Oh how I loathe it.
- Image by colorblindPICASO via Flickr
By the Gawds, I really fucking hate this word. I see it used around all my work as a goddamn bludgeon against all things the speaker does not approve of.
Don’t wear the correct kind of clothes? It’s not professional.
Don’t have the correct desktop background? It’s not progessional.
Laugh out too loudly? Desk too cluttered? Not correct combination of colours? Not goddamn professional.
It’s the new ‘Decent’. It is so vague in use that everyone finds it a perfect excuse to judge and get others to change habits they do not approve of. This is marginally tolerable from co-workers who you can either ignore or explain that being efficient has much more to do with being a professional than all the rest of the “peripherals” but lo and behold when a manager mentions it. Then your only option is to shut up and take it.
How can you talk back to your manager? What can you argue? That his subjective understanding of what constitutes professionalism is wrong? Get ready to look for another job (a manager who feels the need to talk about professionalism is unlikely to be the laid-back type who tolerates his employees talking back at him). And you can’t ignore it either as that’s simply undermining his authority.
The way I see it, when anyone (especially your boss) starts demanding ‘Professionalism’, they basically don’t like something about you and can’t reasonably argue why. They simply fall back to vague business speak and back it up with hierarchical authority to enforce it.
And this is what makes it for me such a despicable word. It doesn’t help either that Business-oriented Magazines use their imagery and marketing to present an image of the pristine, sterile business look of suits and ties and fake smiles. Then all the managers try to imitate this and we end up with demands for “professionalism”, which of course feeds directly the pockets of those being advertised in such magazines. Business attire clothing companies and other sources of company sterility.
I wonder if we’ll ever escape the clutches of herd-mentality, status-oriented culture and focus on having fun when working rather than following obsolete nonsense which originated from puritan practices of sex-starved protestants with a mission from Gawd to make everyone as miserable as they were.
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http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig9/oliva3.1.1.html
"…professionalism ranks with socialism, psychology, and twice-baked potatoes as the worst ideas of the twentieth century."
Lew-fucking-Rockwell? Ugh…
I sympathize with you dbzer0, but my experience has been if your manager doesn't like you there is not a whole lot you can do to keep your job. Even if you have the support of your coworkers and have done an exemplary job there is no way to avoid the hierarchy, since that is the essence of business as it is practiced today. (By the way, "sex-starved protestants" would seem to indicate you are living in the US, I thought you were in Europe?)
I am indeed living in Europe. Sex-starved Christians are everywhere 🙂
The brochure promised pagan festivals, nude beaches, and democracy. Lies!
Yeah, on the bright side, we've had more success in driving them away with sticks 😛
when I was in Veterinary School, most of my professors kept on telling me if I don't change my looks to what they prefer (decent) I will not graduate because they were saying if I want to be a doctor (animal doctor) I have to look like a doctor, decent clothes, clean face not a single facial hair and have a nice neat haircut to match the all white uniform not some nutty dreadlocks like I used to have. I use to think they weren't really serious about it just wanna force me to get a haircut. Well at least most of them are but two are dead serious at the end of the year I get a failing grade the other reconsidered if, I get the haircut.. I didn't ..
Just goes to show that some people are just pure fucking assholes.. Telling me to look/act like what he think is decent to his liking.. To hell with that.. The mere fact that he's a professional and he's threatening a student like me that if I don't get a haircut I won't graduate? What's fucking professional about that.. I performed well did all that is required 101's-104's all those stuff related to school. If he wanted to teach people how to dress right why don't he teach at some fashion school shit or sumthin'..
I feel you man..
"I am not anti-social.. I just don't want to go with the majority just to belong"