WORKPLACE

MANAGEMENT
MAY
Miller2002
/ EXPERIENCE
COMMUNICATION
OF EMOTION IN
QUARTERLY
THE /

“We were THE EXPERIENCE OF

prepared to carry EMOTION IN THE
out the rational WORKPLACE
Professing in the Midst of Tragedy
business of the
university. We KATHERINE MILLER
Texas A&M University
were not prepared
to deal with the
emotional turmoil
that ensued when
12 young people
were wrenched
from a community
in the prime of
their lives. ”

Management Communication Quarterly, Vol. 15, No. 4, May 2002 571-600

© 2002 Sage Publications
571
572 MANAGEMENT COMMUNICATION QUARTERLY / MAY 2002

Emotion in the workplace has increasingly become an issue of

importance to organizational and management scholars. This arti-
cle takes a very personal look at emotion in the workplace. Using
autoethnographic and interview methods, the experience of teach-
ing in the days following the Texas A&M University “bonfire” col-
lapse in November of 1999 is examined. The lens of emotional labor
is placed on this event by considering the intense experience of emo-
tions and the struggle to balance emotional needs of students with
the need to cover course material. Scholarship in the areas of emo-
tion, identification, and community are drawn on in the consider-
ation of lessons learned from this experience.

There’s a spirit can ne’er be told, it’s the spirit of

Aggieland. We are the Aggies, the Aggies are we. True
to each other as Aggies can be.
—“The Spirit of Aggieland”

Dr. Bowen has asked that as much as possible—today

be business as usual.
—Electronic communication, November 18, 1999

Many professional workers . . . are paid for their skill in

emotion management. . . . The feeling rules are implicit
in their professional “discipline” (an apt term)—“ratio-
nal,” “scientific,” “caring,” “objective.” Benign detach-
ment disguises, and defends against, any private feel-
ings of pain, despair, fear, attraction, revulsion or love;
feelings which would otherwise interfere with the pro-
fessional relationship. There are costs if the mask
slips—perhaps a feeling of unease between profes-
sional and client or, more seriously, expulsion from the
professional community for revealing “inappropriate”
emotions.
—Fineman (1993, p. 19)
 Miller / EXPERIENCE OF EMOTION IN THE WORKPLACE 573

THE COLLAPSE

My alarm, as usual, went off at 6:00 a.m. The bedside clock radio
is set to the local National Public Radio station, and the first thing I
usually hear in the morning is the soothing voice of Morning Edi-
tion host Bob Edwards. Today was different. Instead, I heard an
announcer from the local station stating that the Texas A&M Aggie
Bonfire had collapsed earlier that morning. Four students were con-
firmed dead, and many more were still pinned beneath a crushing
pile of logs. I was stunned. I ran into the family room and turned on
a television. I grabbed another radio so I could have a local AM sta-
tion running simultaneously with the FM station. I did not shower.
Until it was time to wake up my daughter for school, I went from
media source to media source trying to learn more about what had
happened.
As a relatively new faculty member at Texas A&M University, I
had spent 18 months soaking up the lore and traditions of
Aggieland. When I arrived here, I was told that being an Aggie was
“different.” Yeah, I thought, just like being a Spartan, Trojan, Sun
Devil, or Jayhawk is different.1 But after a year and half, I had to
concede that the Aggie saying that “from the outside you can’t
understand it; from the inside you can’t explain it” has some truth to
it. For the traditions of Texas A&M—yell leaders, Reveille, ring
dunkings, silver taps, muster, the Corps, “humping it,” elephant
walk,2 and I could go on and on—hold sway over students and
alumni with a strength that seems almost mystical at times.
One of the most intense of those traditions is bonfire—a greater
than 90-year-old tradition in which students cut down trees, build a
stack of logs more than 50 feet tall (and much taller at some points
of A&M’s history), and light the stack on the eve of the annual foot-
ball game with archrival University of Texas. Bonfire represents the
Aggies’ “burning desire” to beat the Longhorns, but it is also
emblematic of the sense of community, teamwork, and leadership
development that marks the college experience at Texas A&M.
Over the years, bonfire has also been the focus of intense scrutiny
and criticism, as various constituencies have questioned bonfire on
the grounds of environmental awareness, have made accusations of
hazing and abuse at the cut site and stack site, and have questioned
the impact of intense involvement with bonfire preparation on the
574 MANAGEMENT COMMUNICATION QUARTERLY / MAY 2002

academic performance of students during the fall semester. With all

of this history, it is little wonder that the news of the bonfire col-
lapse in the early morning hours of Thursday, November 18, 1999,
hit the entire Aggieland community with a power that is difficult to
comprehend.
The remainder of that day was marked by intense rescue efforts
at the stack site on campus and equally intense examination by
local, national, and international media sources. By the next day, 10
students and 1 former student were confirmed dead. A 12th young
person died of his injuries soon after. Twenty-seven students had
been injured, 1 so seriously that he was not finally released from
hospital care until April of 2000. In that November, the university
community was devastated by the tragedy but also mobilized in a
wide variety of ways, including practical support (e.g., blood
drives, food for rescue workers at the bonfire site), professional
support (e.g., a wide range of counseling services for students), and
community remembrances and ceremonies (e.g., personal tributes
left at bonfire site, maroon and white ribbons throughout the com-
munity, spontaneous prayer meetings, formal memorials, a candle-
light vigil). In short, the reaction of the community was over-
whelming. As Eric Opiela, student body vice president from A&
M’s archrival, the University of Texas, wrote after attending the
memorial service on the night of the collapse,

I looked over my shoulder and saw the sight of close to 20,000 stu-
dents spontaneously putting their arms on their neighbor’s shoul-
ders, forming a great circle around the arena. The mass stood there
in pin-drop silence for close to five minutes, then, from somewhere,
someone began to hum quietly the hymn “Amazing Grace.” Within
seconds, the whole arena was singing. I tried, too—I choked; I cried.
This event brought me to tears. It was one of—if not the—defining
moments of my college career. I learned something tonight. For all
us Longhorns discount A&M in our never-ending rivalry, we need
to realize one thing. Aggieland is a special place, with special peo-
ple. It is infinitely better equipped than we are at dealing with a trag-
edy such as this for one simple reason. It is a family. It is a family that
cares for its own, a family that reaches out, a family that is unified in
the face of adversity, a family that moved this Longhorn to tears.

