Professional behavior. Please define this in a complete sentence: Acting in a manner that exhibits company ideals and best represents the company. No dictionary gave this definition; I suppose a company handbook would have to be the real place to look for professional behavior. It most likely varies from place to place but consists of a bunch of adjectives that exemplify someone of great character.
I have nothing against professional behavior, in fact, I’m rather fond of it in many cases. The problem is that sometimes professional behavior or professionalism have you, is rather vague in nature. Suddenly, you have customers, employees, and supervisors throwing out this phrase that is not specified. Or maybe, they don’t even throw out the phrase, just expect it of you.
For instance, yesterday, I sent an e-mail to my editor at The Daily saying I was too busy to take on any assignments this semester. The reasons I sent an e-mail are numerous. For starters, my main form of contact with my editors have been through e-mail. I had been given an assignment online. If I recall correctly, scheduling an interview and a job offer were both sent through e-mail. All information ever sent to me about taking photos there were in the form of e-mail. However, within an hour, I was sent an e-mail saying she understood, but my behavior was unprofessional. I should have called at least.
Now, the point of this blog is not really to prove that I was right and she was wrong. My point is merely the irony behind it all. In this particular case, e-mail was the primary form of contact. Why am I suddenly expected to pick up the phone or go into the office? If my behavior was unprofessional, wasn’t hers? In order to tell me I was being unprofessional by e-mailing, she e-mailed me.
Perhaps I was in the wrong. In reality, it wasn’t that big of a deal. I rarely had many assignments last semester so I was hardly a loss to the staff. I have absolutely no hard feelings toward anyone working there, I just didn’t have enough time. It was just so interesting to me how it played out.
Now that there is such an overdependence on technology, people are losing face-to-face contact more and more in their daily lives. This gap in between personal and digital relations is becoming increasingly less by the day. Before we know it, corporations will be announcing that they are laying off hundreds of people through a blog. Oh wait. Maybe by turning down assignments via e-mail I was just keeping up with society. I was being trendy.
Lyrics from The Dangling Conversation by Simon & Garfunkel.
