Recareering happily ever after: An analysis of job transition storytelling in AARP message boards

Elizabeth Louise Spradley
Stephen F. Austin State University

Abstract

The aging population – those 55 and older – are an increasing percentage of the US population and workforce. Yet, they are struggling to obtain full-time employment when displaced. Experiences of the aging worker are of concern to those investigating organizing processes and use of technology related to employment. This particular research study analyzes computer-mediated storytelling on the American Association of Retired People’s magazine and related message boards revealing: 1) construction of a storytelling virtual community, in which community members 2) utilize stories as social support and 3) discipline unsupportive storytelling.

Introduction

As Americans are living longer, healthier lives and as economic conditions necessitate, Americans are participating in the labor market beyond the 65-year marker (Department of Labor, 2008). However, this is not to say that aging Americans do not experience challenges in their employment experiences. Rone (1983) recognizes that the unemployment rates in the US of the aged 55 plus population may be masked and misunderstood because this population is more likely to be affected by unsuccessful job searches and job market alienation. Between 2003 and 2005, the Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics found that 8.1 million workers were displaced. A displaced worker is “20 years of age and older who lost or left jobs because their plant or company closed or moved, there was insufficient work for them to do, or their position or shift was abolished” (p. 1). In the same news report, the DOL indicated 728,000 workers ages 55 to 64 were displaced and 135,000 workers 65 years plus were displaced. A notable result of the three-year study is that only 25% of the 65 plus age range were reemployed. Aging workers have documented lower reemployment rates when displaced.

Another noted challenge to the aging worker is lower wage. In 1979, men 65 and older earned an average $219 per week verses the $291 per week earned by men 16 and older (Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2008). In 2007, the disparity remains. In 2007, men 65 and older earned an average $686 per week verses the $766 per week average of men 16 and older. Women fair similarly with women 65 plus earning an average $534 per week in 2007 and their 16 plus counterparts earning $614 per week. Studies seeking to better understand the challenges and experiences of the aging worker are timely considering the current economic and social climates. Estimations from the Department of Health and Human Services (2005) indicate that the 65 and over population will increase from 35 million in 2000 to 55 million in 2020. As the aging population swells in America so does our concern with understanding their experiences, and in particular, their experiences with career change and technology use.

Given the aforementioned economic and social landscape for the aging worker, I am left asking, “How does the aging worker use storytelling via technology to manage job transitioning?” To get at this question, I turn my focus to the American Association of Retired People’s magazine and online community because of their unique invitation to storytelling via their published articles and message boards. The organization of this analytic essay highlights contributions of narrative theory to the understanding of how storytelling functions in a virtual community, identifies the methods used to collect and analyze stories shared on the AARP’s message boards, and reconstructs the AARP’s virtual community as a storytelling organization and how it functions in regard to (un)supportive storytelling.

Narrative, Antenarrative, and Storytelling

While a comprehensive review of narrative as a discourse analysis method and as data is beyond the scope of this paper (see Boje, 2001; Mumby, 2004 and Riessman, 2008 for more thorough reviews), this section does highlight basic differences between narrative, antenarrative, and story constructs and explores the power of story in the storytelling organization. Riessman (2008) notes the plurality of meanings associated with the term narrative, subsequently challenging all who dare to define and differentiate this term with a daunting task. Narrative is defined as, “Events perceived by the speaker as important are selected, organized, connected, and evaluated as meaningful for a particular audience” (p. 3). Czarniawska (1998) argues that there are three criteria of narrative: 1) original state of affairs, 2) an action or event, and 3) a consequential state of affairs differing from the original. Plot binds these three criteria together constructing meaning for speaker and audience. Jerome Bruner (2002) describes plot as being set into motion by peripeteia – a sudden shift or rupture in the action.

An important distinction in the study of narratives in organizational communication is between the terms narrative and story. Boje (2001) describes a crisis of narrative in modernity – the nonlinear, fragmented, polyphonic story that fails to fulfill the criteria of narrative. Many narratives do not fulfill the expectations set for what constitutes a narrative because storytellers do not always communicate chronologically and often leave out portions of the narrative. Stories, as an alternative term, have been described as pre-narratives, narrative fragments, and folksy (Boje, 1997, 2001; Gabriel, 2004a, 2004b). Gabriel (2004a) argues that time constraints and unskilled storytellers result in “fragmented, cursory, or incomplete” narratives that are more accurately conceived of as “embryonic narrative fragments that may be regarded as ‘proto-stories’, but contain hardly any plot or characters” (p. 24). Therefore, plot may be an agreed upon defining characteristic of narrative; yet, plot may be incomplete in individuals’ storytelling.