The drama of the bonfire continues. Within 2 weeks of the stack

collapse, a commission was established to investigate the cause of
 Miller / EXPERIENCE OF EMOTION IN THE WORKPLACE 575

the collapse. The commission, composed of business people and

academics from a variety of fields, including engineering and
behavioral and social sciences, eventually submitted its report in
May 2000. The extensive report cited both engineering factors that
caused the collapse in an immediate sense (i.e., stress on the lower
log pile, lack of steel cables) and organizational shortcomings that
established an environment in which the collapse was possible (i.e.,
lack of supervision, reliance on tradition, and “tunnel vision” in the
A&M culture). Indeed, the reverberations of the bonfire collapse
continue to be felt. The university president recently decided
against reinstituting bonfire in 2002. Various pieces of litigation
regarding the collapse are in progress or being considered. And
many eyes of people in Aggieland still tear up when they think
about those days in late 1999.
Thus, the legacy of the bonfire collapse is ongoing, and many
papers could be written (and may well be written) about the deci-
sion making that contributed to the collapse, the long-term impact
on university traditions, or the responsibility of the state and institu-
tion in such events. However, this article will consider the immedi-
ate aftermath of the collapse within the classroom and offices of the
A&M campus. Specifically, it is a consideration of how academic
professionals are performers and processors of emotion in the
workplace and how an event such as the bonfire collapse can put
issues regarding emotion work into sharp relief. In short, it asks the
research question, “How do we ‘profess’ in the midst of tragedy?”
As I work through my final revisions of this article in November of
2001, this question seems particularly poignant. For on September
11, 2001, many other workers all over the United States—and all
over the world—were faced with the question of how we maintain
some semblance of normalcy in the workplace while experiencing
severe emotional upheaval. Although this article will not deal
directly with the aftermath of the terrorist attack of September 11,
our collective experiences since this tragedy make a consideration
of emotion in the workplace all the more relevant.
The rest of this article will proceed in several sections. First, I
will briefly consider my research methods and positioning in col-
lecting data for this project. Then, I will recount my own experi-
ences with the bonfire tragedy and the experiences of faculty mem-
bers, graduate students, and undergraduate students who shared
576 MANAGEMENT COMMUNICATION QUARTERLY / MAY 2002

their thoughts with me in the weeks following the tragedy. Follow-

ing these extended narrative descriptions, I will discuss the lessons
I have learned from the experience of the bonfire collapse and my
examination of it. Several of these lessons involve academic
insights on emotion and the workplace, and these discussions will
be supported by extant literature regarding emotion, identification,
and community. The final lesson is a more intimate one regarding
the research process and my position within it.

SOME COMMENTS ON RESEARCH METHODS

This article could be seen as the reporting of an “event ethnogra-

phy” (Krizek, 2001) in that it attempts to develop an understanding
of a nonroutine event through the use of qualitative methods
designed to provide an insider look and unique insights into a par-
ticular historical moment. Krizek argued (following Zelizer, 1993)
that when we look at media reports of events—or social scientific
reports of events—the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of event
participants become displaced and disembodied, objectified
through the languages of the media and science. However, “in an
ethnography of events, with a focus on meanings and identities as
revealed by event-goers” (Krizek, 2001), the investigator is able to
see the events through the eyes of those within the context, experi-
encing the event in real time. The collapse of bonfire, of course, was
not a planned event with “attendees” to interview. However, it was a
highly charged phenomenon that provided a window on concepts
such as emotion, identification, and community. I looked through
the window at both myself and at others experiencing the highly
charged events at that time. That is, this investigation involved both
autoethnography and the consideration of reports from others.
A portion of this research was autoethnographic in the sense that
my own experience of bonfire provided a useful lens for examining
the experiences of others (see Denzin, 1997). As Crawford (1996)
argued, “autoethnography epitomizes the reflexive turn of field-
work for human study by (re)positioning the researcher as an object
of inquiry who depicts a site of interest in terms of personal aware-
ness and experience” (p. 167). By using an autoethnographic lens, I
 Miller / EXPERIENCE OF EMOTION IN THE WORKPLACE 577

was able to gain insights both about emotion and community at

Texas A&M and also about myself as a teacher and researcher.
Given the nature of the event, it is clear that the autoethnographic
portion of the research was not entered into with any formal prepa-
ration. However, after the bonfire collapse, I realized very quickly
that I would want to write—in some form—about my experiences
of those days and hence paid careful attention to my feelings and
reactions and recorded those reactions in a journal. By both per-
sonal preference and professional decision, I closely monitored
media reports and collected extensive materials both from pub-
lished sources (e.g., local and national newspapers and
newsmagazines, commemorative magazines) and from internal
university communication (e.g., e-mails and paper memos sent to
faculty and staff). In addition to collecting these materials, I also
attended special bonfire events in person when possible (e.g., the
candlelight vigil held 1 week after bonfire; the A&M versus the
University of Texas football game the day after that). In short, I
immersed myself in the experience of being an Aggie—if only a
new one—during the days and weeks that followed this tragedy.
After I realized the powerful effect that bonfire was having on
me and my professional life and had decided to write about the
experience, I concluded that it would be helpful to talk with others
about their experiences as well. On December 1, 1999, I sent an
electronic mail message to faculty and teaching assistants within
my department briefly explaining my feelings and my plans to
write about teaching and the bonfire collapse and asking if anyone
would be comfortable sharing their own experiences. Many
responded with brief stories and forwarded messages. As a result of
this request, I also spoke extensively with 11 individuals and less
extensively with several dozen others. Although the “sample” for
the interviews was purely one of convenience and was derived
almost entirely from within the Department of Speech Communi-
cation, it did represent variance in terms of (a) the age of the inter-
viewee (from approximately 22 years old to approximately 50
years old), (b) university rank (from 1st-year teaching assistants to
tenured full professors), (c) courses taught (representing the full
gamut of communication courses, including public speaking, small
group, persuasion, rhetoric, theory, and others), and (d) time at
Texas A&M (from individuals who had just arrived on campus to
578 MANAGEMENT COMMUNICATION QUARTERLY / MAY 2002

graduate teaching assistants who had been active Aggie undergrad-

uates to professors with many years on campus).
Formal interviews were conducted with 11 individuals. These
interviews were conducted in my office or over lunch at a local res-
taurant. The interviews ranged in length from 30 minutes to more
than 90 minutes. The interviews were not highly structured as I
asked individuals to recount their experiences in the days following
the bonfire collapse. In particular, I asked participants about (a)
their experiences the day of the collapse; (b) more specifically, how
they dealt with planning class and teaching in the days and weeks
following the bonfire tragedy; (c) the reactions of students, both
immediately and in subsequent days; and (d) their own emotional
and cognitive reactions to events. I probed for details as necessary
during the conversations, particularly asking about why they made
choices they did about teaching, how they actually “did” the inter-
action, and their own interpretations about student and community
reaction. I did not audiotape or videotape these conversations, but I
recorded extensive notes about each interview during and/or after
its completion. In addition to these 11 formal interviews, I also
spoke less formally with more than a dozen teachers (faculty and
graduate students) and with more than a dozen undergraduate stu-
dents. These interactions about teaching (and learning) in the days
following the bonfire tragedy were often spontaneous (e.g., in the
copy room, the coffee room, or the hallway) and were relatively
brief (e.g., 5 to 15 minutes of conversation). Finally, several
instructors forwarded material such as relevant e-mails during that
time period or written work students had prepared about their reac-
tion to the bonfire collapse.

