The problem with professionalism: rejecting sameness at work

I was the first person in my family to have a professional job. So at 22, fresh out of university, with two kids in tow, I was terrified of starting my first job.

What was I supposed to wear? How was I supposed to act? What was off limits?

It was a minefield, and it took me a good few years to walk into an office without feeling like a bogan intruder who was about to be busted and sent home.

My experience makes sense. I didn't know what it was like to work a desk job, because I'd never seen anyone do it. I was firmly working-class by origin, and my upbringing lacked the subtle lessons that a middle-class kid might have received by osmosis. 

I didn't have access to the language or networks of the people who I worked with, and my experience in higher education had been isolating. Layer on my status as a foster kid and teen parent, and there's no wonder I had no concept of what professionalism looked like outside of TV shows I'd watched.

Over time, I learned to fit in and compartmentalise. I became bilingual and, like many others who don't fit the mould, I got used to code switching between business meetings, client workshops and my social and personal life. It was all "strategic interventions" at work and "getting shit done" at home.

Once I left the workplace to start my own business, I started to find my groove and claim my social origin story and personality. The things about my personal life I'd been so eager to minimise when I was employed suddenly became markers of connection with my clients and a point of difference in the stale marketplace of consulting. Deals were brokered over boozy dinners, deep friendships were formed and I started to let my cut-through style shine in client work, receiving praise for my simple language and ability to cut through the crap.

Despite my success, the feeling of never quite belonging has stubbornly lingered - and as I've come to learn, this is a common experience. In the pioneering book Limbo: Blue-Collar Roots, White Collar Dreams, Alfred Zubrano describes the phenomenon of class straddling, giving language to a feeling so many first generation professionals have grappled with. Zubrano describes a never ending struggle with identity that plagues mobilisers. Over time, "straddlers", as Zubrano calls them, find it hard to relax in any environment.

For the fish-out-of–water set, flopping on the gleaming floor of the middle class gets exhausting. That’s why formal reunions are important for Straddlers – they serve as refreshing dives back into familiar waters. The Straddlers join up with the old crowd and become recharged with the legitimacy of their own backgrounds. Unfortunately the high only lasts a little while. And people who’ve travelled sometimes great distances to revisit their roots because of dissatisfaction with the white-collar life learnt that these all-blue weekends are not the ultimate answer. After the nostalgia clears like burned-off fog and the remember-whens are all carefully recited like verses of an epic poem, something will be seen or said that will remind the reminiscer of why he or she left in the first place. Then there will be a slow, sad dawning in the brain: ‘oh, now I remember. I’m the one who doesn’t really belong anywhere’ (Zubrano, 2004: 204).

In Poverty Safari, Darren McGarvey builds on this idea even further, describing a class "ravine" - a widening divide between those with power, and those on the receiving end of their choices. Straddlers, in their effort to mobilise, lose the chance to settle on either side of the bank. As Zubrano so succinctly puts it:

If you are born into the working class, and you’re willing to change your speech and appearance, and deny the culture of your working-class background, then you could pass as a member of the dominant culture. But you will never belong there. (Lubrano, 2004: 194)

In a new world of work brimming with diversity and inclusion initiatives, social class has stayed the elephant in the room. Class is the invisible inequality, a secret shame that we've not yet found the language and courage to tackle. Despite making strides toward gender, race and cultural inclusion at work, class barely gets a mention. 

As a result, our workplaces never really have to confront the exclusivity, power and privilege afforded to the professional-managerial class. In 2022, the demographics are still depressingly homogenous, as our most senior leaders are still overwhelmingly white, male and from middle to upper class backgrounds.

Our politicians, senior bureaucrats and corporate executives attend the same schools, share similar surnames and relax in the comfort of a common language, worldview, value system and leisure pursuits. They read the same books, watch the same movies, and  bask in a shared experience of the world. Sameness is everywhere.

How Professionalism Becomes Weaponised

"Professionalism" is a value system steeped in privilege and blinded by unchallenged morality. When we accept this system, we come to equate class privilege with competence or character, and shut our doors to anyone who doesn't fit the mould. We co-sign discrimination under the banner of appropriateness, manners and  - my personal favourite - "standards".

The message is simple: to work with us, you need to be like us. Learn the rules, or watch your opportunities narrow. 

Except the rules are largely unspoken. Unwritten codes are everywhere, from  what to wear and how to address people in meetings through to minutiae such as how to personalise your desk or where to go for lunch.