Antenarrative (Boje, 2001, 1999, 1995, 1991) is proposed as a way to assist researchers with an alternative approach for analyzing stories. Antenarrative provides narrative researchers with a way of describing storied communication that lacks completion and linear emplotment, and antenarrtive also provides narrative researchers with a way of exploring the multiple meanings voiced through storytelling. To grasp Boje’s postmodern, antenarrative approach, he creates a discursive metaphor with the Las Angeles’ play Tamara, in which the characters and plot progress on different stages simultaneously throughout a home and audience members follow characters to different scenes. Tamara illustrates, “the plurivocal interpretation of organizational stories in a distributed and historically contextualized meaning network – that is, the meaning of events depends upon the locality, the prior sequence of stories, and the transformation of characters in the wandering discourses” (Boje, 1995, p. 1000). In other words, narratives are performed for an audience, who has only a partial glimpse at the development of the narrative.

In application to organizational communication, narrative and stories have been analyzed in terms of deconstruction (Boje, 1995; Boje et al., 1997; Martin, 1990, 1992), reflexivity (Boje et al., 1999), storytelling systems (Boje, 1991, 1995), control/resistance and identity (Gabriel, 2000; Mumby, 1987; Trethewey, 2001), dialectical relationship with organizational lists (Ziegler, 2007), and the unmanaged (Gabriel, 1995, 2000). The storytelling organization of Boje’s research with Disney (1995) and an office-supply firm (1991) demonstrates how stories become the “medium of interpretive exchange” (Boje, 1995, p. 1000).

At one extreme, the storytelling organization can oppress by subordinating everyone and collapsing everything to one ‘grand narrative’ or ‘grand story.’ At the other extreme, the storytelling organization can be a pluralistic construction of a multiplicity of stories, storytellers, and story performance events that are like Tamara but are realized differently depending upon the stories in which one is participating (Boje, 1995, p. 1000).

Boje (1995) introduces a type of organizing – storytelling. Furthermore, Boje’s storytelling organization is characterized by power and how powerful stories shape meaning for organizational actors.

Rich, deep analysis of storytelling is necessary to understand how story powerfully constructs one reality as “the natural order of things” (Boje, 2001, Mumby, 1987). Mumby (2004) argues that narratives reveal taken-for-granted structures of everyday life and act powerfully to control both teller and listener. Controls in the organizational structure constrain time, movement, space and discourse (Gabriel, 2004a, p. 24). Conversely, organizations may enable storytelling as the preferred mode of organizational discourse (Boje, 1991). “The power to story is hegemonic at the micro level – very subtle, taken-for-granted, and even softly spoken stories told by others and even to ourselves that scribe a meaning onto our existence that can be imprisoning” (Boje, et al., 1999). In other words, the same stories that can serve interpretive sensemaking functions can also function to imprison or discipline. The same stories that function to provide and seek support can be unsupportive. Mumby (1997) argues that hegemony is oft conceptualized as power through consent and challenges organizational communication scholars to return to the dialectical roots of Gramasci’s conceptions of hegemony, which comprises simultaneous expressions of control and meaningful resistance. Rather than analyzing stories to determine whose story is best, analysis should focus on hegemony – that is, whose story is salient and powerful in marginalizing other stories and interpretations (Boje, et al, 1999). Buzzanell and Ellingson’s (2005) analysis of the “good worker” master narrative, Boje’s (1995; Boje et al., 1997) deconstruction of grand narratives. Martin’s (1990, 1992) deconstruction of the Caesarean story, Mumby’s (1987) ideological analysis of the IBM story, and Trethewey’s (2001) dialectical analysis of the master narrative of decline serve as exemplars in exploring storied discourse to reveal hegemonic structures and marginalized voices.

Using antenarrative, it is not sufficient to identify patterns in stories being told and simply categorize the stories to determine their function. Instead, antenarrative challenges research on storytelling to delve deeper into storytelling to determine whose interests are being served by the storytelling and whose voices are being silenced. The following analysis uses a virtual storytelling organization to analyze storied communication centering on career change and the power implications of the organizational actor’s storytelling.

Methods

The AARP is an appropriate organizational context to identify organizational spaces where stories of career transitioning among the aging population are welcomed and shared. According to their mission statement, the AARP, American Association of Retired People (2011), is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization seeking to enhance the quality of life and lead positive social change for the aging population, which would include supporting its members during the uncertainty of career change. Since its founding in 1958, the AARP’s membership has swelled to 39 million; half of the US population age 50 or older are members of the AARP. Surprising to many is the percentage of members that remain in labor market. Forty-four percent of AARP members work part or full time (AARP, 2008). Due to the large number of AARP members continuing in the labor market, the organization has undertaken advocacy and support for the aged worker including those changing jobs. A number of magazine articles, bulletin articles, online resources, and most recently, message boards have been created by the AARP to support career change. This research focuses on two magazine articles that precipitated into message boards and characterize antenarrative storytelling and the power of narrative.