MY EXPERIENCE

In November 1999, I was teaching on a Monday, Wednesday,

Friday schedule, with an undergraduate survey course in organiza-
tional communication and a graduate seminar in communication
theory. Thus, I was not scheduled to teach on the Thursday that bon-
fire collapsed. Indeed, like so many academics on “nonteaching
days,” I had planned to spend the day at home writing. That proved
 Miller / EXPERIENCE OF EMOTION IN THE WORKPLACE 579

impossible for me. First, I found that I could not concentrate on

writing. Second, I felt a strong emotional pull to be on campus. So
after dropping my daughter off at school, I went into the office, not-
ing the circling helicopters during the drive. When I arrived on
campus, I encountered the most somber place imaginable. I talked
in the hallways with colleagues (almost all female) in low tones
about what had happened, about personal connections to the trag-
edy, about what was being done in the rescue efforts. I then ven-
tured back outside and simply walked around campus for more than
an hour. It was an incredibly quiet place. There were occasional
knots of students gathered together, talking quietly or hugging, but
the vast majority of people walked alone with heads down. In one
courtyard area of campus—typically a vibrant gathering place—an
individual student sat in the center of each bench in quiet and
shocked solitude. Suffice to say, I worked little that day. In the early
afternoon, I returned home to again surf the television channels for
news of developments on local stations and growing national atten-
tion on outlets such as CNN. I felt anger as the national media used
glib terms to talk about what was quickly becoming “my place.” In
the evening, I watched on television the moving memorial service
held at the university basketball arena. I went to the grocery store,
where it seemed everyone was quietly going about their business,
adorned with maroon and white memorial ribbons on their shirts or
lapels.
Throughout that day and into the next morning, my mind kept
returning to the question of what I would say when I met with my
undergraduate class in the early afternoon on Friday. Classes had
not been canceled even on Thursday. Indeed, early in the day on
Thursday we received an e-mail message attributed to the univer-
sity president emphasizing that we should “as much as possible” go
on with “business as usual” in the classroom. This e-mail was
quickly followed up by others that in essence revised the message.
We were told to remind students to phone home, to let them know
about blood donation locations, to provide information on campus
counseling services, to “remain flexible and understanding,” and to
“exercise our own judgment.” The tone of these messages was
clear. We were professionals and we should use our professional—
and human—judgment in dealing with the tragedy at hand. Beyond
the informational items we were to share and these general guide-
580 MANAGEMENT COMMUNICATION QUARTERLY / MAY 2002

lines, there were no institutional messages about how to handle our

students or ourselves in the classroom.
In an ironic quirk of timing, the topic scheduled for my Friday
organizational communication class was a unit on stress and burn-
out and, in particular, a discussion of emotional labor and social
support. I usually enjoy this unit of the course very much, perhaps
because of its connection to my own research. I often show a video
from a long-defunct situation comedy, Doctor, Doctor, that illus-
trates two physicians’ different reactions to a dying patient. I often
use Hafferty’s (1988) article “Cadaver Stories” as an example of
how professionals in human service occupations develop emotion
rules and “detached concern” as part of their professional persona.
It was immediately clear to me that I could not use these pedagogi-
cal tools the day after the bonfire collapse. It was equally clear to
me that I could not stand at an overhead projector doing a point-by-
point lecture on the topic. I also felt woefully inadequate in dealing
with the tragedy itself. I had no training in therapy or social work
and certainly did not feel it was my place to tell these kids how or
what to feel.
With these thoughts jumbled in my mind, I went into class and
sat on a desk in the front. When I arrived, there were about 30 stu-
dents seated; probably about 60 (of the 115 enrolled) eventually
showed up. There was none of the typical preclass chitchat, and
when I started talking, everyone listened. I first told them how
much I had thought about what I would say to them and how we
were clearly unable to do what we were supposed to do in class on
that day (and perhaps for many subsequent days). I told them that
we were supposed to be talking that day about emotional labor and
social support and how I had been doing research on these and simi-
lar topics for many years and had written many research articles,
book chapters, and textbook treatments on the subject. In other
words, I was an expert. But I had not realized until the day before
how little my academic expertise counted in the face of actual expe-
rience. I had read all the literature on emotional labor, but I did not
realize its visceral impact until I received a memo asking me to con-
duct business as usual in a community hit by incredible tragedy. I
routinely bandied about the term detached concern but had only the
day before fully appreciated how oxymoronic the phrase could be. I
 Miller / EXPERIENCE OF EMOTION IN THE WORKPLACE 581

had written extensively about social support, but it never really hit
home until I saw what was happening at the bonfire site, at the
memorial service, and throughout the community. I had talked
about the role of identification in the processes of stress and emo-
tional labor but did not understand what it meant until even my ten-
uous attachment as an Aggie made me feel this tragedy in such a
gut-wrenching way. How much worse it must be for undergradu-
ates with incredibly potent ties to the institution.
That was about all I said that day. I ended up crying, and I was not
alone. I hung around for the remainder of the class period and
talked with students individually or in small group. Some wanted to
talk more about bonfire. Some wanted to talk about upcoming
course projects. Some just wanted to sit in the presence of others. I
tried to be reflexive and follow the lead of the students. At the end of
the period, a class member (a member of the A&M Corps of
Cadets, which suffered large losses in the collapse) rushed in and
apologized for missing class. He explained that he had been at the
hospital with a number of his buddies and that one of the injured (a
member of his unit) was being taken off life support. That student
died later that day, the 12th student to die in the tragedy (sadly fit-
ting with the school’s “12th man” traditions). As he rushed back out
to get back to the hospital, I was again bowled over by the emotional
enormity of what they—or we—were going through.
I will not continue the play-by-play for the subsequent weeks of
the term. The university adjusted its schedule (e.g., canceling class
the day before Thanksgiving so students could spend more time
with families), revamped traditions, and tried to “get through” the
rest of the semester. In my class, I canceled the participation policy,
cut some material from the course, extended all deadlines, and
essentially dealt with students on a case-by-case basis in complet-
ing assignments. Some students were eager to get back to business
as usual, whereas others needed much more opportunity to process
the event. I was still accepting papers within hours of when grades
were due but did not have to give any incompletes. I talked (both
personally and electronically) with students who were hard hit by
the tragedy and felt comfortable sharing their thoughts and feelings
with me. I think I helped.
582 MANAGEMENT COMMUNICATION QUARTERLY / MAY 2002

THE EXPERIENCES OF OTHERS

In talking with professors and instructors in both extensive and

brief conversations, it was clear that individuals were influenced by
the bonfire tragedy very differently and prepared for teaching dur-
ing this time period in very different ways. Some reported a very
strong emotional impact of the event. One professor recounted that
he had never felt “like an Aggie” but knew when the bonfire col-
lapsed that “something had happened inside of me.” Another talked
about his experiences in attending the memorial service on the
night of the collapse:

I felt somehow left out, in a way something was going on here that I
knew I didn’t understand, that I didn’t belong to, that was somehow
part of these people. I think I had a glimpse of how a strong culture
operates.

Others talked about more analytical reactions to the collapse—

wondering how the university would cope, questioning the value of
such traditions when they could lead to such tragedy.
There was also a great deal of variability in the way the instruc-
tors I talked to conducted their classes on the day of the tragedy (for
those teaching on Thursday) or on the first day of class after the col-
lapse. Of course, some had little time to prepare. Although “phone
brigades” were put into play early Thursday morning to let instruc-
tors know what had happened, many teachers with classes on
Thursday morning had only just heard of the collapse when they
had to go to class. These individuals reported having to work “on
their feet” in dealing with shocked students (and even some who
had not heard about the tragedy yet). Other instructors—with more
lead time—reported thinking extensively about how they were
going to structure class and talking with others (e.g., course direc-
tors, other instructors) about how to cope pedagogically. The
course director of our public speaking course had her hands full in
balancing her role as mentor and supervisor of graduate students,
undergraduate adviser (and unofficial counselor) for the depart-
ment, and lecturer. The fact that her nephew’s roommate was one of
the victims of the tragedy made her struggle in performing emo-
tional labor that much more difficult. She, like most of the individu-
 Miller / EXPERIENCE OF EMOTION IN THE WORKPLACE 583

