This paper investigates how an EFL teacher negotiates her identity to adapt to the "new work order" in an English education department at a university in China. From a narrative inquiry perspective, it aims to illuminate the complexity of teacher identity in the context of a reform where teachers must reconcile conflicting selves in order to contend with a workplace in which liberal and traditional pedagogies coexist. The findings show that teachers need to shift their identities to survive change. Exclusion from the workplace community of practice can be seen as an alternative form of participation in the reform practices.