While there were 42 online groups on AARP’s website centered on money and work issues,19 specifically related to profession and workplace issues, membership in these groups was low (10 members on average), and number of message posts was also low at the time of this study. Whereas, the message boards on the AARP magazine’s webpage pertaining to similar issues had high membership (20-40 members) and high numbers of posts (200 plus in a number of cases). In particularly, two message boards stimulated from published magazine articles related to job transitioning.  First, an article entitled Presto Change-O by Samuel Greengard spawned a popular message board that received 241 posts between September 7, 2006 and March 11, 2008.  This message board was designated for those who were experiencing “occupational transformation.” A second article entitled Follow Your Dream by Dan Miller was a platform for a message board that received 52 posts between September 25, 2007 and February 22, 2008.  Miller’s article encouraged readers to find their vocational calling in life.  All poster’s user names have been changed in the writing of this analytical essay but permission was not sought from each user for inclusion in this study[1].

Storytelling begins in the magazine’s articles as the authors highlight later life career change success stories, and storytelling is extended to the members of the message boards as they author their personal stories, which are characteristic of the fragmented plots of antenarratives.  The message board for Presto Change-O encourages posters to “tell us about your experiences, and share advice with fellow readers who might be considering an occupational transformation of their own.”  Similarly, the message board for Follow Your Dream asks posters to “Share your story here.”  The AARP’s magazine engages its readers with hopeful, inspiring stories of “recareering” and finding “your purpose, your mission, and your calling” and, then, invites readers to articulate their own stories in a public space.  Thus, the message boards on the AARP’s magazine’s website become a site par excellence to investigate intersects of story and job transitioning of aged workers.

Data Analysis

To look at how the aging worker uses storytelling to discursively manage job transitioning, I employ three different analytic lenses to the data.  First, I used a grounded analysis approach (Charmaz, 2000) to code message board posts.  Initial coding revealed the function of storytelling on the message boards, to seek and provide social support, and subsequent coding developed thematic categories of support and resistance storytelling in this online space.

AARP posters’ stories are multi-faceted, in situ narrations of the triumphs, challenges, and disappointments of both volitional and forced career change Conceptualizing the AARP and its virtual community as complex, political spaces, in which some discursive patterns of meaning may suppress alternative meanings, I, as the researcher, find myself seeking a multifaceted approach to underscore concealed, marginalized discourse and how that discourse is contextually and how that discourse may function similarly or differently from the dominant discourse in constituting a community of social support.

By adopting a political reading of narrative, however, it is possible to demonstrate that story-telling is not a simple representing of a pre-existing reality, but is rather a politically motivated production of a certain way of perceiving the world which privileges certain interests over others (Mumby, 1987, p. 114).

The following analysis begins to unpack how understandings of career change are shaped by perceptions of optimism toward later life job transitioning.

Greengard and Miller’s AARP Magazine Articles and Message Boards

The AARP’s magazine articles by Greengard and Miller begin the storytelling chains by featuring a number of stories of career change to support the authors’ arguments.  To better grasp how readers turned message board posters accept, connect, and contest the published articles that spawned the virtual communities, analysis will begin with the storytelling and discursive patterns established at the managerial level by the AARP authors who composed official renderings of career change plots and morals.  Greengard (2006) employs five later life career change stories in an article focused on the challenges and rewards of pursuing career change while contemporaries are retiring.  The opening story of Greengard’s article features Henry Stewart, who traded his public relations job for a $20,000 culinary arts degree and $8 per hour job at the Marriott Renaissance Worthington Hotel at age 50.  Like Henry, Rebecca Armstrong quit a lucrative career, only in architecture, to return to school.  Rebecca sought a service career as a neonatal nurse at age 55.

Rebecca who financed the career change using equity in her family’s apartment, is spending more than $100,000 to attend Columbia.  “This change isn’t about making more money.  It will take me until about 2011 to get back to my income level as an architect,” she says.

Both Henry and Rebecca’s stories feature individuals who are finally pursuing persistent, unfulfilled dreams through career changes.

Greengard utilizes these two success stories in conjunction with three others to argue that, “for those 50-puls workers who have made the leap successfully, the reward of career change is personal satisfaction.”  This article is void of tragic stories but is not without warnings of tragic ends. Pay cuts, discrimination, lack of social support, lower status, and less respect are labeled potential tragedies of changing careers at age 50.  Despite the noted negative consequences, Greengard’s article only features the success stories.  In addition to foregrounding success stories in the article, Greengard introduces readers to career change terminology.  Changing careers is metaphorically linked to gambling, leaping, and making lemonade.  Career change is positively termed as “recareering,” “starting over,” “connecting to dreams, desires, and youthful aspirations,” a “joint venture,” “personal satisfaction,” “living life to its fullest,” “shifting existing talents,” and an “opportunity.”  The image of career change constructed by Greengard’s discourse and, especially, storytelling is an image of fulfillment.  While Greengard’s article is saturated with optimism from start to end, Miller’s (2007) article, Follow Your Dream, begins pessimistically before taking a sharply propitious tone on which it ends.

