6 ms·

> In tech people get away with wildly unprofessional behavior as long as "they get stuff done", and personally I never felt that was acceptable. As a decent so

> In tech people get away with wildly unprofessional behavior as long as "they get stuff done", and personally I never felt that was acceptable. As a decent software developer, if my less talented co-workers, or, god forbid, some HR-type, started telling me constantly about how I needed to be more "professional", I would hand in my resignation the next day and go somewhere that didn't absolutely suck to work.

4c2383f5c88e911 9y ago
If I understand your reply correctly, you mean to say that it's acceptable to be a total douchebag as long as you are "talented"?
- ptaipale 9y ago
  I think you don't understand it correctly, and I wonder how you can interpret it that way. I read the point that being "professional" is also about being able to do good programming work and take responsibility for what you do technically - not just appearing at the office at the right time, being courteous to other people and accepting HR buzzwords and policies and opinions without question.
  - CJefferson 9y ago
    I think "wildly unprofessional behavior" is things like sexually harassing other workers in your company, insulting people, that kind of thing. The problem here is I think people have different definitions of "wildly unprofessional behavior".
    - criddell 9y ago
      Figuring out what behavior is appropriate, understanding the corporate culture, and finding the best opportunities for you to help set and advance the agenda are all big parts of being a professional. They are skills you have to develop though and young people will make mistakes as they figure out what the boundaries are. If you are fortunate enough to have a mentor in the business, you have a huge advantage.
  - Joeri 9y ago
    My definition of professionalism is about treating your coworkers and customers with respect and empathy, and doing the work with dedication and craftsmanship. Appearing at the office at the right time is unnecessary just for appearance's sake, but can be a factor in respecting and empathizing with coworkers, for example to be available for questions. It is usually not that important in the grand scheme of things.
    - Chris2048 9y ago
      > treating your coworkers and customers with respect and empathy This can be as subjective as the word professionalism. People always use their own value judgement in these things - whether it's deciding if something is professional, or not, or if something is respectful, or not. Sometimes, you do have to just follow rules, for the sake of it, because there is no standard in personal value.
      - b4ux1t3 9y ago
        I don't think anyone would disagree that being respectful is a "professional" quality. "The staff was very professional." What imagery does that illicit? If you're like me, or just about anyone else I've ever heard use the term, polite is one of the first words that springs to mind. It doesn't matter if you get your work done. There are a hundred other people who can get your work done and do it without being a dick. Note: I'm not calling _you_ a dick. I just vehemently disagree with anyone who thinks they get to be a dick (or, more generally, act however they please) just because, to borrow terminology from earlier comments, they're "talented".
        Chris2048 9y ago
        Again, we just shift to the meaning of "being a dick", another subjective term. If you want to pin down a concept, you can't just deal with easily categorised instances - the real distinctions exist in the grey areas. There's a multi-dimensional gradient between polite and impolite, and where the thresholds lie is determined by personal value. Pick points far enough to either side, and most of those thresholds will fall within - but it is in the "grey area" that they disagree. That is why an arbitrary, but unambiguous threshold is needed as a standard.
- Spivak 9y ago
  Ignore the air quotes and you've got a clear picture of reality. The more people need you the more you're able to leverage that need for financial or social capital. For better or worse at the forefront of your field and at the top of the social ladder the rules are different.
- maehwasu 9y ago
  Yes, it's acceptable almost by definition. If people don't accept it, it means I'm not talented enough, and I need to find a new place to work. Or be more "professional", but that's boring af.
- notyourday 9y ago
  > If I understand your reply correctly, you mean to say that it's acceptable to be a total douchebag as long as you are "talented"? It's a sliding scale. The better one's results are the bigger douche one can be and get away with it. And that's a very good thing because it ensures that most people who know that they are not that fantastic at producing great results go out of their way to avoid being total douche bags.
matthewmacleod 9y ago
And if that happened in any organisation I had responsibility for, I'd be happy to see you go. You really think it's acceptable or even laudable to harass coworkers?
Powerofmene 9y ago
If you are told you need to be more professional, or in other words that your less than professional behavior (if it rises to harassment or discrimination) has resulted in a complaint or worse a lawsuit against the company, you may not have the opportunity to hand in your resignation.
yorwba 9y ago
What about your current behavior makes you think people will feel the need to constantly tell you to be more professional? I'm assuming you don't intend to defend mistreating coworkers, so you must think that there is unprofessional behavior that is nonetheless acceptable in the workplace.
- sqldba 9y ago
  For me probably: Because I avoid meetings that exist solely to stroke manager egos. If it's not related to what I'm doing I don't go no matter how mandatory it is. Because I avoid war rooms (getting people from every team into a room for days on end to troubleshoot some issue; but where it's not your problem and everyone just does normal work because it's not their problem either - again it's another management ego stroking thing). Because I don't attend team building sessions especially if they involve sports or touching other people or being touched. Because I refuse to travel. I generally don't travel for myself, so I don't travel for the company - spending days and weeks in a foreign place with nothing to do away from my family and in an unfamiliar bed teeming with potential nasties. No thanks. Had bed bugs once and it led to me losing everything and becoming homeless for a while. Never again. Lots of people will think one or more of those are "unprofessional" and that your company owns you. I have bills to pay too but I want to live what little crappy life I have on my own terms and do my job - not the ancillary bullcrap.
  - pjc50 9y ago
    > Had bed bugs once and it led to me losing everything and becoming homeless for a while. Never again. This sounds like an extraordinary tragedy, and one that really ought to have been considered a workplace accident, in the same category as people who lose fingers to power tools. I'm sorry this happened to you. > team building sessions especially if they involve sports or touching other people or being touched. The dark side of team building sessions; they can be both disturbing and extremely exclusionary if they're lead by well-meaning but clueless people.
  - Bartweiss 9y ago
    > Because I don't attend team building sessions especially if they involve sports or touching other people or being touched. I had never put together quite how awful your average "team building seminar" could be for someone with autism or other physical-touch issues. I've never been in a position to call one, so I've always just left it at "those are annoying". But on reflection, "a room full of people openly pressuring you to let people touch you without warning" sounds like hell on earth for several people I know. And yet it's quite common to make them mandatory and expect everyone to act like they had fun...
pjc50 9y ago
> somewhere that didn't absolutely suck to work People telling you that you're unprofessional can mean that you're the one making work suck for them.
- humanrebar 9y ago
  To be fair, it can mean a lot of things. People use "unprofessional" to mean "I don't like that". It used to be unprofessional to wear jeans to work.
  - jameskegel 9y ago
    This is very true. Workplace regulations make it very hard to just get people to own up to their true emotions, so there's this HR dance that happens much like you described
  - sokoloff 9y ago
    I wear jeans to work on days when I have an important presentation to give and want to "dress up a bit".
mcguire 9y ago
"...if my less talented co-workers..." What about if it's your more talented co-workers?

