What Happens To Your Attitude Towards Gracious Professionalism When You Leave FIRST?

[JaneYoung]

I don't necessarily think something is wrong if I'm wondering about Gracious Professionalism, Joe. It doesn't bother me a bit that I enjoy thinking about the goals and mission of FIRST as I understand them to be. Gracious Professionalism is a part of that. Developing professional partnerships on a global basis yet treating each other with kindness and grace, even while being competitive - I see nothing wrong with wonder-ing about that, being inspired by that, and thinking about the efforts that FIRST teams put into inspiring students and the general public/communities. But as students graduate, move on, leave FIRST (or seem to), does anything stick? That's what I'm wondering about in this thread.
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Happy Birthday, Joe.

[Adam Y.]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

You would prefer I had lied and said that the real world was full of roses and bunnies and rainbows? I could do that but I felt it was more important to let the students know the real world doesn't want GP, it wants profit. GP can't be gently put into the real world.

Oooo please. You can have gracious professionalism which then in turn helps you profit. I had a pump that was being repaired for $2,000. It is an expensive pump at that. The person repairing the pump noticed that something unusual happened to it. A person traveled all the way to our laboratory to help us figure out what damaged the pump. Did the company have to do that? No. Did they earn my trust and appreciation for helping correct a problem that no one knew existed? Yes. I probably ended up scaring the guy because I was really happy to know of a problem involving a million dollar instrument that I was not aware of. Will I shop there again for my pumping needs? Yes. Will I know that they have my best interests? Yes.

Most of us aren't going to "change the world".

Bah.... That is only because you gave up. The world is a big place. Huge in fact. Its easy to change the world in some way. Will you end up becoming famous? Hell no.

[Travis Hoffman]

Originally Posted by ayeckley

I believe that the effectiveness of what we call GP (it goes by other names outside of FRC) cannot be judged early in one's life. It's a much longer-term investment, yet offers surprisingly high returns. Just like 401(k) plans, the important thing is to keep making contributions even when it seems there's no reward for it.

Corollary - And make sure you don't invest all your 401(k) contributions in only your "employer's company" (i.e. team). Spread a decent amount of those contributions around to other "companies" you feel can yield big returns one day.

This is true on both literal and figurative levels.

[Molten]

Originally Posted by Travis Hoffman

This is true on both literal and figurative levels.

I'm GP diversified. Are you?