Miller (2007) introduces readers to career change through two arguments.  First, “the American workplace is changing,” as, “companies are dismantling pension plans, cutting health insurance benefits, and replacing the gold watch with the pink slip.”  Second, “In a workplace where jobs come and go like feathers in the breeze, we must have a sense of continuity in our lives that goes far beyond our daily job.”  Combined, these two arguments support Miller’s encouragement to readers to pursue a vocation. There are three principal terms Miller uses in regard to career: job, career, and vocation. In Miller’s estimation a vocation is likened to a calling and leads to “fulfillment, a sense of peace, and accomplishment.”

Miller highlights how career change can lead one to one’s vocation.  Just as Greengard introduced his readers to optimistic career change terminology so does Miller. Miller discusses career change as an “opportunity to fully engage your calling,” “reawaken[ing],” “freedom,” being “productive and fulfilled,” and a “new season.”  Stories, even if fragmented, include plot and a moral/lesson to some degree, and the stories in Greengard and Miller’s articles are no exception.  The paramount plot line is as follows: individual or couple becomes dissatisfied with job, which leads to introspection, which leads to career change, which leads to satisfaction.  As the plot unfolds (not necessarily completely or sequentially), there is a plurality of morals invoked by the storyteller or reteller.  Morals include: career change is worth the sacrifice; career change will usher in fulfillment; career change is a sign of your confidence; and career change results in self-knowledge.   Note that both plot and moral, like story selection and terminology, frame career change favorably emphasizing the positive and reframing the negative as worthwhile and an opportunity for constructive change.

Of interest to this study is not to simply read and analyze the published articles; but, this study seeks to examine how the discourse in the articles becomes reproduced or resisted by readers in their message board posts, and to disturb a monolithic reading of aging career change (Boje, 2001). I am interested in how the AARP magazine articles and message board posters develop discursive patterns that function hegemonically and how social actors “identify with, resist, and transform” the these discursive patterns by voicing their experiences (Mumby, 1997, p. 345).   Therefore, the subsequent sections of this portion of the analysis shift the focus from the original magazine articles to the postings by AARP the Magazine readers.

The two message boards ranged in the amount of posts, length of posts, and content of posts.  Greengard’s article stimulated 241 posts that averaged two paragraphs per post, and Miller’s article, published a year later, stimulated 50 posts that averaged a paragraph per post.  In both cases, posters accepted the invitation to “Share your story,” but posters differed in how they embodied the role of storyteller.  Some posters reproduced the language, the plot and the morals presented by Greengard and Miller while some posters produced divergences in plot and morals at least partially resisting the authors’ positive spin on later life career changes.  In the analysis a good number of stories are quoted or paraphrased to demonstrate how this population of 50+ is experiencing career change, and in many cases, I have only selected portions of the posted story to include, not because I am trying to rewrite the posters narratives adding superficial coherency and sequentiality to them (although in some cases this may inadvertently occur to my own dismay), but because I have limited space and must make judicious decisions about inclusions and omissions.  The analysis of the message boards begins by demonstrating how storytelling constitutes a community, in which social support and discipline characterize the function of narration.

Community

“Telling stories about difficult times in our lives creates order and contains emotions, allowing a search for meaning and enabling connection with others” (Reissman, 2008, p. 10).  The virtual community established through the AARP’s magazine and invitation to posters to share their stories and connect with others’ stories is communicatively constituted through storytelling about difficult times.  Storytelling is the “medium of interpretive exchange” for posters networked together through computer-mediated technology (Boje, 1995, p. 1000).  Cyber support is growing area of research interest as the academy seeks to understand how social support functions in a virtual community (Wright, Johnson, Bernard, and Averbeck, 2011).  As Sharf (1997) notes in her study of a breast cancer list serv, virtual communities have unique organizing dimensions: membership that fluctuates, virtual rather than physical representation, and geographic barriers that have been broken through computer mediation.   Message boards are complex virtual communities due to the fluctuations in membership and the varied participation of membership overtime.  For example, some community members limit the participation in the message boards to reader-only roles while other members post multiple stories and develop conversations with other members.  An excellent illustration of dialogue that occurs between members in the community is discernable from Jaba’s (2006 Oct. 10) request for information in medical transcription based on Sarah’s prior story about working contractually from home as a medical transcriber.  Less than two hours after Jaba’s request, Sarah posted a response detailing how she returned to a community college to take courses in medical transcription.  Then, twenty minutes later Jaba wrote, “I appreciate the information.  Thank you.”  Not only did Jaba receive direct feedback from the original target of the post, others, like Sandy, a former medical transcription teacher, chimed in to offer stories of hope and success with transcription.

