As disagreement constitutes an important socio-pragmatic ability in the workplace setting, immigrant newcomers in New Zealand may cause offence if they don't adhere to workplace community norms. Since all participants play a role in the instant (re)negotiation of the norms of a Community of Practice, an assumed ‘admission’ by in-group members in the interactions -whereby variances are reinterpreted as accidental mistakes-, signifies that the skilled migrants are confined in their admittance to their new communities.