Perhaps this is least discussed "ism" out there. I see a lot of youngsters these days, especially people who are pursuing their college level education, argue furiously about how we came existance. Some say it's through evolution (Darwinism) and the others say it is through Creationsm. And to add to that we also tend to get at each others throat by arguing which political ideology is ultimately going to prevail and rule all societies, Capitalism,Communism so on and so forth. We just love to talk about politics and religion.But I have failed to see people talk about professionalism. Not even once have I come a across people who wanted to share with me their views on professionalism. And not only people have stopped talking about it. They have also stopped practicing it (And please bear in mind that I'm not talking about all working people, it is what I find to be common these days).
One might argue that professionalism is not an ideology, yes! Exactly my sentiments, but I would want to have a different approach to it, and I will reveal it to you as I lead you into my argument.
I really cannot define professionalism. Or rather tell you what standards should be set as to be considered to be professional. Each organization and individual have their own terms of professional code. We all have our own "work ethics" which we abide by, or so we say. But the question is, do we all follow what we preach? Sadly the answer is no.
I don't think I should list out all the moral standards of professionalism, like I said that would be my code of conduct. It will be extremely different from yours. What I would do instead is point out where professionalism is missing and how it is drastically affecting all of us and the society.
THAT IS NOT MY JOB!
If you had not looked at the picture above, I ask you to take a look at it again, a closer look. If you did you might have a vague idea as to what I'm going to talk about. So let me give you a scenario. Imagine your in a line in an office. You urgently need to get something done, and you have been waiting for days to do this. As you reach the officer, he/she says that there is some error in the document (and it is not your fault) and needs to be rectified. But the officer is least bothered to help you and sends you away. Your frustrated. I can bet my money that every single one of you reading this blog will have gone through this scenario at least once in your life. And If you didn't please email me the name of the country you live and I will migrate to it happily!
And I will tell you, that the above scenario is something that I went through on a daily basis.
Why does this happen?
The answer is simple and horrifying. It is ignorance. "We don't need to deal with that, or that is too much of work" attitude is becoming a contagious disease that had successfully spread among most of the working people. Making easy money is what they care about.
So what if everybody started ignoring?
What we can do, we let the other person do it, because we have a lot of the other things to do.
And that person leaves the job for the next person and so on and so forth, and ultimately the job never gets done.
This has to change. We have already created a lot of mess due to this behavior. Now just merely doing our job would not be of any use. We all have to go a little above and beyond. So that we all straighten up the mess that we made.
And as I mentioned in the beginning, professionalism is not an ideology. But it is high time that it is considered as one. Professinalism cannot be taught in school or university. The behaviour has to accumulated through experience. The world does not need educated people, it needs professional people who love what they do for a living and are ready to go an extra mile if necessary. My intentions in this article is not for me to preach about professionalism, rather to get you thinking if you doing your job!
