| >There are arbitrary, unambiguous, agreed upon standards of politeness. You don't curse people out. You don't sexually harass women (or men, for that matter). You don't show up for work late every day, smelling like a brewery. ... >This isn't a gray area. Argument from extremes. Whenever the topic of "Well, what do they mean by professionalism?" you'll invariably get a response stating something really obvious, and pointing out people who violated those obvious norms. Since I didn't, and don't expect to, violate them, this kind of comment is almost useless. Why? Because in no place where I've worked is the use of the word "professionalism" limited to those domains. You will get people who do everything you said still be called unprofessional. Which is why the question becomes "Well, what does professional mean?" and invariably someone will give your response and we get nowhere. I worked for a tutoring agency once. Our boss was trying to tell us that we should be careful not to make the student feel like a moron because they couldn't solve a problem we tutors found easy. What does that mean? He demonstrated it to us by saying "Well, when someone asks you an easy question, don't say 'Wow! You really can't do such a simple question?!'" That demonstration was really helpful. We all went back and occasionally said to a student "Sure I can help you solve this trivial problem". (No, of course we didn't. The point was to someone who wasn't aware, this approach would be totally appropriate for a tutor to do because he's not making explicit fun of the student). People who leave with 2 week's notice have been called unprofessional. People who don't reply to pointless emails have been called unprofessional. Just open up an "Ask HN" thread and ask people what crazy things have been called "unprofessional" in their work place. Sorry, but I have to agree with the others. Saying "Be professional" is as useless as "Be cool" or "Be good". If a company doesn't have proper guidelines and training on what they expect their employees to do, then that company doesn't value professionalism. Not providing guidance and then pointing fingers is pretty low. |