Professionalism

Surprisingly, I will not be talking about NaNoWriMo today. There is another topic I want to address.

Lately, there have been some issues in my place of work. And not minor issues, either; we've had some pretty serious breaches of protocol. It has been weighing on my mind heavily for the past couple weeks. What this all really has me thinking about is this:

What has happened to professionalism?

Most likely, my experience is an anomaly. Obviously, I don't know what it is like in other companies. I couldn't possibly generalize and say that this is a wide-spread problem throughout the national workforce, not with a conscious and an obligation to accuracy. However. Anecdotal evidence from my peers leads me to believe that this is a growing trend, at least amongst my age group. Maybe not even a growing trend; perhaps this has been plaguing my generation for a while and I'm only just now noticing it. Either way, it is very disconcerting. I am seriously concerned about the future of our businesses, especially how they relate to the global market.

The biggest problem I've seen is an inability to separate personal relationships from professional relationships; personal life from professional life. Now, I know that the ol' "leave your emotions at the door" mantra isn't realistic. I can say from personal experience that it is unreasonable to expect any employee to be able to turn off their feelings until their shift is over. It's a nice idea, but completely unrealistic.

That's not to say that is is impossible to compartmentalize to some degree. A criticism of work performance is not a personal attack. Informing an employee that they need to change the way they do their assigned duties or improve their work performance in some way is NOT the same as saying "You suck, you are stupid, you are a bad person, nobody likes you." For WHATEVER reason, some people seem to get these confused. Which is RIDICULOUS. Pitching a fit and causing an uproar about something like that is unprofessional and, honestly, it's pathetic. It goes back tot he selfishness of childhood. Throwing a tantrum over legitimate criticism from a superior is a quick way to tell your employer that you don't really want your job.

At least, it should be. Sadly, it seems to me (and yes, I realize that putting this online and attaching my name to it could jeopardize my own professional standing), that in the company I work for there is a tendency to cater to the tantrum-thrower rather than back up the policy-enforcer they are throwing the tantrum over.

I have witnessed blatant disrespect for management, disregard for company policy, and (worst of all) the highest levels of authority turning a blind eye to it rather than instating disciplinary actions. The form of discipline preferred by upper-management is passive-aggressive pressuring and needling in order to try to get the errant employee to quit. I am dumbfounded by the absolute black hole of professionalism here. And I am not afraid to say this out loud, since I know that even if one of my superiors saw this and actually said something about it to me, at worst it would be a slap on the wrist. What I'm doing here isn't very professional either. In fact, I would say it borders on disrespect for the company and for the people who run it. I would LOVE it if they made an example of me. At least then they would be proving me wrong.

I am not just ranting into the nether here. This is a subject I have brought up to my coworkers and to upper-management. The response? Avoidance. I have been brushed off more times than I can count. In the business world there IS going to be confrontation. That is inevitable. A business cannot be run by people who are utterly avoidant of confrontation. It is something that needs to be dealt with, swift and decisively.

Yet, this really accomplishes nothing. My writing, that is. Because things will continue on they way they are no matter what I say here and they will continue on after I have moved on in my career. I know I have painted an unflattering picture here. The people I work for are good people, and regardless of how deteriorated the employee/employer interactions may be, we do a good job and serve our clients above and beyond what would be expected. Fortunately, the internal problems we have do not impact the quality of our care to a large degree.

It does impact my opinion of the company and the people I work with, though. And I have to say, right now I am not very impressed. All I can do is keep doing my job well and try to lead by setting a good example. Who knows? Maybe if I keep acting in a courteous, mature, and thoughtful manner befitting of my job title, perhaps others will follow suit. Either way, five years from now I know that I will have moved on to my chosen career of accounting and it will be an issue for someone else to deal with.

Let's just try to keep things professional here.