# Is this attitude towards work unusual?

**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-attitude-towards-work-unusual/726192
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [July 25, 2015, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-attitude-towards-work-unusual/726192 "2015-07-25T22:46:36Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Showing post:** 17

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### Author: ![kiz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/7feea3/32.png) [@kiz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kiz)
#### Post date: [July 26, 2015, 11:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-attitude-towards-work-unusual/726192/17 "2015-07-26T11:36:11Z")

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> [@Anonymous "Osama Memo"](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anonymous-osama-memo/94637/9):
>
> And despite what we’re told about how we should all be ambitious and want promotions, it is actually a good thing, since the world happens to need more mechanics than maintenance managers.

There are some industries out there which are so competitive in general that if you’re not competitive/ambitious/whatever, you don’t matter in that you’re easily replaceable. Maybe some people simply don’t care about that. However, if you’ve put X years in, it’s expected that you will maintain that competitive/ambitious/whatever edge until you either leave or die. There’s a whole generation :cough: who had that drummed into them, so this whole laissez-fair attitude is simply not acknowledged.

> [@](#):
>
> There is a second aspect, what we call _deformación profesional_ in Spanish (“professional deformity [of the mind]”): if you’re a gardener, when you see a garden you’re going to analyze it more professionally than someone who can’t even grow a potted geranium. But that’s not because you set out to analyze that garden professionally: it’s because all those hours spent thinking plants make the process automatic.

I have a bad case of this. Trust me, unless you want the unvarnished truth, don’t ask me to analyze anything to do with baking. I’ve seen baking blogs out there which shouldn’t exist because their information within is plain WRONG. I have to keep chanting to myself the whole “I’m a professional…this is for HOME bakers” thing or else I’ll lose my mind. BTW, it’s the reason why I seldom read baking, or any kind of food blog, nowadays.

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