4c2383f5c88e911 9y ago

If I understand your reply correctly, you mean to say that it's acceptable to be a total douchebag as long as you are "talented"?

ptaipale 9y ago
I think you don't understand it correctly, and I wonder how you can interpret it that way. I read the point that being "professional" is also about being able to do good programming work and take responsibility for what you do technically - not just appearing at the office at the right time, being courteous to other people and accepting HR buzzwords and policies and opinions without question.
- CJefferson 9y ago
  I think "wildly unprofessional behavior" is things like sexually harassing other workers in your company, insulting people, that kind of thing. The problem here is I think people have different definitions of "wildly unprofessional behavior".
  - criddell 9y ago
    Figuring out what behavior is appropriate, understanding the corporate culture, and finding the best opportunities for you to help set and advance the agenda are all big parts of being a professional. They are skills you have to develop though and young people will make mistakes as they figure out what the boundaries are. If you are fortunate enough to have a mentor in the business, you have a huge advantage.
- Joeri 9y ago
  My definition of professionalism is about treating your coworkers and customers with respect and empathy, and doing the work with dedication and craftsmanship. Appearing at the office at the right time is unnecessary just for appearance's sake, but can be a factor in respecting and empathizing with coworkers, for example to be available for questions. It is usually not that important in the grand scheme of things.
  - Chris2048 9y ago
    > treating your coworkers and customers with respect and empathy This can be as subjective as the word professionalism. People always use their own value judgement in these things - whether it's deciding if something is professional, or not, or if something is respectful, or not. Sometimes, you do have to just follow rules, for the sake of it, because there is no standard in personal value.
    - b4ux1t3 9y ago
      I don't think anyone would disagree that being respectful is a "professional" quality. "The staff was very professional." What imagery does that illicit? If you're like me, or just about anyone else I've ever heard use the term, polite is one of the first words that springs to mind. It doesn't matter if you get your work done. There are a hundred other people who can get your work done and do it without being a dick. Note: I'm not calling _you_ a dick. I just vehemently disagree with anyone who thinks they get to be a dick (or, more generally, act however they please) just because, to borrow terminology from earlier comments, they're "talented".
      - Chris2048 9y ago
        Again, we just shift to the meaning of "being a dick", another subjective term. If you want to pin down a concept, you can't just deal with easily categorised instances - the real distinctions exist in the grey areas. There's a multi-dimensional gradient between polite and impolite, and where the thresholds lie is determined by personal value. Pick points far enough to either side, and most of those thresholds will fall within - but it is in the "grey area" that they disagree. That is why an arbitrary, but unambiguous threshold is needed as a standard.
Spivak 9y ago
Ignore the air quotes and you've got a clear picture of reality. The more people need you the more you're able to leverage that need for financial or social capital. For better or worse at the forefront of your field and at the top of the social ladder the rules are different.
maehwasu 9y ago
Yes, it's acceptable almost by definition. If people don't accept it, it means I'm not talented enough, and I need to find a new place to work. Or be more "professional", but that's boring af.
notyourday 9y ago
> If I understand your reply correctly, you mean to say that it's acceptable to be a total douchebag as long as you are "talented"? It's a sliding scale. The better one's results are the bigger douche one can be and get away with it. And that's a very good thing because it ensures that most people who know that they are not that fantastic at producing great results go out of their way to avoid being total douche bags.

