As working professionals, we should possess most, if not all, of the attributes referenced in the editorial. Unfortunately, in today's world that's just not the case.

I work in the public sector, and in our shop we've got some older employees that are nearing retirement age that regularly refuse to accept work assignements claiming they don't have the proper skillset, even after they've received thousands of dollars in training. These same employees rarely take initiative to better themselves, yet have no problem with receiving a programmer's rate of pay when pay day rolls around.

I made the mistake of complaining too loudly about a fellow employee that spent the majority of his time surfing the internet, reading the news paper and staring at the walls of his office, while i received most of the challenging work assignements, and actually received a reprimand from H.R. The sad thing is that these individuals are costing this origanization thousands of dollars every year when we already have financial issues, yet the managers take no initiative themselves to address these issues. Welcome to life in the sublic sector...