Cynical, But I Think I Believe It Now

I've been thinking about certain connotations of "amateur" and "professional," characterized by "amateurish" who turn in half-assed and uncaring performances and "a real professional" who goes "above and beyond." I'm currently thinking:

The professional aspects of your job are those for which you get some reward or avoid some penalty: money, advancement, job security, or reputation leading to any of those, and should be based on a cold, hard look at cost/reward probabilities, along with your own personal scale of values that sets time/effort/unpleasantness versus the size and likelihood of the return.

Everything else you do for the love of it (sense of duty or accomplishment, belief in the Cause, etc): the very core of amateurism.

So, the next time you go to the DMV and deal with an unfire-able employee who has maxed out on his/her career progression and isn't looking at any possible profit-sharing arrangement? Say hello to the face of professionalism. Okay, and the flipside (the tail of professionalism) is the near-Platonic ideal of retail service represented by Nordstom - under instruction AND on commission.

And anyone who tell you otherwise is just a shill for the bosses who would LIKE you to go "above and beyond." Those guys believe in counting up your hypothetical karmic rewards as part of your benefits package, as an offset against anything real they'd otherwise have to give you. Why don't you tell management to get professional (in their sense) - pay you "above and beyond?"

But, of course, if they DO, well, by this definition they're amateurs as well - three cheers for the reciprocal agapic love in the workplace!