professional
Adjective

1. of a profession
2. taking part in an activity, such as sport or music, as a means of livelihood
3. displaying a high level of competence or skill: a professional and polished performance
4. undertaken or performed by people who are paid: professional golf

Noun

1. a professional person

Collins Essential English Dictionary 2nd Edition 2006 © HarperCollins Publishers 2004, 2006

To be “professional” is to be a person with a profession – a lawyer, a doctor, a carpenter, a printer, a programmer, an artist. One conforms to the standards of that profession – uses a code of best practice, maybe – is defined as having learned a skill, become a practitioner or an expert, maybe.

So what, exactly, does it mean when someone tells you that you need to be more professional? Have you noticed when you are given this directive, it hardly never comes with any parameters or guidelines? I have found it to be spoken in a throw-away vagary to put a subordinate in their place. I believe it is a form of passive aggressive insult when delivered without a course of action to improve one’s code of conduct or improve best practices. I have also found it most often spouted by those who are anything but superior in talent and skill.

What exactly does a manager mean when she suggests you dress “more professionally” – is she requiring you to emulate the fashion of the medical profession? Start wearing a lab coat and flat hospital sneakers. If you work in a hospital, fair enough – but what if you work at a telecommunications call centre? Maybe she means hot-pants are in order like the young ladies in the sex working profession? They’re professional, aren’t they? Of course, most of us know what she really means is she’d like you to cover more of your flesh than is showing presently, which is actually – now I think about it, given the sex-worker definition of “professional” – the exact opposite of what she’s asking you to do.

I heard a colleague on the telephone to a client recently saying the artwork sent through by client would have to be reworked so it looked “more professional”. If I had been on the other end of that telephone call, I would have been offended that this person to whom I had contracted work, was suggesting that my work wasn’t up to scratch, wasn’t good enough: that’s how I would interprete “unprofessional”. What my colleague meant of course was that the work did not adhere to the style guidelines and would need to be reworked before being published, but that’s not what he said. He said it was “unprofessional”.

In my opinion, the word “professional” used like this is such a sloppy, weak wrested, lazy use of the word and its use in this context is far too common in todays workplace. If your manager, or colleague is bandying the word “Professional” around without care for specifics, directives or its proper use: call him or her on it.

Otherwise I will, and I am not so diplomatic.