"Professionalism" gets used as a rhetorical tool to lump aesthetics into the same category as qualities that effect job performance. Once they're in the same category, the irrelevant things steal creditability from the important ones. (And because society doesn't exist in a vacuum, they might even become self-fulfilling prophecies)
Remeber Bobak Ferdowsi? The NASA guy with a mohawk?
[...] you know, too unprofessional to be selling tickets at a railway
station but reliable enough for landing robots on Mars. [0]
Remeber Bobak Ferdowsi? The NASA guy with a mohawk?
[0] http://www.smh.com.au/small-business/blogs/work-in-progress/...