Professionalism Is About Responsibility, Not Supervision

I'm reminded of an experience from when I worked as a QA on an Annotation project.

Toward the end of the month, the Project Manager announced that the project would be paused temporarily. Annotators were asked to stop working on data, and only QAs were given access to complete the Final Validation. We had 5 days to finish around 10,000 data points per person.

Normally, the workflow goes like this: annotators submit tasks → QA reviews → if there are errors, the task is returned for correction. But given the tight deadline, we decided to correct the data ourselves without sending anything back.

And that's where I found something troubling.

Throughout those 5 days, nearly every QA — myself included — kept noticing the same pattern: many annotators weren't truly doing their job. Transcripts were left untouched, labels were applied carelessly. Quantity was being chased while quality was abandoned.

The thing is, annotation work depends heavily on accuracy.

One case still sticks with me. While reviewing an annotator's data, I found that the audio and transcript were completely opposite — 180 degrees off. The audio said "Pelangi es krim itu loh" ("That rainbow ice cream"), but the machine transcript read "ayo beli rendang" ("let's buy rendang"). The annotator hadn't corrected a single word — and very likely hadn't even listened to the audio.

After discussing it and getting approval from the Project Manager, we issued a warning to the annotators. The PM even made it clear: if this kind of work pattern continued, payment deductions would apply.

Guess what happened next?

One of the annotators filed a complaint. They said it was unfair, that they had worked hard, and that the policy was hurting them. We QAs could only shake our heads — not to dismiss their voice, but because the complaint came from an annotator whose accuracy had been consistently poor. I had personally given them feedback and guidance before, and even after being reassigned to another QA, there was no meaningful improvement.

A few lessons I took away from this experience:

🔹 Getting the chance to join a project is an achievement. Whether for the income, experience, knowledge, or the opportunity to build relationships — honor it with professionalism.

🔹 Responsibility shouldn't depend on supervision. The quality of our work should remain consistent, whether someone is watching or not.

🔹 Voicing opinions and objections is your right. But before raising them, it's worth evaluating your own performance first.

🔹 Don't let emotion override logic. When emotion takes over, objectivity disappears — and decisions made from that place usually end in regret.

🔹 A reprimand is feedback. Treat it as an indicator for growth, not a personal attack.

Keep going, and keep becoming the best version of yourself. Keep learning, keep growing — in how you think, how you manage emotions, and in every other area that contributes to your personal development.