Professionalism

There’s something about the recent Artemis II mission that stands in stark contrast to how the rest of the country is being run. That something is professionalism.

A team of rocket scientists, engineers, and technicians designed and built the rocket that safely launched the astronauts into orbit. The astronauts went through years of rigorous training for just ten days of flight. Flight controllers in Houston guided the spacecraft on its flight path so precisely that it splashed down in the Pacific Ocean at the exact minute they had planned.

None of this would have been possible without the glue that held it all together: professionalism.

What exactly is professionalism? It’s an attitude that demands the very best of everyone involved. It is a combination of proper training, skill, dedication, teamwork, ethics, honesty, integrity, respect for others, cooperation, planning, attention to detail, orderliness, personal responsibility, and putting safety first. Professionalism demands strict adherence to all of these, all of the time.

Professionalism was on worldwide display last week as Artemis and its crew of four rocketed around the moon for the first time in more than half a century, then landed on target, right on schedule.

Professionalism isn’t just for moon missions. It applies to all walks of life. From brain surgeons to fast food workers, everything runs more smoothly when everyone holds themselves to a standard of professionalism appropriate for their occupation. It means knowing your job and doing it well and doing it with pride, even if you are just cleaning toilets. Because you can be sure that people you may never meet will be grateful that a professional cleaned the public toilets!

Now contrast that attitude with the chaos that is in the Trump White House. From Elon Musk’s DOGE project, to masked ICE agents snatching people off the streets, to the current war against Iran, government policies have been carried out with no planning or preparation and often without legal authority. No effort has been made to engage affected parties in the decision-making process. Mixed messages are the rule rather than the exception. Accountability is nowhere to be found when things inevitably go south. Problems are always someone else’s fault.

Cabinet secretaries were appointed by Trump and approved by the Senate even though they had no experience or training relating to the vast responsibilities of each agency. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth unilaterally changed his title to “Secretary of War,” perhaps in anticipation of Trump’s undeclared war with Iran. Speaking of which, both men failed miserably at anticipating the consequences of their actions, a military blunder that any armchair pundit would have predicted.

Continuing this unprofessional behavior Trump then turned to our NATO allies for assistance to perpetuate his mistake. They politely informed him, correctly, that this was not their responsibility and declined to participate. So, like a six-year old, Trump then declared that he didn’t need their help anyway.

Meanwhile we heard from space meticulous communications between the astronauts and ground control as they prepared for one maneuver or another. We heard clear, concise messages, polite demeanor, and no nonsense, every time. Listen to air traffic control transmissions and you’ll hear the same. Accountants, bankers, cashiers, doctors, engineers, farmers, gardeners, historians, Illustrators, judges, kinesiologists, librarians, miners, nurses, optometrists, photographers, quartermasters, restaurateurs, salesmen, truckers, underwriters, vintners, writers, xylophonists, and zookeepers do their best work and gain the most respect by adhering to standards of professionalism. It never fails. 

We expect people we do business with to act with some degree of professionalism, and when they don’t we usually take our business elsewhere. Where public safety is involved we demand nothing but the most conscientious levels of professionalism. So why have Americans twice elected a president who is so scatterbrained and so unconcerned with the consequences of his actions as Donald Trump? He is the most unprofessional president in history and we let him have absolute control over life and death decisions, including the use of American military power both inside and outside our borders. Why have we lowered our standards of professionalism for the most powerful man on Earth? It makes absolutely no sense.