matthewmacleod 9y ago

And if that happened in any organisation I had responsibility for, I'd be happy to see you go. You really think it's acceptable or even laudable to harass coworkers?

Powerofmene 9y ago

If you are told you need to be more professional, or in other words that your less than professional behavior (if it rises to harassment or discrimination) has resulted in a complaint or worse a lawsuit against the company, you may not have the opportunity to hand in your resignation.

yorwba 9y ago

What about your current behavior makes you think people will feel the need to constantly tell you to be more professional? I'm assuming you don't intend to defend mistreating coworkers, so you must think that there is unprofessional behavior that is nonetheless acceptable in the workplace.

sqldba 9y ago
For me probably: Because I avoid meetings that exist solely to stroke manager egos. If it's not related to what I'm doing I don't go no matter how mandatory it is. Because I avoid war rooms (getting people from every team into a room for days on end to troubleshoot some issue; but where it's not your problem and everyone just does normal work because it's not their problem either - again it's another management ego stroking thing). Because I don't attend team building sessions especially if they involve sports or touching other people or being touched. Because I refuse to travel. I generally don't travel for myself, so I don't travel for the company - spending days and weeks in a foreign place with nothing to do away from my family and in an unfamiliar bed teeming with potential nasties. No thanks. Had bed bugs once and it led to me losing everything and becoming homeless for a while. Never again. Lots of people will think one or more of those are "unprofessional" and that your company owns you. I have bills to pay too but I want to live what little crappy life I have on my own terms and do my job - not the ancillary bullcrap.
- pjc50 9y ago
  > Had bed bugs once and it led to me losing everything and becoming homeless for a while. Never again. This sounds like an extraordinary tragedy, and one that really ought to have been considered a workplace accident, in the same category as people who lose fingers to power tools. I'm sorry this happened to you. > team building sessions especially if they involve sports or touching other people or being touched. The dark side of team building sessions; they can be both disturbing and extremely exclusionary if they're lead by well-meaning but clueless people.
- Bartweiss 9y ago
  > Because I don't attend team building sessions especially if they involve sports or touching other people or being touched. I had never put together quite how awful your average "team building seminar" could be for someone with autism or other physical-touch issues. I've never been in a position to call one, so I've always just left it at "those are annoying". But on reflection, "a room full of people openly pressuring you to let people touch you without warning" sounds like hell on earth for several people I know. And yet it's quite common to make them mandatory and expect everyone to act like they had fun...

pjc50 9y ago

> somewhere that didn't absolutely suck to work People telling you that you're unprofessional can mean that you're the one making work suck for them.

humanrebar 9y ago
To be fair, it can mean a lot of things. People use "unprofessional" to mean "I don't like that". It used to be unprofessional to wear jeans to work.
- jameskegel 9y ago
  This is very true. Workplace regulations make it very hard to just get people to own up to their true emotions, so there's this HR dance that happens much like you described
- sokoloff 9y ago
  I wear jeans to work on days when I have an important presentation to give and want to "dress up a bit".

mcguire 9y ago

"...if my less talented co-workers..." What about if it's your more talented co-workers?