Early in my career, one of the "engineers" in my office was constantly bragging about his 10 years experience with the company. He was a literal black hole, that would suck the life out of any room he came into. One of the grizzled veterans summarized him perfectly: "He doesn't have 10 years experience, he has two years experience 5 times."
That’s fantastic! So ten years of experience describes a passage of time more than anything else with some people.
There are definitely cartoonists with less experience than me who are unbelievably amazing. I think I’d be embarrassed to mention my years of experience next to them.
You have to work with weirdos! How else are you going to fill a book with stories? I have a coworker who asked me 3 days ago how much mustard I like in my cupcakes. THATS WELCOME TO NIGHTVALE LEVEL NONSENSE! And if you don't have weirdos... you have to be the weirdo. Its a beautiful cycle.
> To figure out if your job is a professional one, just take this simple quiz:
> Do you get paid to do it?
This seems to be a particularly American error, presumably because job status routinely gets inflated. Globally, 'professional' doesn't mean that people pay you for it: that's 'commercial'. Since we already understand recreational fishing vs commercial fishing there's no reason to co-opt 'professional' to mean the same.
Globally, 'professional' refers to a knowledge-intensive role with an enforced code of ethics to serve the public interest. It comes from the Latin *profiteri* meaning to 'declare publicly'. You profess to be highly skilled, and have some voluntarily-accepted public accountability for what you do. Here's a supporting quote from the Australian Council of Professions, for example [https://professions.org.au/what-is-a-professional/]:
> A Profession is a disciplined group of individuals who adhere to ethical standards and who hold themselves out as, and are accepted by the public as possessing special knowledge and skills in a widely recognised body of learning derived from research, education and training at a high level, and who are prepared to apply this knowledge and exercise these skills in the interest of others.
> It is inherent in the definition of a Profession that a code of ethics governs the activities of each Profession. Such codes require behaviour and practice beyond the personal moral obligations of an individual. They define and demand high standards of behaviour in respect to the services provided to the public and in dealing with professional colleagues. Often these codes are enforced by the Profession and are acknowledged and accepted by the community.
The reason this matters is that when you're doing knowledge-intensive work, there's a power imbalance of expertise that doesn't exist when you're operating a checkout, say. It's important that you adopt a voluntary code of practice which puts customer and public interest above self-interest. There's even a class of ethics called 'professional ethics' in consequence, often requiring careful interpretation.
So doctors, lawyers, accountants, engineers, teachers and journalists can be professionals. A burger-cook is commercial if he's paid for that work. He's *not* professional because his work is nearly always colouring within the lines.
This also affects where the humour is in satire.
In the comic world, Dilbert humour features professionals out of their depth and behaving unprofessionally -- it's full of wry insider insights; StBeals humour features ordinary people jaded by routine commerce and exploiting brief situational power-- it's everyman situation comedy. Both are wry and cynical, but they are laughing about different forms of power and consequently have different target audiences.
I’m not sure what that was supposed to help, but it was very well thought out and insightful. Thank you for that.
I’m afraid you lost me at ethics and “coloring within the lines”.
Many customer service positions require so much knowledge of software and legal rules, as well as the ability to deal with large quantities of people who have widely variable mental states. that it’s difficult to discern why a segment of society would withhold the designation of “professional” to their job title.
I’ve had many professional positions that were the mental equivalent of lifting bricks. Yet there I was, an accepted professional.
The word professional deviated permanently from its Latin origins the moment it was adapted by a class system. Unfortunately, commercial and professional have become synonymous. Now, “professional” is used to differentiate jobs that look hard from jobs that look easy. It’s for those who only look at book covers and don’t like to read.
I can only speak as an American, of course, where the words “professional ethics” are usually said with sarcasm. It’s all about money. Always, especially with doctors, lawyers, and many other professions that are pursued by many for their status and salary. An ethical lawyer will be the first one to figure out how to bend the truth if the price is right. The doctors here see as many patients as possible, spending less and less time with each one, not out of ethics and professional responsibility, but for (let’s all say it together) money.
Teachers, thankfully, remain the most self-sacrificing of workers. They certainly aren’t in it for the money. They are more like saints than professionals.
I assume an unethical janitor could kill you as easily as an unethical doctor, if the janitor were to improperly dispose of deadly chemical waste or spread bacteria everywhere by doing a sloppy job.
I look forward to these every day, such a pleasure! You always make good points. 🤗
Thank you so much. I have been known to ramble, but I try my best to edit that out.
Love ❤️ these comics! Thank you so much, they’re delectable
I’ve always wanted the word delectable attached to my comics, so the pleasure is all mine.
