I study the experiences of the disenfranchised public servant as a disenfranchised ex-public servant.
This study is situated within my personal history. I was a public servant for more than 20 years. I have witnessed and heard so many horror stories about the public service. Work has often dominated my life. I have talked, slept, eaten, public service work. I have ruined relationships over work. When work has been bad I have become obsessive about work. I have suffered at the hands of public service bosses. I feel I have been discriminated against systemically. I was at the same level for 10 years. That is quite a feat. It is pulse optional when it comes to public service promotion. It did not matter if I did my job poorly or incompetently, worked hard or not. Everything I did was judged through the eyes of my supervisors who either liked or disliked me. I was never really treated as an individual and sometimes not even as a person. My strengths were not recognised or utilised. I have worked with some very competent and hard working people, but mostly this was not the case. Supervisor’s bad behaviour was put down to stress. And this bad behaviour was
passed down the chain and then spread into the workplace like cancer. Although I worked in the public service for a long time, it was a bad fit for me. I looked different, sounded
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The healing from my public service job has been a long road. But the wound is scabbed and maybe will be healed in the fullness of time.
It is a strange but often experienced state that when work is unbearable it becomes the focus of all a person’s energies. You would think if work was terrible you would try to forget it on the weekends or at night but that is impossible. The worse work is the more you think about it. Your whole identity and self-worth is caught up in work.
My participants and I are not the only ones who have experienced this phenomenon. Lutgen-Sandvik (2008) also discusses that for people who strongly identify with their jobs, experiences of mistreatment can be devastating. She also states that a crisis in the work domain negatively affects the family domain. Mistreatment at work tears asunder targeted workers’ life narratives. Many of Lutgen-Sandvik participants felt that their workplace trauma had completely fractured their lives, belief in themselves, family relationships and fundamental notions of who they were in relation to the external world. Some participants felt that their self-identity was splintered to a degree that was irreparable. The workplace mistreatment trauma had become a contagion to the rest of their lives. When self-
narratives are deeply disrupted, people lose their mooring and are cast adrift.
In explicitly positioning myself within the study, I provide a lens through which the study will be viewed. This personal lens is discussed in the Ethnographic I by Ellis (2004). She examines the role of the researcher in ethnography. Autoethnography is research that connects the autobiographical and personal to the cultural, social and political (Ellis, 2004, p 16). She also explores the idea of explicitly including the researcher’s story in interviews with others. Autoethnography explores the necessity and validity of including the researcher’s story in the research constructs (Ellis, 2004; p 58).
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There is a myth that personal feelings do not influence the research to any great extent and the final product is not tainted by the researcher’s feelings. Discussing methodological issues at an abstract level reflects a pervasive and insidious discourse that equates feelings with weakness and is a barrier to good research (Wincup, 2001). My feelings and emotional attachment help facilitate heartfelt research full of passion and pain.
The experience of the researcher has an impact on the validity of the research. The
interpretation and analysis can be valid when it is clearly placed within the autobiography of the researcher.
Researching in an area where you have direct experience, brings empathy, common experiences and allows the participant more freedom because they do not have to set the scene or justify or be embarrassed about their experience. Because it is shared there is more opportunity for deeper discussion and disclosure. Not being an objective observer enables greater truth to the research, the analysis and the outcomes. To find truth, your research needs to be heartfelt. There needs to be a commitment to truth. Truth is insight into experience. The heartfelt and subjective experience is part of the academic discourse. One cares so much that only the truth of the situation will be tolerated. Validity, in the guise of tests and measures, is something parading as truth. Researchers need to gain a unique insight into human experience (Martin, 2003). This unique insight is enhanced by being an insider.
Wincup (2001) states there has been a growing recognition that people need to locate themselves within their research and writing, however these ways of working are still criticised because they represent challenges to the traditional academic discourse. Inclusion of the self may lead to criticisms that one’s work is not academic enough, or worse, mere self-indulgence. She also discusses the idea that you should choose a thesis topic that makes you angry, the rationale being that anger will sustain your interest during the years of
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ethnographic and emotional work is criticised, sensitivity to one’s own feelings deepens understanding and enhances the creation of meaning.
I have gone native. I am an insider. I connect to my participants on an emotional and intellectual level. I am angry. I am valid.