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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Umbran" data-source="post: 5429550" data-attributes="member: 177">Honestly, I think real professionalism should include a more sophisticated view of deadlines than "Just make them".  I'll get to why as I respond to someone else below.I take it you don't work in a project-based environment?Look at the world for a moment.  Look at anything that's supposed to be "on time". Buses and airplanes.  Theater performances.  Appointments at the doctor's office.  Things run late all the time.  I mean, really, who gets their holiday shopping done before Thanksgiving?  Who is knocking on the door at 7:30 on the dot for every party?  You run late yourself, don't you?In a clockwork universe, we could plan completely, and everyone and everything would fall into lockstep, and everyone would have things done when you needed them, and you'd have them done when the next guy.  But reality doesn't work that way.  The old saw is that no plan survives contact with the enemy, and it is 100% correct - and the enemy is reality.It is demonstrable that humans are actually pretty phenomenally craptastic at estimating the time and amount of work required to complete tasks that take more than a single day - and the longer they take, the worse they are at estimating them.  And, no matter how good and complete the plan, issues arise that weren't in the plan.  And no matter what else is going on, someone will have a bright new idea, or have new information that needs to be factored in, or change their mind halfway through the plan.We ask too much of our workers these days to have them reliably and properly execute everything we want them to do on-time.  And the things they do are too complex for the plans and estimates for completion to be particularly accurate. There's also human psychology to be considered.  If you plan to have things done a month in advance, with full knowledge that you have a month worth of buffer time, you will simply then use that buffer time.  You will find a half bazillion things of high value that crop up that you could use that time on, and you'll use it, because that's extra money in your wallet, or looking extra good on your performance review.So, modern professionalism includes planning, but not typically for sake of creating "the plan that will be followed and on time gosh-darn-it".  We plan because the act of planning is valuable - it helps us learn about what we are trying to do, and builds a frame work for our efforts.  Then, we try hard to work by the plan, and when the plan fails (because it *will* fail) we have thought about how to handle the situation in the best manner we can.</blockquote>

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