Sunday, August 26, 2007

Role Conflict

I am both a sociologist and a fiance/woman/real person. This combination of identities, and their consequent roles has caused me more trouble than usual* this weekend, as my fiance and I are trying belatedly and madly to finish wedding invitations. Role conflict has occurred in two ways:

  1. Publishing an article (any article) in a journal (any journal) has become so salient that even with a template of a response card in front of me that gives the options "Accepts" and "Regrets," I accidentally typed "Accepts" and "Rejects." My fiance also did not notice this, which makes me feel some better. Thankfully, we've only printed half of the response cards, so we anticipate sending the incorrect ones to our sociologist and blind friends and sending the correct ones to the people who love Miss Manners. This is definitely a case of my sociologist role getting in the way of my "real person" role.
  2. Beginning with my father, I forgot to add the appropriate "Dr." title to the addresses. This means that our lucky friends who have already graduated, and several of my parents' friends, will not be getting the appropriate status labels on their invitations. Normally, I might not care about this, but I know enough about Status Characteristics Theory (and I value my own higher education enough) that the sociologist in me is quite angry at the "real person who is really stressed" in me and is tempted to madly call people to apologize (especially our friend who is single but has gotten her Ph.D.).

Thankfully, there are other parts of me, including the "rational self," who reminds me that if people are that worried about their incorrect status then they can just Reject us and we can move on with our lives. Back to work, then...

*Academics have a very hard time separating their work from their home lives from time to time.**
**Okay, you caught me. I mean 95% of the time.

4 comments:

TDEC said...

I do love Miss Manners - particularly on the subject of asparagus. That said though, feel free to send us the non-etiquette-compliant response card.

As for mis-addressing folks, people get upset about the strangest things, but never the ones you expect, so I wouldn't worry about it if I were you. I flouted etiquette in a number of ways when addressing invitations, and it lost me no friends. For one, we chose not to address people as Mr & Mrs John Smith, because I think it is a really creepy habit. And then there are all the times you get details wrong...don't sweat it.

Practicing Idealist said...

Thanks, TDEC! I appreciate the encouragement. We're looking forward to seeing you two soon!

jeremy said...

I can't imagine anyone would be bothered by a missing "Dr." from their wedding invitation. My druthers is not to ever use "Dr." Besides, if people are really into the prestige of honorifics, "Professor" is more prestigious for non-medical doctors than "Dr."

Anonymous said...

I was expecting my invitation to read Mr. bookmobile, M.A. and Guest, but whatever...

;)