DREWspective

I’ve set the challenge – both on DREWspective and my web site, DrewMaughan.com – for anybody to explain or figure out why I have issues with the word “need” being thrown around. It’s one of my four golden rules of being a freelancer to avoid working with (or more often than not, for) people and companies that do so.

Well it’s been around two years since I threw down the gauntlet. Thousands of people have been to both sites and have seen the respective pages. But as is typical – even with a generous offer – not one person came forward with an answer.

So in my own words I’m going to lay it down. Feel free to point people to this weblog post whether you agree or not. (If you’re unwilling to listen or read, kindly go away.)
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First, the good news: not only did I get a recent “pay check”, but I was lucky enough to get some work starting last week. It was such a relief. As expected, I’d received a slew of calls from recruitment people – who apparently were sitting on their arses for the last three weeks, or were only interested in putting me in their databases – with actual roles, not even a day after the fact.

Today I’m going to talk about this weird thing called professionalism: what it means to be a “professional”. It’s weird to me because, I’ve heard the term being thrown around a lot, but we don’t seem to know what it actually means.
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Like the word “need”, I’ve noticed a few uncomfortable terms being used in the world of customer service and the workplace. For a long time I’ve felt that people are effectively turning into machines or zombies, if for no other reason than they talk like they’re reading from a script. (I’d spent just over a week in telesales many years ago, and having to read from a script – and nothing but the script – was one of the most demeaning things I’ve ever done.)

One of these other terms is the word “happy“, often used as follows:

Are you happy to do that?

Are you happy for me to put you forward..?

Are you happy to pay the charges?

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[ originally posted Oct 31, 2009 @ 6:51, as "10 Words YOU MUST Erase from your Vocabulary" ]

Almost a year ago I received an email about article writing, which itself was presented an example of good article writing. (Most of these American “gurus” are known for blowing their own trumpets.)

As a result of this email, I was inspired to find out whether other people, as well as myself, had elected to remove certain words from their vocabulary. I came across one such article by a woman named Barbara Henry, who explains which ten words she’s “removed”.
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