I remember back in the late 90s taking a college-level writing class — and being bored out of my skull. Why the hell does “professional” style writing have to be so dry and dull? Would you rather read something that is conversational and relate-able, or something that is written the “right” way and makes you want to cut your wrists and bleed on the paper to make it interesting? I can’t believe instructors can stand to read that shit day in and day out.
Who the hell decided what is “professional”? Who decided that everyone in the working world has to conduct themselves in only that one professional way? You must write your resume like this, you must conduct your job interview like this, you must do this on your first day, you must act like this in front of your employers/associates/clients. You must, above all, never be yourself. Don’t talk like you normally would, don’t conduct yourself the way you feel comfortable, and surely don’t ever have an opinion unless you water it down so as not to step on anyone’s toes. Before you say anything, run it through your political correctness and buzzword jargon filter. Don’t ever say what you really mean to say. It’s like you’re performing a play every day. Here are your lines, this is your role, stay in character.
I certainly don’t think anyone should act and talk like a complete moron. I just hate that everything you do relating to a career has to be done only one way. This is especially bullshit when in a creative field. How is anyone supposed to create art when they’re supposed to be in this one box of behavior and thinking on the job?
An aside – designers, don’t you fucking hate it when someone tells you to “think outside the box”? They never really want you to think outside the box and do something amazing, they want you to think outside the box of good taste by doing it a completely shitty/stupid/outdated way. As soon as a client or employer says “think outside the box”, fucking dump their asses quick as a jackrabbit. Game over. Otherwise, resign yourself to doing something awful and omitting your name from it.
Back to my point, why can’t we speak and act like humans? Why do we have to pad everything with meaningless bullshit? I don’t want to be an automaton, and I have a feeling no one else does either. So why do we all still try to be this way with our careers? It makes no sense! Let’s say “fuck that” to the conventional professionalism bullshit!
You’re completely right. Sometimes professionalism can be incredibly frustrating. My previous job was a helpdesk for a big Australian ISP and there were so many rules that by the end of the day I was exhausted even though I’d be sitting on a chair the whole day. I’m glad I no longer have to ‘speak with a smile’ anymore.
Although, my current job was a bit of culture shock. Everyone was very straight and normal and you could tell they never spoke a word that they meant… it seems to be the female way of working. Be dull to peoples face and a gossip queen behind their backs.
Luckily, I chipped away at their demeanours and now they’re as bitching and UN-PC as me
Dude, you should post more often…
I totally feel you on this. People love to tell other people what they want to hear so that they will in turn be liked. Then someone like me comes along and says what they’re actually feeling cause, I AM REAL, and people just stare at you like, I can’t believe she just said that. I hope they’re thinking, damn she has balls the size of Montana cause yeah, who really cares about being liked by people who can’t even be organic? Or have an independent thought not approved by the new world order.
Fuck. That.
The world is filled with sheep.
Thank GOD I ain’t one of ‘em.
And the business world loves things uniform or they just, can’t, function. But creatives need to get a grip cause, hellooooer. You’re creative.
I religiously read clientsfromhell[dot]net, and just “love” (ok I’m a masochist) getting angry on their behalf.
Re:writing class, I remember how much I hated my native literature classes. They all had “NOW we examine this novel in this exact same way”. Ironically enough, even though I did it in a certain way, I was always very very BAD at it. In contrast to that, our English class’ teacher put way more emphasis on letting US tell people what we think. I LOVED the sessions when the teacher asked us what we thought about some text. Even when we said something completely ludicrous, the teacher would never outright cut us off and say “NO, that is not what the educational ministry wants you to say”.
Oh and college English was taught by a complete idiot. *rolls eyes* I learned more in 5th grade (freshman year junior high) than 2 years of college English class. YUCK!
It even happens in high school. You can’t be too sarcastic or witty because it’s not ‘professional’. No wonder why my classmates don’t like to read/write – they have to write like a 35 year old office drone. Gah, it makes me angry.
Ohhh man. That is EXACTLY what I am thinking when I am reading my college textbook
If people would just write textbooks and teach classes while being more conversational and easily understood, learning would not only be more fun but it would also be EASIER to learn! I mean, the point of school is so that you can learn information right? But if something is too hard or boring, we don’t necessarily get the full benefit.
Of course, that’s my thinking in a perfect world. I do realize that the reason why we gotta drag our feet through boring and difficult stuff is because we’re supposed to challenge our brains and grow more intellectual and all that… haha