als I talked with, recounted the experience as one of coping 1 day—

or hour or minute—at a time.
In the classroom, instructors enacted a variety of strategies. I will
describe these strategies in terms of how they balanced the con-
cerns of content (e.g., covering the course material) and tragedy
(e.g., processing the events of the bonfire collapse with students).
These strategies might be categorized (loosely following Baxter &
Montgomery, 1996) as denial, segmentation, spiraling inversion,
reflexivity, and integration. There were stories (perhaps urban leg-
ends) about professors who favored content with a total disregard to
tragedy—proceeding with scheduled tests on the morning of the
collapse or even pulling pop quizzes because so many students
were absent. No one I spoke with did anything remotely similar to
this strategy of denial, but a few reported making the requested
announcements (e.g., call home, get counseling if you need it) and
then moving on with the scheduled lecture. In contrast, other
instructors decided to entirely forego content and used class time
for social support, for processing the events of the day, and for shar-
ing experiences. These instructors decided to segment off the trag-
edy from the experiences of the classroom. A few instructors
acknowledged the strong religious feelings of many Aggies by
sharing personal feelings of spirituality or allowing students to pray
together in the classroom. Others simply talked about the events
and let students leave, knowing that they “had more important
things to do.”
Many instructors did not choose either content or tragedy, how-
ever, but tried to acknowledge both in the classroom. For some
instructors, this spiraling inversion strategy (see Baxter & Mont-
gomery, 1996) involved dealing with content and tragedy in highly
encapsulated ways. These teachers generally took time at the
beginning of class to acknowledge and talk about what had hap-
pened. Sometimes this involved active discussion, sometimes a
moment of silent remembrance. Following this, the instructor
moved on to cover the course material that was scheduled that day,
although often in a truncated manner. For example, one instructor
who was new to A&M recounted beginning her large lecture course
with comments to the class such as “I don’t know why you’re here”
and the disclosure that these experiences had made her understand
the Aggieland spirit more completely. She then segued into course
584 MANAGEMENT COMMUNICATION QUARTERLY / MAY 2002

content, explaining to me that “I felt I had to pull them through—it

was my job as professor.”
Other instructors used a reflexive and nondirective strategy in
which they acknowledged the existence of both content and tragedy
in the classroom and asked students to choose the direction the
class should take. Instructors using this strategy noted that although
some classes wanted to talk about bonfire or just be let out so they
could cope privately, others preferred to move on with course mate-
rial as a way to stay occupied and engaged on something other than
the tragedy. One instructor said that many students agreed with the
business-as-usual sentiment, arguing that “if you’re not affected,
you want to move on; if you are, it doesn’t help you to be alone and
inactive—better to get back at it.”
Finally, some instructors attempted to use an integrative strategy
in dealing with content and tragedy. I noted my attempts to do this
above through reflecting with students on course content and what I
had learned about that content in the wake of the bonfire collapse.
Other instructors explained that they used the tragedy as a spring-
board for class discussions on the topic scheduled for the day. For
example, one public speaking instructor talked about taking his
class outside under a tree to talk about bonfire and how issues
regarding refutation strategies (the topic for the day) ended up
being woven into the discussion.
In listening to accounts of these strategies, I looked for patterns
that might indicate why particular instructors would use particular
strategies. I thought that reactions might be gender based, but they
clearly were not. I thought explanations for different strategies
might be based on experience in the classroom, but this pattern did
not hold either. Finally, I thought that an individual’s “Aggieness”
might influence strategy, and this was true to some extent. Those
who felt a strong sense of identification with the tragedy were more
likely to emphasize discussion of the tragedy and processing of the
tragedy in the classroom. For example, one instructor with very
strong institutional ties (an undergraduate degree from A&M)
talked extensively about her concerns with appropriate processing
of the events and with the strong impact on her own sense of self
and professional conduct. But this was not a universal pattern by a
long shot, as many neophyte Aggies reported similar behaviors and
 Miller / EXPERIENCE OF EMOTION IN THE WORKPLACE 585

concerns. In short, it appears that choices regarding pedagogy were

very individual and personal ones.
Finally, I asked the people I spoke with about how teaching dur-
ing this time period affected them as professionals and individuals.
Some thought they had handled things in an effective and “profes-
sional” way. Several instructors, however, noted a sense of impo-
tence. One instructor said, “I realized that I didn’t have any skills or
training to cope with this.” Others talked about the discomfort of
trying to balance concerns for content with the tragedy. For exam-
ple, the director of the public speaking course talked about adminis-
tering the “public speaking contest” on the Monday following the
collapse and trying to be enthusiastic and supportive for contestants
while remaining empathic and understanding for those coping with
bonfire concerns. During our interview, she recreated this “talking
to both sides of the room,” effectively animating the concepts of
control and performance that are central in treatments of emotion in
the workplace.

LESSONS

So where does this leave us? The second half of this article will
reflect on several lessons I have drawn from my own experience
and from the experience of others, as I now write months after the
bonfire collapse. The first three sets of lessons learned are largely
academic ones, and as I discuss these issues, I will interweave find-
ings from the extant research literature with my own musings about
experiences following the bonfire collapse. The final lesson I will
discuss is a much more personal one, as I consider how this experience
has changed me and my approach to academic research and writing.

LESSONS ABOUT THE POWER

OF EMOTION IN THE WORKPLACE

The power of emotion in the workplace is certainly not a new les-

son to be learned. For the past 20 years, organizational scholars
586 MANAGEMENT COMMUNICATION QUARTERLY / MAY 2002

have begun to consider the emotional lives of workers and the role
of emotion in organizations, beginning with Arlie Hochschild’s
(1983) acclaimed examination of flight attendants, The Managed
Heart. Hochschild argued that in the growing service economy,
employees are often called on to manage their emotions for particu-
lar roles or in particular situations and that the performance of such
“emotional labor” can have negative effects on those performing it,
including stress, burnout, and an estrangement from self. In this
presentation of the role of emotion in the workplace, “the negative
consequences of emotional labor stem primarily from the fact that
employers rather than workers themselves dictate the terms of
emotional display” (Wharton, 1999, pp. 161-162).
Since Hochschild’s (1983) pioneering work, the study of emo-
tional labor has taken hold in a number of academic disciplines,
including sociology, management, and communication (for
reviews of work in these various disciplines, see Fineman, 1993,
2000; Planalp, 1999; Waldron, 1994). Work on emotional labor has
included many ethnographies and case studies of workers perform-
ing emotional labor (e.g., Leidner, 1993; Murphy, 1998; Paules,
1991; Shuler & Sypher, 2000; Tracy, 2000). Other researchers have
explored the impact and antecedents of emotional labor through
quantitative research (e.g., Kruml & Geddes, 2000; Morris &
Feldman, 1996; Rafaeli & Sutton, 1987).
Most of this work on emotional labor is marked by two impor-
tant characteristics. First, the study of emotional labor considers the
disconnect between felt and performed emotion. This disconnect
can be substantial if workers merely use “surface acting” to convey
the organizationally sanctioned emotions on the job, or the discon-
nect can be bridged through the use of “deep acting” in which work-
ers tried to “really feel” what they are supposed to feel. In either
case, studies of emotional labor are predicated on the display of
inauthentic emotion. As Ashforth and Humphrey (1993) argued,
though, “the problem with this conception of emotional labor is
that it does not allow for instances whereby one spontaneously and
genuinely experiences the expected emotion” (p. 94). Putnam and
Mumby (1993) have attempted to deal with this conceptual prob-
lem by suggesting the concept of “work feelings” as an alternative
to emotional labor. Putnam and Mumby (1993) defined work feel-
ings as “those emotions that emerge from human interaction rather
 Miller / EXPERIENCE OF EMOTION IN THE WORKPLACE 587

