Shallow Professionalism

I am the sort to believe in raw performance in favor of appearance. If one fails to perform, it matters little to me what their personal bearing is like. Which, of course, is why shallow professionalism remains one of my pet peeves. I'd call shallow professionalism the art of appearing to be professional, be it by obvious conduct like constant apparent seriousness, or by appearance by dressing in a particular fashion.

Now, what irks me about it is how many professional-appearing individuals prove to be quite unprofessional in the practical sense. They are not performing their jobs to the best of their abilities simply because they are employed (and paid) to do so. Worst of all, the appearance of professionalism can easily throw off an unschooled supervisor, who may mistake the appearance for the actual performance of professionalism.

Unfortunately, it seems my views are in the power minority when it comes to this matter. The elevation of shallow professionalism to an art form remains to date, and really...not all that many of the people who matter are inclined to evaluate things otherwise. For one, that'd just take too much effort on their part. It may even involve a restructuring of management itself to dedicate resources to true performance evaluation.