Why Professionalism Rules In The Workplace Are Ableist
The concept of professionalism is fluid and ever-changing — gimmicky t-shirts are replacing suits, and I once knew someone who worked at a start-up where they rollerbladed around the office. There is clearly a movement to present an outwardly more relaxed, even alternative, mindset to modern-day professionalism.
Dominic Cummings, Boris Johnson’s former senior aid, called out for “misfits and weirdos” during a governmental employment drive over a year ago. It culminated in hiring an advisor who had openly expressed racist and eugenicist views, and after a public outcry, resigned soon after starting his post. I think this is an excellent example of why we have not progressed as much as we’d like to believe, despite the relaxation of professionalism’s ‘unwritten’ rules.
The sociologist Julia Evetts outlines two principal strands of critical analysis about professionalism in modern history. First, the early British and American understanding optimistically characterised it as: “collegial, cooperative, and mutually supportive”.
A later, more cynical interpretation was that it “intended to promote professionals’ own occupational self-interest with respect to salary, status, and power”, as well as “monopoly” over one’s own area of work.
Of course, the concept of professionalism is subjective; it varies depending on culture, background, the type of work and your personal views, whether you value ‘professionalism’ at all.
I have always struggled with ‘unwritten rules’.
I have gone through life feeling as if I never got the memo. When I first started working in bars and restaurants, it was a minefield. Once you throw chronic illness into the mix, it further complicates matters. I suffer from a rare blood disease called Hereditary Spherocytosis, which comes with an eclectic array of chronic complaints.
The first time I fainted at work, my manager wasn’t very sympathetic. She said she suffered from fainting spells and always knew when it would happen in advance so that she could call in sick. It wasn’t bad advice — as I’ve got older, I’ve become more conscious of my body and what it needs.
I did wonder whether her frequent visits to the toilet to snort cocaine helped much with her fainting problem. Later, when I took her advice, calling in sick on a day I felt particularly ropey, I was criticised for my lack of professionalism.
Over the years, I tried different tactics, pre-warning management that I felt ill before I collapsed, but it so often led to raised eyebrows and intimations of lying that I sometimes let nature take its course.
What professionalism meant to me
As I advanced in my career, I hoped for a workplace with ideals such as the ones Evetts described — a professionalism that was “cooperative” and “mutually supportive”. I later worked as a theatre director and performer, also as a drama workshop assistant and educational mentor for young people and adults with learning disabilities. Unfortunately, this type of work is notoriously precarious.
I had to be self-employed to be hired for these jobs, and as a result, was forced to take unpaid sick leave, sometimes simply having to leave a job because there was no allowance for recuperation or rest. When I finally obtained a job with sick pay, it became increasingly clear that the more time I took off (even with sick notes from the doctor), the more I was viewed as unwilling to cooperate or ‘unprofessional’ because I couldn’t ‘keep going’.
Time had not made the unwritten rules any clearer for me. I had always assumed honesty was the best policy. Still, I’ll never forget the time when I was advised — by a person working in senior management for a liberal organisation — not to tell my manager that my illness was chronic because, in the unwritten rules of managing, I would be flagged as a problem.
It seemed to me that ‘professionalism’ was akin to always being available, and if you stipulated boundaries or your communication style and ability didn’t fit the expected mould, you were known as a troublemaker.
These behaviours are undoubtedly ableist — exclusionary to people with disabilities and chronic illnesses who need rest time, have specific requirements, or struggle with neurotypical ways of communicating. In the UK, disabled people are 50% more likely to be unemployed, despite the Equality Act of 2010.
Am I unprofessional?
If professionalism is characterised by disregarding your own needs or working within a system unwilling to adapt to the needs of others, then I am unprofessional. I don’t believe that the managers I worked for were unempathetic. I think that the unwritten rules don’t encourage empathy, nuance, or understanding, which only encourages ableism.
Last year, I took the step of becoming properly self-employed — starting my own business, Know Copywriting. Although I have made the decision to work alone, going at my own rhythm gives me more enthusiasm to collaborate with others. I can establish working relationships based on mutual respect, acknowledgement of boundaries and, in doing so, destroy the unwritten rules of professionalism in my own career.