than being imposed by instrumental goals and bureaucratic

rationality” (pp. 49-50). In other words, work feelings are genuine
emotions, not inauthentic emotions requested and rewarded by
management.
A second characteristic of traditional work on emotional labor is
its concentration on frontline workers in service positions. Jobs
such as waitress, flight attendant, and supermarket clerk are clearly
ones in which the organization sanctions and pays for the expres-
sion of emotion in the service of customers. In these kinds of jobs,
emotion is often explicitly controlled through employee manuals,
goal-setting documents, and corporate mission statements. For
example, Steinberg and Figart (1999) quoted an employee hand-
book at a gourmet deli as directing the following: “Under no cir-
cumstance should a customer ever wonder if you are having a bad
day. Your troubles should be masked with a smile. Tension can be
seen and received negatively resulting in an unhappy dining experi-
ence” (p. 9). Furthermore, in this kind of frontline service role,
emotion management is often carefully monitored (e.g., in tele-
marketing and other telephone sales positions) and tied to specific
rewards (see Steinberg, 1999; Steinberg & Figart, 1999, pp. 9-10).
However, when we consider the role of emotion in the workplace
for those who are not in frontline service positions, we encounter a
different set of contingencies. Individuals in professional roles,
such as doctors, nurses, professors, and the like, rarely have instruc-
tions on emotion management explicitly spelled out in employee
manuals, nor are rewards typically tied to emotion management in
an explicit way. But it is clear that such professionals do manage
emotions, both in terms of emotional suppression and control (e.g.,
a physician tries not to break down when talking to parents about a
diagnosis of cancer in a child) and emotional expression (e.g., a
nurse maintains a cheerful and caring demeanor when dealing with
a difficult dementia patient).
What is distinct about emotional labor for professionals is the
way in which it is inculcated in attitudes and communicative behav-
ior. For instead of being explicitly required in a job description,
emotional labor for professionals is implicated in the very nature of
the role and in professional socialization into that role (see, e.g.,
work on physician socialization from Conrad, 1988; Hafferty,
1988; Mizrahi, 1984). Thus, emotional labor becomes intimately
588 MANAGEMENT COMMUNICATION QUARTERLY / MAY 2002

tied to an individual’s identity as a professional and cannot be sepa-

rated out as merely being “part of the job” (see Yanay & Shahar,
1998, for an example in psychotherapy).
My experiences—and the experiences of others—following the
bonfire collapse supported many of these ideas both about the
power of emotion in a general sense and about the nuances of per-
forming genuine emotion in largely professional roles. The entire
university community encountered the power of emotion in the
workplace, as individuals and groups struggled to find ways to cope
with emotional turmoil and move on with the business of the uni-
versity. As an example, consider a long memorandum sent to vice
presidents, deans, associate and assistant provosts, department
heads, and directors 11 days after the tragedy. In the first paragraph
of the memo, the provost discussed the huge emotional impact and
the social support arising from the bonfire tragedy. He then began
the second paragraph by stating, “As difficult as it may be in the
aftermath of the Bonfire tragedy, we must now endeavor to con-
tinue our academic pursuits as we come back from the
Thanksgiving weekend.” He went on to outline a variety of ways in
which instructors could deal with problems and closed the memo
with his belief that “each of us will exercise compassion tempered
with good judgment as we work through . . . these most difficult
times.” Even at the highest levels of the university, there was recog-
nition that emotion cannot be ignored even as the work of the uni-
versity continued. This is a very basic lesson to be taken from this
event: Emotion is an integral part of the workplace.
In my experience, the impact of emotion in the workplace was
even more palpable. Many (including myself) were so enmeshed in
emotional reactions to the collapse that the contemplation of real
work was extremely difficult. Even considering the notion of pro-
ceeding with business as usual with my students put knots in my
stomach. This experience led me to appreciate Hochschild’s (1983)
early contentions that the “estrangement from self” set up by emo-
tional labor could have powerful consequences on physical and
psychic levels. But for me (as well as others), the expression of
these “private” emotions was difficult. As professional academics,
we were prepared to impart knowledge, to conduct research, to
serve on committees, to provide career counseling, and so on. We
were prepared to carry out the rational business of the university.
 Miller / EXPERIENCE OF EMOTION IN THE WORKPLACE 589

We were not prepared to deal with the emotional turmoil that

ensued when 12 young people were wrenched from a community in
the prime of their lives. Of course, one could argue that one could
never be prepared for something like that. Indeed, there were
clearly no established rules for how to behave “authentically” in
such a nonnormative event (Ashforth & Tomiuk, 2000). But experi-
encing this large event led me to ruminate about the smaller emo-
tional events that are consistently encountered in the workplace but
for which we have little professional training. For academics as
well as other professionals such as doctors, nurses, and social
workers, our training in the rational aspects of our job is insufficient
for dealing with the emotional complexities of the workplace.
Thus, a second key lesson: As professionals, we often lack social-
ization for dealing with emotions at work.
The centrality of emotion in the workplace should not be con-
strued as a negative force, however. As Putnam and Mumby (1993)
emphasized, there was much of value to be found in the emergent
work feelings that characterized my experiences after the bonfire
tragedy (see also Frost, Dutton, Worline, & Wilson, 2000). Many
connections were forged, both among faculty and between faculty
and students. My individual interactions with students in this time
of tragedy taught me much more about what they experience than I
could ever learn in a normal semester. And I think those students
saw the world of the professor in a somewhat different light as well.
As one student wrote me in an e-mail a few days after the tragedy,

I sincerely thank you for caring so much and trying to help us get
through this. Campus has been a very dreary place for all of us, but it
has been comforting to know that our teachers care about us so
much.

At a more general level, though, the emotions during that time

forged—or at least reinforced—a sense of community.
One theoretical frame that is useful in analyzing the sense of
community that arose from the bonfire tragedy is Victor Turner’s
(1969) ideas regarding communitas and structure that he outlines in
The Ritual Process. In analyzing ritual ceremonies and experiences
in a variety of cultural communities, Turner concluded that during
ritual periods, societies enter a transitional state of “liminality” in
590 MANAGEMENT COMMUNICATION QUARTERLY / MAY 2002

which the structure, status, and rules that mark everyday life are
suspended. In this liminal state, there is a sense of community
(communitas) and coming together that “transgresses or dissolves
the norms that govern structured and institutionalized relationships
and is accompanied by experiences of unprecedented potency”
(Turner, 1969, p. 128). Turner argued that communitas and struc-
ture are dialectically related, such that “the immediacy of
communitas gives way to the immediacy of structure. . . . [People]
are released from structure into communitas only to return to struc-
ture revitalized by their experience of communitas” (p. 129). Thus,
the experience of communitas is ultimately temporary and serves
as a way of reinforcing continuing structures of community.
Although Turner was largely referring to formal rituals and rites
of passage, the experience of the bonfire tragedy at A&M was
clearly one that highlighted the unstructured humanness of those in
the community. This humanness was highlighted in two ways.
First, the unexpected and highly salient nature of the tragedy made
us all appreciate what we shared: the experience of this tragedy.
Second, as is the case with many tragedies, we coped with the bon-
fire collapse in highly ritualized ways, including public ceremo-
nies, maroon and white lapel ribbons, and commemorative publica-
tions. For a while, as a result of both the tragedy and the rituals, we
were not marked by our status as professors and students but
instead saw all as Aggies. And it was the recognition of this
unstructured sense of community that allowed us to return to the
normal structures of university life. The rituals and shared grief
provided a space for our emotions, leading to a readiness and even a
sense of comfort when it was time, again, to be rational organiza-
tion members. This, then, is a third important lesson: Emotion is
critical for forging a sense of community in the workplace.

