Maintaining Professionalism
- Rachel Schatz
- Jul 5, 2021
- 2 min read
After an incident that took place over the weekend, it had me thinking about professionalism outside the work place.
The incident took place at a brewery in Langley, where I was enjoying drinks with friends on a patio. A group of girls in a limo pulled up and were being quite snarky and rude as we turned our heads and watched them walk inside. We went back to enjoying our company. Later, when they were getting ready to leave one of them yelled at us to stop staring at them (which we were not doing, these girls were clearly intoxicated) and started giving us the finger. Her friend joined and them both of them were screaming at us. I think their friends were mortified. My friends called them classy, I said nothing, and they left.
This got me thinking about how things could have gone. Let's say that woman ends up next week in Women in Trades class. If I had stooped to her level of rudeness and unprofessionalism, than her joining my class would making me extremely uncomfortable. However, if she were to come Monday and see that I'm her instructor, it will be her that is extremely uncomfortable. Plus, now she has put me in a position, as I have to try to be unbiased after this person had told me to F off while out drinking with her friends, and try to maintain my professionalism regardless of her terrible behaviour.
This is something that I have been working on for my own reasons, as I do want to be seen as a professional, and I do feel that I have to maintain that i my personal life as well. Not to mention that I am a direct reflection of the school, and you just never know who may be in your class the following week. This applies to how I drive my car as well. The last thing I want to do is cut someone off and have them end up in classroom.
As a person trying to grow into my role as an instructor, I do not want to be seen as unprofessional, I want to apply this to all areas of my life. The last thing I want is to lose my job over something that was easily preventable, and I now this is the side of me that I want others to see.
References:
Volate, M. (2019). Te importance of maintaining professionalism outside the office.
Smith, J.R. (2013). Professional cnonductoutside of profession.
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