Professionalism: What is it good for?

You’re told it’s important. In our classes, we even get graded on it. And when I got the TA mentor position, I was told professionalism is one of the most important things the journalism faculty wants me to help TAs work on.

But what is professionalism, anyway?

I’ve never liked the term for a few reasons. It’s one of those concepts like “networking” and “personal branding” that gets thrown around a lot but isn’t very well defined. “She’s unprofessional” seems too much like a way to say “I don’t like her” without being, well, unprofessional.

Also, I can’t ignore the class bias alarm bell implanted in my brain during my undergraduate years spent learning Marxist political theory. When people say “be professional," they often really mean “be more like people in the professions” – i.e. doctors, lawyers, accountants, and engineers. The key to getting people to take you seriously, it seems, is to act and dress like someone who would hold one of these jobs – someone in the upper middle class.

But even though there are things about the term that rub me the wrong way, there are other things about it that are important, useful and good.

I came across this question posted on an online forum by a 22-year-old trying to break into freelance writing. Basically, she was confused about how to combine advice about everything from business cards to age to clothing to achieve the elusive goal of “being professional.” And she got some really good advice back. Advice including:

- Meet deadlines religiously
- Don’t pretend you know how to do something if you don’t. Ask for help.
- Take responsibility for your mistakes
- Don’t complain about other people
- Cover your butt. Save emails that you can use to defend your actions if they’re called into question.

What all this really boils down to is empathy. If you can empathize with your boss and coworkers, you’ll do your job in a way that makes their lives easier, not harder. If you’re thinking about people other than yourself, you’ll realize how much it stresses people out to show up late and miss deadlines, and how much it helps when you’re punctual. Obviously, this applies to just about everything in life – from handing back assignments to students on time to that golden, mythical day when you’ll actually be employed full time.

All that stuff about appropriate work wear and firm handshakes is a distraction. Thinking about other people is the most important thing.