LESSONS ABOUT THE POWER OF

IDENTIFICATION IN THE WORKPLACE

The second set of lessons I brought from these experiences is

related to this concept of community. As tragedy struck Texas
A&M and as the university community coped with the loss and the
shock, it became increasingly clear that the palpable sense of con-
 Miller / EXPERIENCE OF EMOTION IN THE WORKPLACE 591

nection that Aggies felt to the university was being mobilized and
reinforced. In public ceremonies and in private remembrances, the
potent force of Aggieness was clear. For example, the closing para-
graph of the first article in a “Special Bonfire Memorial Issue” of
Texas Aggie magazine read as follows:

Texas A&M students, for years, have been leaving pennies at the
foot of the statue of former University President Sul Ross, hoping it
will bring them luck. In the dark hours of a dark Thursday morning,
someone left a single red rose. Attached was a copy of the Aggie
War Hymn and a handwritten note that said, “Even through a trag-
edy, the Spirit of Aggieland still burns bright.” That, too, is for all
times.

As a professor of organizational communication, I, of course,

know and teach about the power of organizational identification.
Indeed, I capitalize on the strength of Aggie identification when I
teach about organizational culture. I ask students to describe the
behaviors and artifacts of Texas A&M, then to draw inferences
about the values and assumptions that characterize their culture. I
have often commented that this exercise runs more smoothly at
A&M than at other universities where I have taught, simply because
of the strength of identification and the pervasiveness of cultural
traditions. When, in subsequent weeks, I teach about concertive
control in the workplace (Barker, 1993; Barker & Cheney, 1994;
Tompkins & Cheney, 1985), I hearken back to this discussion of
culture and identification. We talk about how the students’ strong
sense of identification leads them to make decisions based on pre-
mises preferred by the university and how they even discipline each
other when the traditions are not being upheld in the university-
sanctioned way. Students come away from this lecture (I hope) with
a realization that because of the strong identification inculcated in
many organizations, “the ideology of management is upheld through
the everyday practices of organizational members” (Miller, 1999,
p. 123).
My experiences surrounding the bonfire tragedy have height-
ened my appreciation for the power of identification and have also
led me to comprehend the complexities wrought by identification.
Organizational identification and commitment were for many years
seen as valued attitudes—ones that would enhance company goals
592 MANAGEMENT COMMUNICATION QUARTERLY / MAY 2002

and individual satisfaction. Concertive control theory put a new

critical spin on identification, showing how it could lead even self-
managed teams to work in the service of managerial goals. In the
context of the tragedy, identification helped pull the community
together into action, it garnered support from around the world, and
it provided comfort to many overcome by grief. As I stood among
100,000 at the candlelight vigil 1 week after the tragedy, I under-
stood the positive power of identification.
But identification with A&M may also detract from our ability to
look at this event and its aftermath in an open and honest way. As
members of the Aggie community defend A&M and its traditions,
the power of identification might keep us from moving forward in
the best way, however good our intentions. For example, the task
force investigating causal factors in the bonfire collapse pointed to
the strong Aggie culture and the tunnel vision it engendered as criti-
cal factors contributing to the tragedy. In this case, the historic rev-
erence for an Aggie tradition and “the way we do things here” con-
tributed to tragic consequences. The lesson here is clear:
Identification can serve as a double-edged sword in organizations.
The power of identification could also be seen in the individual
experiences of instructors in classrooms during those days after
bonfire. First, the struggle of dealing with emotions in the class-
room was magnified by feelings of identification with the institu-
tion. One instructor, who had earned both undergraduate and
master’s degrees at A&M, spoke movingly about her struggle to
cope with both her own feelings and the feelings of her students.
She did not know if being a “good Aggie” was keeping her from
being a good instructor. Second, some instructors felt constrained
by lack of identification. Several told me that they did not deal
extensively with the tragedy in the classroom because, as newcom-
ers to campus, they did not feel that they had the “right to speak.”
The lesson learned here, then, is that identification and perceptions
about the strength of organizational culture served to silence emo-
tional communication in the workplace.
One final note on the power of identification is important. Nick
Trujillo, in a compelling review of this article before publication,
argued against presenting Texas A&M as unique in its sense of
identification and reaction to the tragedy. He noted,
 Miller / EXPERIENCE OF EMOTION IN THE WORKPLACE 593

I’m convinced that ANY campus would respond to such horrific

event in a similar way. . . . I’d downplay the claim that the fact that
this campus is a strong culture had something to do with the nature
of identification experienced after the tragedy. In fact, I believe that
such tragedies increase identification in any culture. You don’t need
to show that this is a unique culture to make your points about emo-
3
tion and identification.

I have thought long and hard about these comments. I would nor-
mally put my reaction in my “response to the reviewer” letter but
have decided to include it in the text because it is so central to the
argument I am making here. My response to Nick is this: First, I
agree that a tragedy such as the bonfire collapse would have
increased identification in any college community. Second, he may
be right that any campus would respond in the same way, although I
pray that we have few opportunities to test this claim. But in the
final analysis, I know in my mind and in my gut that this place is dif-
ferent (in terms of identification, both for good and bad) and that
this was one of those differences that made a difference. The power
of being an Aggie—and the influence of that power on coping with
this tragedy—was palpable as I stood among thousands holding a
candle in the rain, as the Aggie-piloted F-16 fighter jets flew by in
“missing man formation” at the football game the next week, and as
we, as a campus and a community, worked through our grief in the
subsequent weeks.
I was reminded again of this strong sense of identification in the
weeks following the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001. There
is no doubt that all over the United States and across the globe, com-
munities were coming together to cope with tragedy. We clearly
saw this in New York City and elsewhere, and this lends credence to
Nick’s claim that all communities come together in this way.
Again, though, the Aggieland reaction was a strong one. Here in
College Station, students came together to sell red, white, and blue
T-shirts for a football game 10 days after the attack. More than
70,000 T-shirts were sold before the game (and are still being sold
now). The entire stadium was decked in organized layers of red,
white, and blue. And more than $150,000 was raised for disaster
relief funds.
594 MANAGEMENT COMMUNICATION QUARTERLY / MAY 2002