Up to this point in the study, the content of the messages boards in its storytelling structure have been analyzed, but inextricably linked to content is function.  While storytelling may have a cathartic and self-gratifying function for the narrator, within the community storytelling functions as social support for the members.  Of the four identified dimensions of social support (emotional aid, material aid, information and companionship in Monge and Contractor, 2001), the career change stories principally layered dimensions of emotional/psychological aid and information.  Stories functioned to advise, validate, and encourage.

Advise

Members of the virtual community engaged in storytelling to both solicit and provide advice, that is information, to one another.  Jaba’s dialogue with Sarah and katelib described earlier demonstrate the informative utility of career change stories and how stories are provided with(out) (in)direct solicitation.  Becky’s request for assistance demonstrates how an unfinished story seeks informative resources of the community in order to pursue recareering happily ever after.

I had been working, for the same company, twenty-nine years.  I will be 55 in October and last November 15, 2005 my department was eliminated.  I have worked very hard in trying to find another job.  It is so depressing…  I was a very good employee, at my last job, and went above and beyond, and got along with everyone.  (They called me an employers dream employee)  I would love to take more classes but can’t afford it.  The ten months I have been off has really taken a toll on our finances and getting worse even though I collected unemployment the first six months.  I really don’t want to dip into our retirement money.  Do you have  any suggestions as to what else I can do?  I am currently open to going part time even though I had been searching for full time positions. Rebecca Kelso (Becky, 2006 Sept. 18).

The same day Becky appealed to her AARP community for help, Candice answered her saying, “Dear Becky, I found a few resources you can look into.  www.seniorjobbank.org http://www.aarp.org/money/careers/employerresourcecenter/bestemployers/ I wish you all the best” (Candice, 2006 Sept. 18).  Stories like Becky’s mobilize the community to respond to community needs.

Posters also conflict, albeit usually indirectly, over best courses of action.  In terms of justification for their way of doing career change, posters affix their advising story to the big story of career change as worthwhile.

Good point about having the resources to gamble on a new career, but I found a community certificate program, very intensive training in the latest technology, that is a very reasonable alternative to paying the high price of grad school.  Most good community colleges have a lot to offer for very little investment.  True, I had to quit my fulltime job for 4 moths and do part-time work and the books are expensive, but it was well worth it (Karla, 2006 Oct. 10).

This personal experience advises the community as a whole to “gamble” on the grand narrative of recareering, but to do it Karla’s way – an inexpensive, intensive community certificate program.  Other posters story their advice advocating graduate school, entrepreneurship, contributing to and posting on job boards, reading recareering literature, volunteering, and working from home.

Validate and Identify

Stories also functioned to validate and identify with one another’s experiences.  Primarily, posters responded to other posters that shared similarities such as returning to school, being downsized, having similar political views, and sharing occupational interests.  Jasmine and Amy’s conversation demonstrates how storytelling about career change within the virtual community can function to validate choices to engage in career change and facilitate relational development between two or more participants.

Way to go, Jasmine!  I love your definition of retired – that you have retired from everyone’s elses expectations.  That is profound.  You inspire me, and help me relax a little when I consider my student loan total.  What kind of classes are you taking (Amy, 2007 Oct. 8)?

Amy: Thanks for your response…  Keep in touch and let me know what your plans are and how you are doing in school.  We are having mid-terms this week.  UGH (Jasmine, 2007 Oct. 8)!

…I just finished midterms to, and I agree with your UGH!  It was tough, but I think I did well in most things.  That’s one thing about being an older student, we do not waste our time or money – we do the work.  I’m at a private college too, more $ than I’d ever dreamt.  I had no choice unless I wanted to move…  Thanks for responding, it is good to connect with a fellow student (Amy, 2007 Oct. 8).

As Amy concludes, “it is good to connect with a fellow student.”  Social isolation of late life career change is apparent but addressed through technology in this virtual community.  Stan (2007 Oct. 16) directly addresses feelings of social isolation,

One of the biggest things that I have run across is how other perceive you if you don’t have a job.  They base who you are by how much money you have and what you do for a living not by your vocation (as defined by the article).  It’s very unusual to find someone to listen, if you don’t have a job you’re a bum.

The message boards enable validation and identification that posters may not be experiencing elsewhere and provides a space where they can “find someone to listen.”

