion on changes that management could make to create a better work environment. I’m self-identified as more individualism vs collectivism, and has brought me several challenges and rewards in my career. My biggest challenge with individualism has been when a project drags on for too long. I feel a strong need for deceive decision making in order to execute. Often times, several others will want to discuss it more and continue to further perform in depth analysis (long term orientation). I feel when this happens we lose sight of our big picture goals and get buried in the weeds of details, causing loss of significant impact on the