Professionalism??!! Huh

After long thinking, my own censor board (conscience) gives the 'go ahead' to post this article in web which i wrote long back.

Disclaimer: Heavy Sarcasm might exist.

I am forced to write an article on this subject after someone high in the organizational ladder in our organisation had commented that we (our team) lack professionalism. It was not a direct statement but rather sarcastic, when appreciating one of the dancers from our team. “Atleast our team has one professional”

On one incident, one of the senior executives of the parent division had invited a selected few to peek into his park. When commenting about our division, the host had said that ‘They are a small group of people sitting aroung the corner doing nothing’. “NOTHING??!!” The statement should be correct because the speaker was one among the top executives of the organisation. I presume such people would have data backups and would not make such irresponsible statements. Announcing this in an august presence of 50 odd executives with some of the victims’ team members’ presence too added flavour to a terrific performance on the stage! The speaker should have definitely known his audience!
Just after hearing that, we should have have taken moral responsibility of having done “Nothing” and tendered our resignation. Yes, we were not professionals.

One another day, we were stunned to find out that our dock was closed for the parent divisions’ expansion project. This had jeoparadised our whole transactional activity. No inbound material. No outbound material. And interestingly, not even information, leave alone permission. We all knew that we were beggers inside a parent company which is 200 times bigger in head count. But to know of ourselves that our business was in jeoparady was not a humiliation to us but just an ‘oversight’ of the expansion project.
We did not raise our voice but just begged for a corrective action because we very well knew ‘beggers are not choosers’. Yes. We were begging for our rights and we were not professionals.

Our division was deemed to have a separate office. Inspite of all the delays, we got our own allocated space up and running in a just a little over a couple of months later than promised. And it took the Workplace resources team to give us a working fax connection in just 12 months after we started operations… Oh! Did I forget to say that the WR is a totally committed team which sets an example of what professionalism is. 12 month delay had never been their standard of work, but what to do they did not have their resources in place first.
Our team did not even follow up with the concerned authorities. What we had to do was to walk around half a mile to send fax messages and to receive incoming fax. Incoming faxes? I must be kidding. Those would have already been consumed by the shredder, a result of a professional ‘document security policy’. Yes. We were not professionals.


Ever imagine a business division without a HR. Oh, you are mistaken. It is not absolutely necessary to have a HR person for a meager 20 people who anyway do “Nothing”. It saves lots of costs. So, we were declared as orphans and were attached to a foster HR team which belongs to the parent organisation. Now, don’t you know what step motherly treatment is? Sometimes, and only sometimes it happens to a professionally managed HR team to not know even names of the team members.
Our team did not demand a full time HR and forefeited all the so called ‘employee welfare schemes’. Yes. We were not professionals.

Does anyone know the exact meaning of what professionalism is? I am terribly confused of this management jargon which can be used by anyone against anyone. Only pre requisite to say someone else is not professional is to make sure he is below you in the organizational ladder. Huh…