I'm actually in agreement more than I seem.* I make a defense
for both sides of the maturity debate because, well, within me I
have both sides. I've never lost some of the immature side; but
I keep it contained to proper settings. But when I've had a
suit-and-tie profession, or worked in customer service, or
academics, I'm entirely professional.* I expect full disclosure
,honesty, and get annoyed when people are being immature in a
meeting when we're trying to accomplish something. A good
brainstorming session, for example ,will be the honest,
non-judgemental exchange of ideas. The ideas come quickly but in
an ordered manner - somebody is in control of the proceedings,
and everybody gets an equal voice. Professionalism in the
workplace provides for equality: It removes issues of gender,
age, race, because it is what professionalism is all about:
There is a mission and a job and everybody has their role to
play.* If everybody does their part in a calm, rational fashion,
then goals can be achieved. The maturity study was a joke in any
case.* It was done by a children's TV network, the groups
surveyed were limited, although I've seen some scientific
studies published and conclusions drawn that were of about the
same caliber... which is why scrutinize carefully when reports
involving statistics are made. My main job when working within
Pharmaceuticals involved bringing together lots of data
together, calculating, graphing, distributing... and these
affected salespeople in the field up to the CEO of the company,
as my reports were used to generate other reports from other
departments, which were used to produce reports from other
departments, and the salesforce used this data as their Bible as
it were to gauge what they had to do to make effective sales of
the product. I become quite serious when it comes to data.* On
several occasions, I was asked to make little "tweaks" to change
a result a small amount, because my boss's boss needed results
that looked better than they were, for HIS OWN boss to see.* [it
was an unrelated thing I did, but it was still
tabulating/reporting.* I'm a Microsoft Excel user to the
extreme; I love the rows and columns and all you can do with
them] I couldn't do it.* I wouldn't.* That's the kind of
immaturity in the workforce that I couldn't stand.
Professionalism is the society of character yet there is also a
soul of character that's individual in nature.* It doesn't make
one better than the other; I think they're both required for an
effective society to function.
