what does the word "professional" mean to you?

[datasuspect]

to me, classical professions, lawyers and doctors.

i think the term gets thrown around too loosely.

in some cases, i think it is synonymous with abject compliance.

[Nikia]

1. A person employed in a field that requires great knowledge and skill

In that subject.
That includes medicine and law but can also include a number of other fields.

[Redstone]

2. "Abject compliance?" Compliance to what? I honestly don't understand.

Redstone

[datasuspect]

5. i'm recollecting the clusterfuck of middle managers

in a major beverage manufacturers corporate headquarters i had interaction with.

the one guy who had any kind of snap was a director of IT support for supply chain. never saw him much in meetings and he more or less got things done without wasting tons of money. not much smoke, mirrors, dogs, and ponies.

there were lots of people flying all over the country to go to meetings. not developing business, but talking with the team in bumfuck to deploy VoIP, for example.

i was thinking about the way the word "professional" gets thrown around in corporate settings. people who look good on paper, fulfilled requirements in the requisite time frames, knew how to fill out forms, but otherwise were more or less insipid.

[Redstone]

13. OK, I understand, and agree. So here's my answer, which probably isn't a good one:

To me, a "professional" anything is someone who gets paid for doing what they do.

Jam with your friends and do open mic nights? You're an amateur musician. (Not that there's a damn thing wrong with that; the word "amateur" deriving from "amatore," or somebody who does something out of love for that thing.) You get paid to play? Then you're a professional musician.

I don't do photography full-time anymore, but when I do, I get paid for it. Therefore I'm still a professional photographer.

Just my opinion. And I do understand about the middle-management schmucks you're talking about. They're not professionals, they're drones.

Redstone

[mike_c]

3. I think it means a vocation requiring advanced education....

eom

[Left Is Write]

4. That depends on whether you're using it as a noun or an adjective.

[datasuspect]

6. any use

what does it mean to you?

[Left Is Write]

8. Well, there can be a big difference between the two uses -

I agree that "professional" as a noun usually refers to what were once considered "the professions", such as medicine or law.

"Professional" as an adjective can be applied much more broadly. I have a vocation or occupation rather than a profession, but I behave in a "professional" manner while performing my job.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

7. (1) The persons earns the family's bread by doing that. (2) S/he does it competently. -nt

Whatever "that" is. It may be something heroic or something despicable. It's a morally neutral adjective.

[Blue-Jay]

9. A hooker.

[datasuspect]

10. i have known several who personified the ancient greek concept of "arete"

methinks you are on to something.

[Blue-Jay]

11. I'm shaking my finger at you.

Methinks that you're have a laugh at my expense.

[datasuspect]

12. i've been working out

it's making me snarky.

[femmocrat]

14. I heard once that the difference between a profession and a career

was that professions have "code of ethics" that members adhere to.

Don't know if that holds for all professions, however!

[wildhorses]

15. it is another one of those words that has been overused

to the point of being meaningless

abject compliance is corporately accepted as desirable.