Identity is in the eye of the beholder . . .

Wenger's discussion on identity talks about how we're all the sum of our parts-- we have many different identities, depending on where we are, who we're with, what we've experienced, etc.   What if there's a big part of your identity that you're not even aware of?  Does it still contribute?  Who gets to decide one's identity? 

My sister works in retail, but she is also a Realtor.  If someone asks her what she does, she says she's a Realtor.  If someone sees her working at the mall, they have assigned her an identity of mall worker, whether she wants it or not.  I may think that I am an accomplished professional and that I produce good work in my job; I may even have the evaluations to prove it.  As a result, I have "accomplished professional" as part of my identity.  However, if I am a jerk to work with, or if my work is substandard and my boss is just conflict-averse and passes me along with "good" evaluations, and everyone at work knows this except me, is "accomplished professional" still part of my identity even if my co-workers would vehemently disagree? 

We talked in another post about ratemyprofessors.com.  There are probably many professors at Penn State who receive decent SRTEs and feel they have earned the identity of a great professor.  Some of that group may not even be aware of ratemprofessors.com.  If they are trashed in that environment, but they aren't aware of it, is "great professor" still part of their identity?  I realize this brings up a bit of a "if a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?" head-hurter, but since this is Wenger we're talking about, it seemed appropriate to bring up.