Abstract Have you ever sat in front of your PC desperately searching for the right words and articulations while communicating with an important person? Have you ever wondered how employees and office workers feel when they write a letter to a single customer? We have learned to write; we have learned to read- why is it sometimes so difficult to write the next lines? What makes it easy, what makes it complicated? Where are (and what are?) obstacles on the way between the first idea and the text sent? Reinke, the author of the “Schreibende Subjekt”, asked these questions and gathered answers by ethnographic field research. He visited 9 salespeople in 8 different companies and escorted them to write individual letters and mails to their customers. Participants in his research explained why they write what they write, providing deep personal insights into today's business and corporate cultures, as well as personal behaviour and beliefs. The data was collected in participant observations, ethnographic interviews, video and spatial analyses. The author discovers the "writing individual" as the core element of his theory.