Van Maanen, J. (1977). "Experiencing Organization: Notes on the Meaning of Careers and Socialization" in J. Van Maanen. Organizational Careers: Some New Perspectives.

The term career referred to a fast paced running of a course in ancient Greek. It has a notion of consistency. p. 1

Ones career can be seen as a socilization sequence. p. 15 Socialization is the notion of actors learning to play social roles on a social stage. Until one can construct guidelines as to what is expected in a given role, the performance acted out will be incomplete, inauthentic, and detached from all parts being acted simultaneously.

Men create, sustain, and refine reality everyday through symbolic interaction with other men. p. 16 For any event, there are multiple interpretations and multiple realities. p. 16 The new worker begins to construct his own reality from which he interprets subsequent events. He searches for commonsense theories to explain what is happening in the organization. p. 16

According to Meadian social psychology, a newcomer feels a need to define the expectations of others. W. I. Thomas once said "If people define situations as real, they are real in their consequences.".

Deciphering Organizations

When the newcomer first arrives, the clues of appropirate behavior may be scarce or chaotic and conflicting. p. 18 He starts as an outsider.

Van Maanen believes that the newcomer must locate himself on a social time-space system to make sense of his new situation. St. Augustine said, "there are only three times. A present of things past, a present of things present, and a present of things future". Mead also said that the environment in which men live is based on things remembered and things anticipated. p. 19 One's experiences render quantitatively equal amounts of time qualitaively unequal.

For the newcomer time is problematic. He must develop some timetables of action to make sense of the present and future. p. 20 Spatial location refers to fit of the newcomer to his reference group in the organization. He must take other's expectations into account when deciding on an action. He has to decide whose judgements he will attach the most importance.

People generally think people see what they see, which is also problematic for newcomers who haven't learned to see as the organization sees. p. 20 The newcomer may get "reality shock" if his assumptions turn out not to be the same as his boss or the organization. Finding one's "space" "arises out of bargaining and expediency in which the individual seeks to create, document, and enforce a favorable interpretation of where he stands in the organization. p. 21

The newcomer needs to build some trustworthiness and commitment to begin to feel "on the inside". p. 21

Van Maanen says that people first regularize their experience in the spatial sphere and then tend to the temporal sphere.

Many anthropologists see people as having "mental maps" .

Normalizing the Setting

Newcomers have to learn what actions are normal and which are unusual. One must learn the labels that persons in the organization apply to one another. They must learn the negative labesl quickly and make sure they don't get applied to them. p. 26 They learn what to do and how to do it. p. 27 They have to build some understanding of the probability of certain events. Newcomers need "accounts" for why certain things happen. p. 29

In Mead's view time is emergent. One's past is forever being written as the future is experienced. p. 31 One only understands the present in terms of where one has been and where one wants to go. What happened in the past is likely to happen in the future and thus is anticipated. H. G. Wells said "a novel future demands a novel past". p. 31

Discovering a Theme

The middle classes have "careers" build on future reference, while the working classes have "work" built on a day-to-day reference. p. 34

It goes on about themes and careers for a few more pages.