Occupational Identity in Administrative Service Work: The Aspect of Carefulness

This article explores ‘carefulness’ as a salient aspect of occupational identity in two administrative service occupations. Drawing on empirical data obtained through interviews with medical secretaries and post‐office cashiers, and on a theoretical perspective sensitive to different bases of identification and classification, the meanings and ambiguities of carefulness are discussed in a wider context of gender, modernity and office work. The empirical material indicates that the theme of carefulness is closely connected to issues of competence and power. It is the author's argument that a closer focus on competence‐related themes and concepts central to working individuals themselves, combined with an occupational identity approach that takes modernity as well as gender into consideration, will contribute to a better understanding of the contested realities of administrative service work.