Encouragement

As posters articulate their career change stories, many are grappling with questions of identity, purpose, capability, and depression.  Struggling to make sense of their lived experiences, stories become opportunities to seek and provide encouragement.  “You go girl!!!!!!!!  My hats off to you.  You just gave me inspiration.  If you can do it at your age I am 59 I can too” (Dana, 2006 Oct. 1)! The message board as a storytelling organization has a constructive utility for many community members.  It is not simply a space to voice one’s story; it is a space to advise, connect, and encourage other career changers, for which many posters verbalize their thankfulness.  Amy (2008 Jan. 30) responded to Riley’s congratulatory email by saying, “Thanks for the encouragement!  I’m so glad to hear of your joy in you OT work…  Thanks again for your posting!”

Seeking Support Through Economic and Social Challenges

The AARP has recognized social and economic conditions that challenge aging workers, such as ageism/discrimination, downsizing and early retirement, technical computer skills/training, income level, social security, socioeconomic status and increased cost of living and health care.  Conceivably, the AARP is doing more to address the social and economic context of aging career change than any other organization.  The social and economic context impacts the lived and told stories of career changers and message board participants.  Invited into the storytelling community, the message board posters extend their requests for and provisions of social support beyond the positively framed conditions and outcomes of career change.  In many instances, posters resist the powerful storylines that emphasize hope, sacrifice, and opportunity and feature plot lines of struggle that highlight the uncertainty and difficulty of later life career change.

Resisters such as Jason and Taylor recognize that career change success stories tend to have characters with education and at least middle socioeconomic class status.  Taylor’s (2006 Sept. 14) story is characterized by his age (57), his “dead end job,” his limited access to resources to start his own business, his lack of “pension or investments,” and his experience with age discrimination at work. Those aging workers who were downsized, outsourced, “let go” or forced to retire report a variety of stories, many of which follow script from Greengard and Miller’s articles that they received the much needed push to find a more fulfilling career.  However, stories from those of lower economic classes are more tragic.  Posters such as Cal (2006 Oct. 14), who has been out of secure employment for three years, describes her anxiety, lack education, anger toward governmental agencies, unsuccessful pursuit of a job, and fears of homelessness.  The AARP message boards represent a space for Cal to give voice to her experiences and participate in a supportive community.

In addition to socioeconomic class that contextualizes community members’ career change experiences, a number of posters storied their experiences with ageism, a continued pressing social, political and cultural issue even 40 years after the Age Discrimination Act (Roscigno et al., 2007).  Frank (2006 Oct. 14) writes, “As we age, employers don’t want experiences or leadership they want monkey robots that will do exactly only what thy want you to do.”    Danny  (2006 Oct. 14) agrees with this sentiment posting, “Age discrimination is definitely out there and I seriously believe is the cause of why I cannot land another good paying job.  Just can’t prove it…”  Posters go beyond storying their discrimination experiences to warning each other. 

Great article, but be careful what you choose.  I returned to college to get a teaching credential because of the supposed teacher shortage in California.  Another ‘older’ cohort and I both had a great deal of trouble getting jobs.  I was even told blatantly that the school was looking for ‘the right fit’ and they hired only young people.  Though illegal, schools can screen us older folks out, and often do.  I lost my job during a hip replacement, and cannot find another because of the perception that we older folks cannot keep up, even though I am better than when I got my credential!  So beware of jobs that cater to youth, even if there is a seeming shortage of workers (Randi, 2006 Oct. 15)!

Storytelling reflects the organizational and societal context in which it is told.  Ageism and socioeconomic class issues pervade posters’ stories as obstacles to achieving the aspired plotline that Greengard and Miller describe in their articles.  Furthermore, stories marked by economic and social woes embody antenarrative principles of fragmented, uncertain plots.  Seeking stable employment in a different career, these message board posters are voicing story fragments, unfinished narratives.  For a number of the posters struggling through difficult times, the message board constructively functions as a networked community of social support to make sense of the troubling social and economic context.  For others, as they seek cyber support, the community to which they turn turns on them.

Discipline and Power In a Storytelling Community

By and large the storytelling community was saturated with stories that reified the discourse in Greengard and Miller’s articles; nevertheless, a handful of stories (primarily in the message board spawned from Greengard’s article) resisted the positively framed discourse of career change.

Can’t thank you enough for that spirited article.  Without a doubt it touched the lives of “many,” who much like myself, are entering into a time a great challenges.  The 50+ era.  There was one concern, however, that disturbed me.  In each situation where someone in your article took the bull by the horns, as it were, and ran with it, all seem to have large sums of financial resources that “allowed” them to make the career changes that they made…  The majority, while reading your article, no doubt felt like dropping everything and search out that long awaited dream.  Nevertheless, “dreams” in today’s world cost $money. $  Forgive me if I sound negative, however, how many entering 50+ can actually afford to plop down $20,000 or more… on a venture?  Not to mention if they have that type of money sitting around “at all.”  Many are trying to hold on to any remaining mortgage payments still due that waits for “no one.”  I would think that the majority of those entering retirement aren’t looking to make drastic life style changes for the sake of seeing if they can still “grab the old brass ring.”  …  Yet, being more realistic, the majority cannot and will not succeed in a world that is not truly interested in the elderly or 50+ as you put it...  Yours truly, “Tell it like it really is…” Jason (2006 Sept. 11).