Dear Stephen! I promise to keep this definition just for your Substack, no one else is having it 😊
Early in my career, one of the "engineers" in my office was constantly bragging about his 10 years experience with the company. He was a literal black hole, that would suck the life out of any room he came into. One of the grizzled veterans summarized him perfectly: "He doesn't have 10 years experience, he has two years experience 5 times."
That’s fantastic! So ten years of experience describes a passage of time more than anything else with some people.
There are definitely cartoonists with less experience than me who are unbelievably amazing. I think I’d be embarrassed to mention my years of experience next to them.
GreatStuff
I may be retired but I haven’t forgotten all the weird and sometimes wonderful personalities I’ve worked with. It’s why your comic resonates.
You have to work with weirdos! How else are you going to fill a book with stories? I have a coworker who asked me 3 days ago how much mustard I like in my cupcakes. THATS WELCOME TO NIGHTVALE LEVEL NONSENSE! And if you don't have weirdos... you have to be the weirdo. Its a beautiful cycle.
You have a LOT of retired readers! Hmm...
That’s the best crowd to have, though. It helps with work PTSD. Besides, I’m not running commercials for Axe body spray.
> To figure out if your job is a professional one, just take this simple quiz:
> Do you get paid to do it?
This seems to be a particularly American error, presumably because job status routinely gets inflated. Globally, 'professional' doesn't mean that people pay you for it: that's 'commercial'. Since we already understand recreational fishing vs commercial fishing there's no reason to co-opt 'professional' to mean the same.
Globally, 'professional' refers to a knowledge-intensive role with an enforced code of ethics to serve the public interest. It comes from the Latin *profiteri* meaning to 'declare publicly'. You profess to be highly skilled, and have some voluntarily-accepted public accountability for what you do. Here's a supporting quote from the Australian Council of Professions, for example [https://professions.org.au/what-is-a-professional/]:
> A Profession is a disciplined group of individuals who adhere to ethical standards and who hold themselves out as, and are accepted by the public as possessing special knowledge and skills in a widely recognised body of learning derived from research, education and training at a high level, and who are prepared to apply this knowledge and exercise these skills in the interest of others.
> It is inherent in the definition of a Profession that a code of ethics governs the activities of each Profession. Such codes require behaviour and practice beyond the personal moral obligations of an individual. They define and demand high standards of behaviour in respect to the services provided to the public and in dealing with professional colleagues. Often these codes are enforced by the Profession and are acknowledged and accepted by the community.
The reason this matters is that when you're doing knowledge-intensive work, there's a power imbalance of expertise that doesn't exist when you're operating a checkout, say. It's important that you adopt a voluntary code of practice which puts customer and public interest above self-interest. There's even a class of ethics called 'professional ethics' in consequence, often requiring careful interpretation.
So doctors, lawyers, accountants, engineers, teachers and journalists can be professionals. A burger-cook is commercial if he's paid for that work. He's *not* professional because his work is nearly always colouring within the lines.
This also affects where the humour is in satire.
In the comic world, Dilbert humour features professionals out of their depth and behaving unprofessionally -- it's full of wry insider insights; StBeals humour features ordinary people jaded by routine commerce and exploiting brief situational power-- it's everyman situation comedy. Both are wry and cynical, but they are laughing about different forms of power and consequently have different target audiences.
I hope that may help.
I’m not sure what that was supposed to help, but it was very well thought out and insightful. Thank you for that.
I’m afraid you lost me at ethics and “coloring within the lines”.
Many customer service positions require so much knowledge of software and legal rules, as well as the ability to deal with large quantities of people who have widely variable mental states. that it’s difficult to discern why a segment of society would withhold the designation of “professional” to their job title.
I’ve had many professional positions that were the mental equivalent of lifting bricks. Yet there I was, an accepted professional.
The word professional deviated permanently from its Latin origins the moment it was adapted by a class system. Unfortunately, commercial and professional have become synonymous. Now, “professional” is used to differentiate jobs that look hard from jobs that look easy. It’s for those who only look at book covers and don’t like to read.
I can only speak as an American, of course, where the words “professional ethics” are usually said with sarcasm. It’s all about money. Always, especially with doctors, lawyers, and many other professions that are pursued by many for their status and salary. An ethical lawyer will be the first one to figure out how to bend the truth if the price is right. The doctors here see as many patients as possible, spending less and less time with each one, not out of ethics and professional responsibility, but for (let’s all say it together) money.
Teachers, thankfully, remain the most self-sacrificing of workers. They certainly aren’t in it for the money. They are more like saints than professionals.
I assume an unethical janitor could kill you as easily as an unethical doctor, if the janitor were to improperly dispose of deadly chemical waste or spread bacteria everywhere by doing a sloppy job.
I hope both are professional.
I certainly hope so.