Professionalism in Action

I guess my topic for the week is professionalism! I didn't intend this starting out, but it kind of seemed fitting that I continue with the subject given the way the events surrounding the rush file I accepted last night unfolded.

I found myself with a bit of a dilemma late (and I do mean late) last night when I started a rush file that was due this morning and found that from about the 7-minute mark on was completely blank. It was nearly 1:00 a.m., and I felt like it was too late to call my contact.

I was faced with a decision to make. I could just send my contact an email detailing the issue and wait for a response in the morning, which normally would have been a perfectly valid response, or I could take what I consider the more professional and responsible route and see what I could do to correct the situation given that I had some necessary tools at my disposal.

I had been given a link to the webcast of the presentation to fill in the beginning of the transcript where the recording had been cut off. I decided that I could just rerecord the file in its entirety using Total Recorder and pick up where the original file was blank. So to make a long story short, that's the route I took. I was still slightly late with the file because it took a LONG time to transfer over to my new laptop, but it was still much more timely than if I had waited for my contact to receive my email and get me a new copy of the file.

So going back the the "Are You A Professional" article that I wrote about earlier this week, I feel like this series of events falls under the "A professional persists until the objective is achieved. An amateur gives up at the first opportunity," category. Oh, and the real kicker is the title of the audio I was working on was "Working Through Crisis." How's that for ironic?

How would you have handled a situation such as this?