Jason highlights how the AARP magazine articles and posts on the message boards cast the career changer in a role that assumes its character has the resources to pursue career change.  In response to Jason, Taylor additionally uses this public space to question the ability of the average aging American to change careers successfully.

On the subject of job changes, sadly, I must agree with Jason.  I’m 57 and one of the Baby Boomers who is without any pension or investments.  I’m in a dead end job, and would love to start over, but I have no resources to start my own business.  As to job discrimination – ironically, I’m working for a company handling the Medicare Part D. prescription plan, working with a 50+ population, and I barely got this job!  Interviewers were all younger than I am, and clearly not impressed by my job history (which fit their criteria perfectly).  In a call center of 400 agents, about 90 percent are age 30 or younger.  Most have no idea of how to relate to more mature clients.  I certainly thought that in a business that dealt almost entirely with clients in my age group, discrimination would not be a problem.  Obviously, it’s rampant in today’s marketplace (Taylor, 2006 Sept. 14).

Jason and Taylor’s cynicism is targeted toward the economic class of the characters in the published stories and their access to education and other resources to successfully change careers.  Resistant stories on the AARP Presto Change-O and Follow Your Dream message boards express a concern with the lack of agency an individual with limited access to resources has to alter his(er) employment future.  Stories of hardship, stories of lower socio-economic classes are excluded from the published articles, and a number of posters are quick to illuminate this imbalance.

Resistant stories range in the degree to which they differentiate themselves from the career change success hegemony.  On one hand there are posters like Taylor that take an unapologetic resistant stance on career change discourse, and on the other hand there are posters like Ray who are apologetically resistant to the dominant discourse.

I later found out that I had been replaced by a 22 year old who was being paid $2.00 less an hour than I was making.  I may be wrong, but I am beginning to feel that part of the problem is my age.  Of course, I have not been the brightest bulb in the pack, or I would have gotten a degree instead of raising children and believing that the future would take care of itself.  I am in good health (Thank God!) and feel that my experience can be of value.  I just have to figure out, to whom.  Sorry to say that I am running out of ideas and depression is setting in.  Any way that is my tale of woe.  I am very sure that there are others out there in the same boat (Ray, 2006 Oct. 2).

Ray, unlike Jason and Taylor, apologizes for being depressed and “running out of ideas” as if her “tale of woe” is deviant because it does not fit the mold carved out by Greengard or Miller.  This begs the question of how socially supportive the storytelling community can be if participants begin to feel guilty for telling stories that fail to reify the positive framing of others’ career change stories.

Those that deviate from the dominant story whether candidly or hesitantly, especially in regards to the moral, often find themselves targets of other posters’ commentary.  Emma (2007 Nov. 3) makes a request to “hear from other ‘positive’ people who would like to share what the topic of this discussion is supposed to be about.”   Denny (2006 Oct. 3) also disciplines those who deviate from the grand story.

One thing is sure.  Setting around feeling sorry for yourself and blaming the government and large corporations for your situation will NOT improve your life.  Taking a leap of faith and getting involved in doing something you love will greatly improve the quality of life.  As you improve your attitude and expectations you will find most people want to help you succeed and you will!  In life, failure is not an option.

Denny utilizes storytelling to offer a critique of a number of previous posts that lament their “tales of woe.”  Emma and Denny see the storytelling community as a place of social support, as long as the stories shared conform to plotline and type of support that the majority of community members have established as normative.  Yet, Denny’s critique does not remain unaddressed.  Some posters actively resist conformity that would silence their stories of unsuccessful career change.  Willie (2006 Oct. 6), who is currently in debt, reemphasizes the lack of agency many job hunters experience.

You know what would be real nice?  To have someone reach out a helping hand and say, “I would love to have you join my organization.  I see you are a valuable asset.  I would love to help you be successful contributing to this world.”  I just cannot imagine that happening after all of this time, pain, and investment.

Not all narrators feel a sense of control over the story being told.  Willie aptly describes what it feels like to be out of control and the desire to have a hero, in the form an organization, ride in and save the day with a job.

Being a member of a storytelling community entails self-expression, but how is self-expression tempered by conflict between community members?  Inevitably, conflict arises between 1) those that have accepted the dominant discourse that recareering is a volitional act of self-improvement and sensemaking that career change is both constructive and attainable and 2) those that contest either parts or the whole of such discourse.  As Barge (2004) indicates,

A postmodern view toward organizational discourse moves us to consider the Tamara-like quality of stories and storytelling within organizational life.  A single unified coherent story that links organizational members together does not exist; rather, organizational members are like the audience members in Tamara, wandering about, chasing different stories, exploring different plots for making sense of their unfolding experience (p. 107-108).

