A few choice pieces from my extensive collection of collage ephemera.Who, and what roles, paths, careers do you consider professional? What is your criteria for referring to someone as a professional and why?
Some back story: A couple weeks ago Yael Rose and I were sitting in the target food court eating pretzels when the Slurpee machine service man entered. He begins the process of filling the vats with the stuff that makes your children look cyanotic or like they've recently been exposed to high levels of carbon monoxide. Yael looks on intrigued (or just in anticipation of a sugar high) and says, "Wow, he did that really fast, he's a professional". I scoffed, but quickly recanted and said, "Yes, you're right. He's really good at his job, I'm sure he trained well and had lots of practice."
This brings me to my current, long-lived plight with my first self-published project: the zine from hell. Well, maybe not hell, but somewhere deep in the underbelly. Today marks my 500th blog post, I've almost 200 followers, I know the alphabet backwards and forwards and I don't even have to sing it. Why can't I get this damn zine done?! I'll tell you why, I am not a professional zinester. What I am is a professional, thinks-she-can-do-everything-perfect-the-very-first-time-and-will-die-if-she-doesn't-er. Are you a professional too? Oh yeah...at what?!
Peace, patience and practice makes perfect-maybe not a zine, but you'll be perfect at something...
Some back story: A couple weeks ago Yael Rose and I were sitting in the target food court eating pretzels when the Slurpee machine service man entered. He begins the process of filling the vats with the stuff that makes your children look cyanotic or like they've recently been exposed to high levels of carbon monoxide. Yael looks on intrigued (or just in anticipation of a sugar high) and says, "Wow, he did that really fast, he's a professional". I scoffed, but quickly recanted and said, "Yes, you're right. He's really good at his job, I'm sure he trained well and had lots of practice."
This brings me to my current, long-lived plight with my first self-published project: the zine from hell. Well, maybe not hell, but somewhere deep in the underbelly. Today marks my 500th blog post, I've almost 200 followers, I know the alphabet backwards and forwards and I don't even have to sing it. Why can't I get this damn zine done?! I'll tell you why, I am not a professional zinester. What I am is a professional, thinks-she-can-do-everything-perfect-the-very-first-time-and-will-die-if-she-doesn't-er. Are you a professional too? Oh yeah...at what?!
Peace, patience and practice makes perfect-maybe not a zine, but you'll be perfect at something...
8 comments:
I am a professional, "livin' in the now kind of girl".
Yay! Congrats on the blog milestones. And it is not easy trying a new project when you are a perfectionist. :)
Professional to me means lots and lots of practice.
It will get done. Some dreams take time to come to fruition. I can't wait to see it. 500th post wowzer, you're a bad girl!!!!
You can't rush brilliance friend =). I'm a professional comfort zoner! I really wanna become skilled in risk taking, hence babysquares.
I see 200 on your follower list right now...congrats on that AND the 500th blog post.
Think of the zine this way....when it is ready to be published...that will be the right time.
Lately, I've been a professional procrastinator.
Oooh, ouch! I'm one of those other kinds of professionals too. Wow...hit home friend.
I like this question. I work in a place where people are described as "professional" (salaried, higher ed degree unless they worked there since before that was standard) or "support" (hourly, typically requires diploma, though many with college degrees do the job). I've worked in both roles and I think the distinction is ridiculous...one only needs to encounter an unsupportive "professional" an unprofessional "support" person to know that these two should never be separate.
^5 for catching your reaction and acknowledging the professionalism of the guy who did his job quickly and thanks again for the question. The wheels are turnin :)
good ol' prefessionalism. i've pondered this before as well.
people describe me as a
professional because i have a clothing design degree (which i suppose is equated with the notion that i know the technicalities of it all), sell items i make, and can create custom garments for people. then there are others that might say i'm not because i've never worked for any other company designing. i'm an in-home, DIY kinda girl.
i've never described myself as a professional clothing designer. just sounds funny coming out of my mouth. i also feel weird when others say that about me to others, because i feel like the person who was told now has some list of standards that i should conform to, and i likely won't.
now, if one can be described as being a professional at being resourceful and economical, then that's me! :-D
Loved the connection between both situations. I would say that there's a difference between being a professional at something and behaving like a professional. You already excel at so many things that I don't need to tell you in which category you fit. :-)
Greetings from London.
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