LESSONS ABOUT THE RELATIONSHIP

BETWEEN RATIONALITY AND EMOTION
IN THE WORKPLACE

Putnam and Mumby (1993; Mumby & Putnam, 1992) high-

lighted the way that bureaucratic approaches to organizational the-
ory and research have emphasized the duality between rationality
and emotion in the workplace. However, experiences surrounding
the bonfire collapse taught me that recasting the relationship as a
dialectic rather than a dualism could enhance our consideration of
rationality and emotion in the workplace to an even greater degree.
Of particular relevance is Baxter and Montgomery’s (1996)
approach to dialectics, which rejects the mechanical and material
dialectics of Hegel and Marx and instead stems from Bakhtin’s
(1981) dialogic approach. Bakhtin emphasized that social life is
characterized by centripetal (coming together) and centrifugal
(coming apart) forces and that the tensions among these forces are
complex and ongoing.
I think this approach to dialectics is useful in understanding the
role of emotion and rationality in reactions to the bonfire tragedy,
for clearly rationality and emotion were not the thesis and antithesis
out of which some synthesis would arise (in the Hegelian sense).
Rather, emotion and rationality were contradictory parts of a uni-
fied whole that could not be understood independently of each
other.
This dialectic tension between rationality and emotion was
clearly illustrated in instructors’ approaches to teaching in the days
following the bonfire. As discussed earlier, instructors used a vari-
ety of strategies in their classrooms, strategies that reflect the praxis
strategies discussed by Baxter and Montgomery (1996) in their
consideration of relational dialectics. These scholars see the praxis
aspect of dialectical theory as emphasizing the notion that life and
interaction go on in the midst of these dialectical contradictions. An
analysis of praxis, then, considers the choices social actors make in
the midst of dialectical tensions and the ways in which these
choices and actions create, recreate, and change the nature of dia-
lectical contradictions. Baxter and Montgomery (pp. 58-68) dis-
cussed a number of praxis strategies, defined as follows:
 Miller / EXPERIENCE OF EMOTION IN THE WORKPLACE 595

1. A denial strategy involves an effort to subvert, obscure, and deny

the contradiction by legitimating only one pole of the contradiction.
2. A disorientation strategy involves adopting a fatalistic attitude in
which contradictions are regarded as inevitable, negative, and
unchangeable.
3. A spiraling inversion strategy involves each pole of the contradic-
tion being dominant at various points over time.
4. A segmentation strategy involves each pole of the contradiction
being dominant, depending on the nature of the topic or activity
domain.
5. Strategies of integration, recalibration, and reaffirmation involve
responding to the poles of the dialectic, respectively, fully, trans-
formed, or celebrated.

As discussed earlier, none of the instructors I spoke with chose

the denial strategy (although stories on campus pointed to profes-
sors in other departments who did), but many chose the related
strategies of spiraling inversion and segmentation. Instructors who
talked about bonfire (to a greater or lesser degree) and then moved
on used a spiraling inversion strategy, whereas instructors who
talked with students about bonfire during office hours but stuck to
course material during class were using a segmentation strategy.
The other praxis strategy that was evident in responses to bonfire
was an integration strategy in which instructors tried to deal effec-
tively with the opposing forces of rationality and emotion. In my
classroom, I tried to do this by using course concepts such as emo-
tional labor and social support to speak to the experiences of stu-
dents. Other instructors used the events of the bonfire tragedy to
inform discussions on class topics.
This dialectic approach to emotion and rationality in the work-
place could be useful in other areas of theory and research as well.
For example, these praxis strategies could be employed to under-
stand the resistance strategies of service workers engaged in emo-
tional labor. Or we could examine the way professionals are trained
for detached concern in light of the dialectical tension between
empathy and objectivity. Thus, in conceptualizing rationality and
emotionality in the workplace, the lesson is that we should look at
these concepts not as a duality but as “a dynamic knot of contradic-
tions, a ceaseless interplay between contrary or opposing tenden-
cies” (Baxter & Montgomery, 1996, p. 3).
596 MANAGEMENT COMMUNICATION QUARTERLY / MAY 2002

LESSONS ABOUT THE FUSION OF THE “KNOWER”

AND THE “KNOWN”—AND WRITING ABOUT IT

My final lesson takes me back to the personal. I received much of

my graduate education from the fine scholars who populated the
Department of Communication at Michigan State University dur-
ing the early 1980s. These scholars were productive theorists and
researchers in the positivist tradition. As a graduate student, then, I
was trained in the value of the scientific method and saw ethno-
graphies and case studies as research with “an n of 1.” Since my
time in graduate school, my axiological and epistemological com-
mitments have changed. Through reading and dialogue, I have
come to appreciate interpretive and critical approaches to the
understanding of social life, although I still am characterized (by
self and others) as a representative of the postpositivist tradition
(Miller, 2000; also see Phillips, 1992).
My experiences with the bonfire collapse, however, have taught
me a lesson about the relationship between knower and known at a
visceral level. First, in the days, weeks, and months following the
tragedy, I have realized that my social scientific values and preach-
ings fall somewhat short. For many years, now, I have eschewed
any derision of ethnographic work and case studies, realizing that
valuable knowledge emerges from these enterprises. But in spite of
this academic appreciation, I really never felt the difference
between understanding a concept through scientific study and
understanding a concept through experience. In my textbook, for
instance, I write that human service workers should “attempt to
adopt a stance of ‘detached concern’ in which concern for clients
can be maintained independent of strong emotional involvement”
(Miller, 1999, p. 226). This advice is based on strong social scien-
tific research, but it merely felt like a glib pronouncement as I
became a performer of emotional labor the day after the bonfire col-
lapsed. My textbook instructions about the value of social support
(pp. 228-231) felt similarly dry when read with the backdrop of a
crushing pile of logs, “fallen Aggies,” and a community coping
with incredible shock and grief.
A final lesson learned from these events, though, is not as much
related to the experience of the bonfire collapse as it is to expressing
 Miller / EXPERIENCE OF EMOTION IN THE WORKPLACE 597

my understanding of it. As I noted earlier, I knew in November of

1999 that I wanted to write about this experience, and I “got right to
work” in journaling, interviewing, and collecting materials. Within
2 months of the collapse, I began writing. I wrote the first draft of
the article very quickly, and as I have told people, it almost felt like
giving birth to a set of personal and academic ideas. Then came the
hard part. Numerous readers of this article commented on the diffi-
culty of weaving together the experiences of bonfire with the aca-
demic literature on emotion, identification, and community. Nick
Trujillo provided numerous suggestions for reworking the article in
a way that would make it a more powerful and evocative statement
regarding workplace emotions and my own experiences. Patrice
Buzzanell, another reviewer for this journal article, commented
extensively on the disconnect between a conceptual literature
review and the discussion of personal experience. I, too, felt this
disconnect and have tried to deal with it as best I can. But in coping
with this problem, I realize how far I have to go in understanding the
connection between the knower and the known and in making what
I have learned palpable to my audience. I have read many models of
this kind of work (e.g., Crawford, 1996; Ronai, 1995; Trujillo,
1993, 1998) and agree wholeheartedly with Ronai’s (1995) asser-
tion that

by attempting to organize articles neatly into literature reviews,

methods, findings, conclusions, and so forth, all thinking is forced
into a mold yielding an account of the research process that ignores,
indeed counts as irrelevant, issues such as who the researcher is
and what his or her motives are for researching the topic of interest.
(p. 421)

However, appreciation for nuanced reporting styles such as the

“layered account” (Ronai, 1995) is very different than actually
being able to do it, and what you have read here is still somewhat
more “clunky” than I would like. But this is all part of the journey. I
have learned from my experiences with the bonfire collapse that
there are no easy recipes for “doing emotion” in organizational life.
And I have learned from writing about those experiences that the
formulas for academic endeavors may be just as tenuous.
598 MANAGEMENT COMMUNICATION QUARTERLY / MAY 2002

NOTES

1. Major universities in the United States—and especially their sports

programs—are often identified by mascots that represent the spirit of the univer-
sity. I have been or taught at four major universities before my arrival at Texas A&M
University: Michigan State University (Spartans), University of Southern Califor-
nia (Trojans), Arizona State University (Sun Devils), and University of Kansas
(Jayhawks).
2. To provide a brief explanation of these listed traditions; yell leaders (always
male) lead highly routinized yells at sporting events; Reveille (a dog) is the Texas
A&M mascot; students “dunk” their highly valued senior rings in beer or ice
cream, silver taps is a monthly ceremony that honors A&M students who have
died in the previous month, muster is celebrated every April 21 around the world to
honor Aggies who have died during the year; the Corps is the military Corps of
Cadets on campus; “humping it” is the position assumed during yells, and elephant
walk is an event in November of every year in which seniors walk across campus in
a manner akin to elephants leaving the herd.
3. Editor’s note: Manuscripts submitted to Management Communication
Quarterly typically are put through a process of double-blind review. However,
because of the nature of this article, as an autoethnography, we made no attempt to
mask the author’s identity. Furthermore, two of the reviewers chose to reveal their
identities to the author.

