Cynthetiq

What does it mean to you either calingl someone else or youself a professional? We call doctors, accountants, lawyers as professionals. Golfers, tennis, baseball, basketball, football players can also be professionals.

I have always considered myself a professional. To me it means that I'm serious when serious is needed. You give me a task with a desired end result and goal and I complete it without needing direction or approval. I can work well alone or with a group. I can present myself in any capacity you need from dressed down working with worker crews or dressed to the nines and rubbing shoulders with the CEOs and dignitaries. I can work in a capacity where you never ever know that I was was there even if you are there. I can blend into the background and get my things down. I communicate and work well with other teams and groups facilitating finding issues before the become one. I set and meet deadlines as accurately as I can adjusting them if need due to unforseen problems (I have built in time to allow for extenuating circumstances.) To me it doesn't matter if I'm getting paid $1 or $1000 for my services, I always give someone profesional results. Bottom line to me is that a professional hits the goal 99% of the time.

When I apply the same thoughts to others I have to remember my own standards are not going to be as high as others, but I do still have an expectation of most of it.

What do you mean when you say that someone is "professional"?

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amonkie

Coming from a background in training and psychology, expert and professional are synonymous in my mind. By common definition, expert is one who has had Years of diligent learned training, can repeat their performances with very accurate similar results, and is well versed in their field. When someone tells me they are a professional, this is what I compare their demeanor, performance, and knowledge against.

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hrandani

A professional is someone who has devoted their life to learning and keeping up to date on a specific job.

You can act professionally, but it does not mean you are a professional.

Like a professional store clerk, or a professional construction worker, or a professional janitor - these are not valid uses of the word.

There is no great depth to these jobs, however well you may be able to perform them.

A professional stripper or bartender, now....

tecoyah

If you get paid....it is a profession

If you are actually good at it...you are a skilled professional

If your peers look to you....you are an expert

vermin

To me professional only means you get paid for doing the job.

If you've been in business for many years, you must be good at the job. Length of time in business has always been more impressive to me than the mere fact that you charge for your services. Anybody can hang a price tag. You have to provide satifactory service to build a good reputation to stay in business.

And as tecoyah said, if others who do the same job as you ask you for advice or opinion, then you're an expert. Which is why I suspect a lot of the news channel's "experts" are self-described and not really expert.

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guthmund

I like that. Kind of like athletes. Olympians are considered amateur, right? College ball players (baseball, football, whatever...) are all considered amateur, aren't they?

In my opinion, as Tec so eloquently put it, if you get paid for it, you're a professional. A lot of my colleagues tend to think of themselves as professional. I've heard them talk about how so-and-so was just so 'unprofessional' when they gossip...excuse me, communicate on a meaningful basis to form peer bonds. Personally, I think those that profess a penchant to pontificate on the usage of the word professional are perhaps protesting a bit too much and should instead learn to take life (and its definitions) less seriously.

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pig

Tec: speaks for me, in essence. I think you can be a "professional" and not be very good at your profession...but you tend to sort of get invited not to continue your line of work in that case.

Unless you know the right people or can sue.

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Siege

Professional to me means that you're getting payed for it. If I was a professional basketball player, playing basketball is my profession. Or in other words, my job. Doesn't matter if i'm good or bad at it.

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This part just makes my posts easier to find

Rodney

To be a professional is to be paid. To _act_ professionally is to take personal responsibility for all aspects of your work and to look continuously at how you can improve the level of service you provide.

Some jobs limit the amount of initiative an individual can take. A truck driver, a factory worker, a bus boy, waiters, retail clerks, and others work within very structured jobs that usually limit their power to bring improvement to their jobs. They can do the best job possible, but if they have a plan for reorganizing the job and the boss or the union doesn't buy it, there's nothing they can do. We don't usually consider such jobs to be professions, because the limits of such jobs are controlled by others, not the worker. Although we can still say that a great waiter or retail clerk _acts_ very professional by doing a conscientious job for us.

Jobs that are considered professions are those which are less structured and more responsible: rather than laying out the procedure for you, management (or you yourself, if you are self-employed) expects you to define the problem and work out your own plan for solving it. Professions tend to be results-oriented, while "jobs" tend to be procedures-oriented.

Some work straddles the line: is an MD who works within a heavily-structured HMO that limits his or her time with patients and options for treatment truly acting as a professional, or merely a skilled worker? Similarly, is a teacher who has to hew to a heavily structured lesson plan imposed by the school actually working professionally, or again simply carrying out a structured "job?"

martinguerre

in my field, it's all about recognition by one's community. ordination is the event that separates the call the entire church shares to be leaders in Christ, and those who have undertaken education, training, and work to become first among equals.

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Elphaba

My employees (service technicians) would be called blue-collar workers during my parents' day and age. Hubby and I have invested a great deal in technical training and developing people skills with our people. It is common to hear from our customers how impressed they were with our technicians "professionalism" both in their knowledge of the services they are providing, the outcome of their work, and how they "present" themselves. "Professionalism" is a term that has many meanings.

Gilda

I think of it in different terms depending upon usage.

1. As a prenominative modifier, it refers to someone who makes a living at a particular activity.

He's a professional [job] .

This means he makes his living at doing [job].

2. As a noun, it can have one of two meanings, depending upon context.

The first meaning refers to a specific kind of career, requiring extensive post-secondary formal education, and not a trade. It's roughly equivilent to "white collar" job, but is slightly more complex than that. A secretary is a white collar worker, but in this paradigm might not be considered a professional.

Another way of thinking of it is that it refers to jobs that are mind oriented rather than physically based. Doctor, lawyer, CPA, etc. Some are tricky; public school teacher or nurse, for example are tough to pin down between highly skilled laborer and professional, though I'd put both into the professional category by a hair.

One of my students once had an interesting way of making this distinction. An electrician is a highly skilled laborer, while an electrical engineer is a professional.

3. The last meaning is in contrast to "unprofessional". In this context it refers to behavior that is considered appropriate in an ethical or moral sense to a particular job, whether that job is a "profession" in the previous sense of not. A mechanic would generally be classified as a skilled laborer, but still would be considered "unprofessional" if he or she were to do or charge for unnecessary work.

That said, if a mechanic or a plumber wants to call himself a professional, that's fine by me, or if someone wants to say that teaching middle school isn't a profession, I won't get my feathers ruffled. It's too small an issue to get bent out of shape over.

Conducting oneself in an appropriate manner in one's job, however, as in meaning 3, is something that I take seriously and think is important.

Gilda

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Gary_the_Rat

Yeah, I just look at it as being paid. Full time.

Stiltzkin

Professional means professional.
Period.

"Professional" should always mean all of the characterstics defined by Cynthetiq.

Marvelous Marv

No, "expert" means they brought you in from more than thirty miles away!

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rsl12

'professional' is a strange word. It's got a few meanings that are very close in flavor, and it's difficult sometimes to realize that these meanings are quite distinct. I think it's instructive to consider the many possible antonyms of 'professional':

1. 'professional' means the opposite of 'amateur.'

2. 'professional' means someone engaged in a 'profession'. The opposite of a 'profession' is a 'craft'; therefore, the opposite of a 'professional' is a 'craftsman.'

3. the opposite of being 'professional' is being 'casual.'

EDIT: As mentioned above, there's the 4th possible antonym: 'professional' behavior, as opposed to 'unprofessional' or 'unethical' behavior.

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Jinn

I dont know what it is, but I know I ain't one..

I do what you pay me for.

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