The Professional
It was my intent to write an article this weekend for your entertainment or edification, but I will confess that I do not have any good ideas at the moment. I made a solemn oath to LiveSpace TwitBookicus, god of self indulgent web-pages, that I would not post anything in this space that seemed to gaze even in the general direction of my navel. I’m trying to be professional with this journal.
Now there’s an interesting topic. Professionalism has become a kind of meme in our culture, I think. For those of you not up to date on your net-speak, a meme is a self-replicating idea that spreads from person to person. In this case, the idea is that a person who is good at his job is “Better” than a person who isn’t. Better not just in his career, but in a social sense and also, often, in a moral sense.
If you’d like to check to see if you’ve been infected with this idea, watch an episode of House. Dr. House is a terrible human being. He is an addict, a manipulative asshole, an insane risk-taker who would be fired from any reasonable hospital, and most especially a self-indulgent child of a man. But he is also the protagonist of his show, because above all else he is good at his job. Every week he gets it right and all the other problems seem to fall by the wayside.
What you are looking for as you watch this show is a sense of moral outrage. Are you indignant that this man, this horrible man, is allowed to keep his job simply because he is exceptionally good at it? Or do you find yourself cheering him on and wishing all the other idiots would kindly step aside or maybe just drop dead (I’m looking at you here, Lucas). If you fall into the latter camp, then woe be unto you, for you have been infected with the Professionalism Meme. Welcome to the club.
This idea of competence-uber-alles has some interesting side effects. For one, it is not enough to be competent- in fact, being competent has nothing to do with it. You must appear competent. You can be panicking like a horse in a glue factory but as long as you talk a good game you will be given a free pass. Witness: every American financial investor ever. Or any of the number of failed CEO’s who are currently moving on to other companies, making bids for senate seats, and so on. None of these people have the faintest idea how to do their jobs, but they appear confident and they continue to take “Bold” (read: crazy) action, so it is generally assumed that they know what they are doing and it’s best to let them get on with it.
On a somewhat smaller scale, professionalism has infected the work-place. The greatest sin you can commit in a modern office is to admit you do not know something. Seriously, next time you’re in a board meeting (or your career equivalent), give this a shot- ask somebody to explain a technical term or lay out the reasoning behind a buzz word. Break the cycle of the presentation and ask for clarification. It’s not against the rules! But check out the looks you receive. You score bonus points if the person you ask also has no idea what the term actually means.
To bring this back around to the main theme of this journal- in the current environment of professionalism, it is extremely hard to get a job unless you have already done that job, or are holding it currently. Of course this begs the question- why would you apply for a position you already hold? But this is the state we find ourselves in. You had better be ready to give the appearance of competence, complete with resume and references, before you meet with recruiters. This can be easier or harder depending on how experienced the recruiters are in your field. Bluffing a HR manager is a lot easier than bluffing a former engineer when you’re going for a technical position, for example.
I am not advocating lying on a resume. What I am telling you is, never admit you don’t know. I don’t believe that you are truly expected to know everything going into a job, but you are supposed to act like you do. The game now afoot in the hiring world is to grab those who really give the illusion of competence. Actually learning the job after the fact has always been significantly easier than that first step (for me, anyway). This brave new world for job hunters does not give us the luxury of appearing inquisitive. Indeed, I think that the truth is that if one were to present one’s self honestly, as a new applicant ready to take on the unknown rather than a veteran looking to do the same old thing he’s done before, one could search for a dozen years and not find work.
I wonder if it would be possible to create some sort of teaching-hospital environment for technical workers. Some place that explicitly hires new people with the understanding that they’ll be getting paid less but they’ll be trained as they go. It could offer cheap consulting services of all sorts, the better to give the employees new experience. You’d have to have a few experts running the show, of course. I think I’d like to be the resident Dr. House. I’ve got the terrible personality bit nailed already! Now I just need to appear professional.
Now there’s an interesting topic. Professionalism has become a kind of meme in our culture, I think. For those of you not up to date on your net-speak, a meme is a self-replicating idea that spreads from person to person. In this case, the idea is that a person who is good at his job is “Better” than a person who isn’t. Better not just in his career, but in a social sense and also, often, in a moral sense.
If you’d like to check to see if you’ve been infected with this idea, watch an episode of House. Dr. House is a terrible human being. He is an addict, a manipulative asshole, an insane risk-taker who would be fired from any reasonable hospital, and most especially a self-indulgent child of a man. But he is also the protagonist of his show, because above all else he is good at his job. Every week he gets it right and all the other problems seem to fall by the wayside.
What you are looking for as you watch this show is a sense of moral outrage. Are you indignant that this man, this horrible man, is allowed to keep his job simply because he is exceptionally good at it? Or do you find yourself cheering him on and wishing all the other idiots would kindly step aside or maybe just drop dead (I’m looking at you here, Lucas). If you fall into the latter camp, then woe be unto you, for you have been infected with the Professionalism Meme. Welcome to the club.
This idea of competence-uber-alles has some interesting side effects. For one, it is not enough to be competent- in fact, being competent has nothing to do with it. You must appear competent. You can be panicking like a horse in a glue factory but as long as you talk a good game you will be given a free pass. Witness: every American financial investor ever. Or any of the number of failed CEO’s who are currently moving on to other companies, making bids for senate seats, and so on. None of these people have the faintest idea how to do their jobs, but they appear confident and they continue to take “Bold” (read: crazy) action, so it is generally assumed that they know what they are doing and it’s best to let them get on with it.
On a somewhat smaller scale, professionalism has infected the work-place. The greatest sin you can commit in a modern office is to admit you do not know something. Seriously, next time you’re in a board meeting (or your career equivalent), give this a shot- ask somebody to explain a technical term or lay out the reasoning behind a buzz word. Break the cycle of the presentation and ask for clarification. It’s not against the rules! But check out the looks you receive. You score bonus points if the person you ask also has no idea what the term actually means.
To bring this back around to the main theme of this journal- in the current environment of professionalism, it is extremely hard to get a job unless you have already done that job, or are holding it currently. Of course this begs the question- why would you apply for a position you already hold? But this is the state we find ourselves in. You had better be ready to give the appearance of competence, complete with resume and references, before you meet with recruiters. This can be easier or harder depending on how experienced the recruiters are in your field. Bluffing a HR manager is a lot easier than bluffing a former engineer when you’re going for a technical position, for example.
I am not advocating lying on a resume. What I am telling you is, never admit you don’t know. I don’t believe that you are truly expected to know everything going into a job, but you are supposed to act like you do. The game now afoot in the hiring world is to grab those who really give the illusion of competence. Actually learning the job after the fact has always been significantly easier than that first step (for me, anyway). This brave new world for job hunters does not give us the luxury of appearing inquisitive. Indeed, I think that the truth is that if one were to present one’s self honestly, as a new applicant ready to take on the unknown rather than a veteran looking to do the same old thing he’s done before, one could search for a dozen years and not find work.
I wonder if it would be possible to create some sort of teaching-hospital environment for technical workers. Some place that explicitly hires new people with the understanding that they’ll be getting paid less but they’ll be trained as they go. It could offer cheap consulting services of all sorts, the better to give the employees new experience. You’d have to have a few experts running the show, of course. I think I’d like to be the resident Dr. House. I’ve got the terrible personality bit nailed already! Now I just need to appear professional.