REFERENCES

Ashforth, B. E., & Humphrey, R. H. (1993). Emotional labor in service roles: The
influence of identity. Academy of Management Review, 18, 88-115.
Ashforth, B. E., & Tomiuk, M. A. (2000). Emotional labour and authenticity:
Views from service agents. In S. Fineman (Ed.), Emotion in organizations (2nd
ed., (pp. 184-203). London: Sage Ltd.
Bakhtin, M. M. (1981). The dialogic imagination: Four essays by M. M. Bakhtin
(M. Holquist, Ed.; C. Emerson & M. Holquist, Trans.). Austin: University of
Texas Press.
Barker, J. R. (1993). Tightening the iron cage: Concertive control in self-
managing teams. Administrative Science Quarterly, 38, 408-437.
Barker, J. R., & Cheney, G. (1994). The concepts and the practices of discipline in
contemporary organizational life. Communication Monographs, 61, 19-43.
Baxter, L. A., & Montgomery, B. M. (1996). Relating: Dialogues and dialectics.
New York: Guilford.
Conrad, P. (1988). Learning to be a doctor: Reflections on recent accounts of the
medical school years. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 29, 323-332.
 Miller / EXPERIENCE OF EMOTION IN THE WORKPLACE 599

Crawford, L. (1996). Personal ethnography. Communication Monographs, 63,

158-170.
Denzin, N. K. (1997). Interpretive ethnography: Ethnographic practices for the
21st century. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Fineman, S. (1993). Organizations as emotional arenas. In S. Fineman (Ed.), Emo-
tion in organizations (pp. 9-35). London: Sage Ltd.
Fineman, S. (2000). Emotional arenas revisited. In S. Fineman (Ed.), Emotion in
organizations (2nd ed., pp. 1-24). London: Sage Ltd.
Frost, P. J., Dutton, J. E., Worline, M. C., & Wilson, A. (2000). Narratives of com-
passion in organizations. In S. Fineman (Ed.), Emotion in organizations (2nd
ed., pp. 25-45). London: Sage Ltd.
Hafferty, F. W. (1988). Cadaver stories and the emotional socialization of medical
students. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 29, 344-356.
Hochschild, A. R. (1983). The managed heart: Commercialization of human feel-
ing. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Krizek, R. L. (2001, February). The event of Mark McGuire: Defining heroism in
American culture. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Western Com-
munication Association, Coeur d’Alene, Idaho.
Kruml, S. M., & Geddes, D. (2000). Exploring the dimensions of emotional labor:
The heart of Hochschild’s work. Management Communication Quarterly, 14,
8-49.
Leidner, R. (1993). Fast food, fast talk: Service work and the routinization of
everyday life. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Miller, K. I. (1999). Organizational communication: Approaches and processes
(2nd ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
Miller, K. I. (2000). Common ground from the post-positivist perspective: From
“straw person” arguments to collaborative coexistence. In S. Corman & M. S.
Poole (Eds.), Perpectives on organizational communication: Finding common
ground (pp. 46-67). New York: Guilford.
Mizrahi, T. (1984). Coping with patients: Subcultural adjustments to the condi-
tions of working among internists-in-training. Social Problems, 34, 156-166.
Morris, J. A., & Feldman, D. C. (1996). The dimensions, antecedents, and conse-
quences of emotional labor. Academy of Management Review, 21, 986-1010.
Mumby, D. K., & Putnam, L. L. (1992). The politics of emotion: A feminist read-
ing of bounded rationality. Academy of Management Review, 17, 465-486.
Murphy, A. G. (1998). Hidden transcripts of flight attendant resistance. Manage-
ment Communication Quarterly, 11, 499-535.
Paules, G. F. (1991). Dishing it out: Power and resistance among waitresses in a
New Jersey restaurant. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Phillips, D. C. (1992). The social scientist’s bestiary: A guide to fabled threats to,
and defences of, naturalistic social science. Oxford, UK: Pergamon.
Planalp, S. (1999). Communicating emotion: Social, moral, and cultural pro-
cesses. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Putnam, L. L., & Mumby, D. K. (1993). Organizations, emotions and the myth of
rationality. In S. Fineman (Ed.), Emotion in organizations (pp. 36-57). Lon-
don: Sage Ltd.
600 MANAGEMENT COMMUNICATION QUARTERLY / MAY 2002

Rafaeli, A., & Sutton, R. I. (1987). Expression of emotion as part of the work role.
Academy of Management Review, 12, 23-37.
Ronai, C. R. (1995). Multiple reflections of child sex abuse: An argument for a lay-
ered account. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 23, 395-426.
Shuler, S., & Sypher, B. D. (2000). Seeking emotional labor: When managing the
heart enhances the work experience. Management Communication Quarterly,
14, 50-89.
Steinberg, R. J. (1999). Emotional labor in job evaluation: Redesigning compen-
sation practices. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sci-
ence, 561, 143-157.
Steinberg, R. J., & Figart, D. M. (1999). Emotional labor since The Managed
Heart. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 561,
8-26.
Tompkins, P. K., & Cheney, G. E. (1985). Communication and unobtrusive control
in contemporary organizations. In R. D. McPhee & P. K. Tompkins (Eds.),
Organizational communication: Traditional themes and new directions (pp.
179-210). Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
Tracy, S. J. (2000). Becoming a character for commerce: Emotional labor, self-
subordination, and discursive construction of identity in a total institution.
Management Communication Quarterly, 14, 90-128.
Trujillo, N. (1993). Interpreting November 22: A critical ethnography of an assas-
sination site. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 79, 447-466.
Trujillo, N. (1998). In search of Naunny’s Grave. Text and Performance Quarterly,
18, 344-368.
Turner, V. (1969). The ritual process: Structure and anti-structure. Ithaca, NY:
Cornell University Press.
Waldron, V. R. (1994). ‘Once more with feeling’: Reconsidering the role of emo-
tion in work. Communication Yearbook, 17, 388-416.
Wharton, A. S. (1999). The psychosocial consequences of emotional labor.
Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 561, 158-
176.
Yanay, N., & Shahar, G. (1998). Professional feelings as emotional labor. Journal
of Contemporary Ethnography, 27, 346-373.
Zelizer, B. (1993). Journalists as interpretive communities. Critical Studies in
Mass Communication, 10, 219-237.

Katherine Miller (Ph.D., University of Southern California) is a professor

of speech communication at Texas A&M University. She is the author of two
textbooks, Organizational communication: Approaches and Processes and
Communication Theories: Perspectives, Processes, and Contexts, and more
than 50 journal articles and book chapters. Her current work investigates
the role of emotion in the workplace (particularly for workers in “compas-
sionate careers”) and the influence of workplace structures and processes
on social identity.