Indeed, as posters both accept and contest the constructive assumptions of career change, a multitude of career change plots, contextual constraints, views on agency, and experience emerge.

The social support or cyber support (Sharf,1997) intimate the relational complexity and functionality storytelling, thus, challenging transactional conceptions of social support (Monge and Contractor, 2001). While well-intentioned posters participate in the virtual community requesting and dispensing social support, posters are simultaneously advising, validating, and encouraging one another to align their story with the positive outcomes associated with job transitioning, thus disciplining their stories.  Notwithstanding, a portion of posters were able to use the community space to resist the dominant discourse and relate to one another articulating how their experiences diverged from the published articles and other posters.  The AARP career change message boards represent multi-vocal storytelling that is being made sense of as both the individual and community participate and engage in interpretive exchange.

Conclusions

Message boards open organizational spaces for AARP the Magazine readers to invoke storytelling as “the medium of interpretive exchange” (Boje, 1995, p. 1000).   On one hand, the computer mediated exchange subverts posters from chasing storylines conventionally through the corridors and offices of an organization; on the other hand, the computer mediated exchange makes the Tamara of postmodern organizations accessible to all participants in the virtual community to trace through the polyphonic stories of career change (Boje, 1995).  With that said, the accessibility of (re)reading and the freedom and anonymity associated with a virtual community may exacerbate the disciplining power of career change as a constructive, worthy pursuit as posters ostracize or correct posters whose stories challenge these assumptions.  Just as organizations cannot be reduced to a single story (Boje, 1995), career change stories of the aging worker cannot be either.  Reductionism fails to acknowledge “a multiplicity, a plurality of stories and story interpretations in struggle with one another” (Boje, 1995, p. 1001).  This study highlights the constitutive function of storytelling in a virtual community to provide social support and simultaneously deny social support to posters who refused to conform to the storytelling patterns of career change as positive.

There are number of notable contributions this study makes.  First, this study highlights storytelling in a non-profit virtual community comprised of the aging population.  The AARP is designated with the charge to advocate on behalf of the aging population, and, there may be a temptation to uncritically analyze communication generated by the organization and its membership.  However, this type of reductionism masks the hardships of (in)voluntary career change at 50 plus that becomes evident in the fragmented, resistant storied discourse that some posters dare share in the virtual community.  Second, supportive storytelling becomes a powerful discursive pattern on the AARP message boards that serves as a template as to how community participants were to appropriately communicate with one another.  Busselle and Bilandzic (2008) explain how schema and mental models of a story contribute to the story construction process.  Arguably, when the posts are inconsistent with the dominant discourse, the posts are labeled, even self-labeled, resistant or cynical. Overall, such storied discourse as recareering, discovering your calling, job transitioning, and connecting to dreams foregrounds the favorable possibilities related to changing careers while backgrounding unfavorable precursors and consequences to changing careers.  While posters are met with hostility when pointing this out, message boards provide a degree of anonymity, in which resistant storytelling may be voiced.  Finally, this study reveals the utility of message boards as a communal, public space in helping storytellers provide support for one another during a difficult time – career change.

Reflecting on the study, further inquiry should investigate how stories differ based upon media richness.  Being able to compare and contrast story construction across media (e.g. face to face versus computer mediated) would deepen an analysis such as this.  Challenges to finding social support networks for comparative data on aging career change are discouraging.  Access to these networks through corporate downsizing may be quite difficult, but such networks may exist in job placement agencies or continuing adult education courses with easier access.  Furthermore, the 65+ demographic statistically uses the Internet less than any other age group.  Pew Internet and American Life Project (2004) report that eight million Americans 65 or older used the Internet in 2004, and while this represents a 7% increase from 2000, it is remains only 22% of 65+ population.  This is a significant limitation to using only computer-mediated communication for this demographic; yet, as this segment of the population increasingly uses the Internet, research should be concerned with how this demographic socially interacts through it.  As aging Americans increase their use of the Internet for such things as social support, research needs to investigate how their understanding and use of technology affects their experiences.

In closing, this analytic essay begins a conversation about how an aging population in the United States is using cyber support to manage the shifting economic and social conditions in which they live. As a beginning, the conclusions of this essay are tentative and fragmented much like the plots of the stories it analyzes.  This is a strategic effort to elude discursive and narrative closure.  Discursive closure (Deetz, 2003) is the suppression of alternative interpretations through practices or discourse, and narrative closure is imposition of coherency on polyphonic, fragmented, non-linear stories (Boje, 2001).  Changing and transitioning jobs later in life is experienced from the unique subject position of the career changer, and the AARP magazine articles and message boards demonstrate how polyphonic career change stories can be.

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