Google "professionalism" and you're likely to find a list of desirable character traits and workplace competencies - things like conscientiousness, knowledge, honesty and reliability. Dig a little deeper and you might find reference to some of the more ambiguous codes - image, dress, politeness and emotional regulation.

Anger or sadness are unprofessional, especially in women. T-shirts aren't OK. Unless they are. Cleavage isn't OK. Unless it is. The rules bend and flex depending on your seniority, gender, race and likeability, and working out where you fit can be exhausting.

For an outsider, working out the nuances of appropriate conduct can be a full-time job, one that needs to restart every time you enter a new workplace with a slightly different set of expectations.

The dark side of professionalism is gatekeeping of power, and control of behaviour. In short: professionalism is just another way privilege becomes quietly coded into spheres of power. The places where decisions are made, money is generated and relationships are formed aren't safe for anyone who doesn't know the secret handshake - and we all suffer as a result.

What Professionalism Produces

For all the big talk on diversity, our meeting rooms, conferences, webinars and training courses have a suffocating sameness in their tone and format. Promotions, projects and job opportunities are traded in a black-market economy of familiarity and as a result, the same voices are duplicated and elevated.

The public sector works hard on community engagement and democratic representation, but the access required to have real impact - lobbying, submissions and face-time with politicians - remain closely guarded by the old boys. Policy is informed by the powerful and formed by the privileged, written from the perspective of educated, middle-class public servants with little lived experience of the social issues they're hoping to improve.

Companies are led by the powerful and staffed by earnest graduates eager to conform and climb the ladder, so our products, services and user experiences reflect the perspectives of our most privileged. NGOs hire a mix of well-educated humanities students with a thesaurus of isms at their fingertips and fundraising zealots who can schmooze where it counts.

The products, policies and initiatives shaped for working class people suffer, ranging from the predatory (think loan sharks, gambling and fast food), self-congratulatory or condescending (think half-marathons for mental health) or poor quality and extractive (think fast fashion and fast food.)  Without the time, space, advocacy or power to change those conditions, destructive social and consumer patterns persist, while arrogant commentators throw up their hands in despair and point fingers at victims for making the bad choices that the powerful encouraged of them. When you follow the money, it isn't the poor who benefit from their consumption. The people who criticise, capitalise.

In short: society suffers when it's shaped by sameness.

We Don't Mean To, Though

Like most power systems, the people who maintain them aren't evil, poorly intentioned or generally even aware of what they're doing. HR departments work hard to make recruitment fair and inclusive, leaders strive to create safe spaces for people to participate in and public servants go above and beyond to reach poorly served communities. But until we find the language and temerity to confront the class inequality that persists in our workplaces and communities, straddlers - and those who never even got a leg over - will continue to suffer.

There's a lot I want to say about this. Class blindness affects every aspect of our daily lives: the media we consume, the news we read, our personal relationships, health outcomes, wealth generation, income inequality, parenting styles, access to education and just about everything else that makes up the tangled web of modern living.

I don't have the answers, in fact, I'm still working out the questions that need to be asked. But of one thing, I'm certain: professionalism is stifling, boring and largely unfair.

If we continue to let these unwritten codes shape career paths, staff executive teams and shape organisations, we're going to miss out on incredible opportunities. Opportunities to amplify great voices, to elevate people bursting with potential, to shape policy that serves, to design communities that nurture and to make real progress on our most pressing social, environmental, technological and political issues.

We can do better. We must do better. And it starts with talking about class.

Translated Version

Mate, professionalism is total bullshit. I'd know, I've hung out with these dudes and I speak their bloody language. I felt like a total fake to start, but I got the hang of it. In the end, they quite liked my cheeky bogan grin.

It's still a bit sad though. When you can't chill at home for Christmas, but you're never quite good enough for the flash guys, it's a lonely life. Turns out, it's the same for everyone tries to do better for themselves and winds up selling out.

It's the same as it's always been: If you wanna play with the big boys, you've gotta be like them. Wear the same shit, say the right shit, play the same game. We either fit in or fuck off. Even then, they still take the top jobs and give the best stuff to their mates and clones while Joe Bloggs fights for scraps.

I reckon we call time on it, eh. None of this professional shit has worked so far. The world's gone to hell in a bloody handbasket, the climate's about to cark it and people are still hungry. I've had it up to *here*, and I'm ready to make some noise.