Page 72 - Kindness - No Forward

Professionalism Is Not a Kind of Job—It’s an Attitude

In business communication, people can tell quickly if you have a
professional attitude about your job or are just someone working for a
paycheck.

Who do you think customers want to deal with? The professionals? The
ones more concerned with how they do their job than with what they do?
Or the amateurs? The ones more concerned with what they (and everyone
else) are doing than the way in which they do it?

My point here is simple but important; everyone should be treated with
dignity because everyone’s job requires dignity. If a job were not
important, it probably wouldn’t exist.

The people we interact with every day have important jobs. It’s time we
treat them with the dignity they deserve. If only everyone would do this, all
jobs would be performed with dignity, quality, and concern.

Don’t forget that your job is important…do it with pride!

I once had a friend named Andy. Andy was a welder, a darned good one
and proud of it.

Andy had a foreman in Memphis who used to say Andy was the best welder
he had ever seen….that Andy’s work had its own identity.

The foreman moved to Minnesota to head up a construction job. Months
later, a welder wanted to take the required welding test to work on the job.

As soon as the foreman saw the test weld, he cried out, “Hire this man
immediately! The only man I’ve ever seen who could weld like this is a
welder named Andy in Memphis!”

It turned out the test weld WAS Andy, who had come all the way to
Minnesota to apply for a job with the foreman who treated him with dignity
and respect.

How he did the job was important to Andy. And he was willing to go all the
way to Minnesota to work with a foreman who felt the same way.

How we do a job should be what’s important to us, too---much more
important than what job it is we do.