Hobbyist/Enthusiast vs. Pro

[orionz06]

Passion for the craft is the answer, or one of them, but is there an activity or skill out there that is both a hobby and profession where the professional is more than marginally better on average?

Shooting as an example has most serious enthusiasts shooting much better than LE and military, on average.

Photography is a big one where enthusiasts, with film disappearing, are more often than not better than most pros who take money in exchange for pics.

Detailing has most enthusiasts doing much better than pros though there needs to be some distinction between the local chevy dealer and an exotic dealer. I also know Skyline1 appears to work at a dealer that is much different than what is around here.

Any others?

[jon volk]

Race car fabrication would be one. Any idiot can do it, but to do it well is another story.

[Joe in PNG]

It can be funny, but sometimes a skilled amateur will wind up going professional- a lot of semi-professional luthiers (guitar makers) started off as amateurs making their own stuff... and then a buddy also wanted a guitar, and next thing you know... you're not exactly famous, and definitely not rich, but you're sure busy.

[orionz06]

I was gonna mention stuff like that. The difference between a "pro" and amateur is sometimes a record deal or a sponsorship and nothing more.

[JV_]

Part of the difference is producing a product to sell, and making something for yourself.

I can spend an hour in Lightroom fixing a picture, I want it to be perfect. But the concept of good-enough has to be used when you're trying to make a living and you can't charge enough to make it perfect/worthwhile.

[cmoore]

Passion for the craft is the answer, or one of them, but is there an activity or skill out there that is both a hobby and profession where the professional is more than marginally better on average?

Shooting as an example has most serious enthusiasts shooting much better than LE and military, on average.



Although all LE and military use firearms to some extent, I don't consider them pro firearm users. Firearms are just tools incidental to their jobs and most spend far too little time working on their firearms proficiency.

Professional shooter examples in my view are the competition shooters who are fully sponsored and that is their main job. Or, someone like Todd Green who teaches firearms as a full time job. Most of these folks shoot a lot better than I, the hobbyist, do - most LE and military don't.

[Nik the Greek]

Although all LE and military use firearms to some extent, I don't consider them pro firearm users. Firearms are just tools incidental to their jobs and most spend far too little time working on their firearms proficiency.

Professional shooter examples in my view are the competition shooters who are fully sponsored and that is their main job. Or, someone like Todd Green who teaches firearms as a full time job. Most of these folks shoot a lot better than I, the hobbyist, do - most LE and military don't.

Todd himself said that those professions require a broad skillset beyond shooting though. Do anything long enough with a drive toward improving and you'll do it very well. I think I read somewhere that an estimated 10k hours practicing a skill will yield world class results for most people.

One thing amateurs tend to benefit from is specialization.

[MikeyC]

Part of the difference is producing a product to sell, and making something for yourself.
I can spend an hour in Lightroom fixing a picture, I want it to be perfect. But the concept of good-enough has to be used when you're trying to make a living and you can't charge enough to make it perfect/worthwhile.

I think this is a lot of the separation right here. I can spend 3 hours patching and painting a fist size hole in my drywall and you'd never know it was there. But at my employers charging rate of 80.00 and hour most customers wanted it patched and done in an hour or less. I can do that, but you'll have to settle for good enough.

[orionz06]

Part of the difference is producing a product to sell, and making something for yourself.

I can spend an hour in Lightroom fixing a picture, I want it to be perfect. But the concept of good-enough has to be used when you're trying to make a living and you can't charge enough to make it perfect/worthwhile.

I can see that but there are some really bad photographers out there charging $2k a wedding producing results far worse than "good enough". The concept of good enough is used but the scale is way off. Those with too low of a bar are the ones I am talking about.

[Dagga Boy]

"Shooting"....sure, give it to the dedicated hobbyist. "Gunfighting" (fighting while armed with guns is also a similar activity)....whole different ballgame. There is a very limited number of those who have proven themselves good at this (as opposed to lucky) who are not in a job to put themselves into the position to be likely to be engaged in this activity, AND it comes with a ton of risk of injury or death to get "good" at it.

[orionz06]

"Shooting"....sure, give it to the dedicated hobbyist. "Gunfighting" (fighting while armed with guns is also a similar activity)....whole different ballgame. There is a very limited number of those who have proven themselves good at this (as opposed to lucky) who are not in a job to put themselves into the position to be likely to be engaged in this activity, AND it comes with a ton of risk of injury or death to get "good" at it.

I agree, and without trying to make it a 100% shooting/gun thing there should be a vested interest in being good at shooting for a person who may see a gunfight on the job. I'm not getting at all cops should give Bob Vogel a run for his money but some should be a little more interested than shooting one 60 round qualification a year.

*I am purposely trying to avoid the shooting vs gunfight thing as well. We likely agree but that is a thread not worth having.*




Another one is fitness. The "pro" personal trainer types with an internet cert or a cert from some program know enough. The meatheads know that much and more, bro-science excluded.

Cars and mechanics is another. Techs at the VW dealer I go to have an idea, the local VAG group guys can recite tech bulletins that are not "public" and can fix/diagnose stuff faster.

[R.M.T.]

Pistolsmithing, some of the stuff that come out of the other forums, is truly disturbing. Just cause you own a Dremel and fit a drop-in grip safety doesn't mean that you are a pistolsmith.

[MDS]

I think the best amateurs are often better than pros because the best amateurs do it to the best of their ability, rather than optimizing their performance for maximum return on their time/effort/investment.

I think another huge factor is barriers to entry. If you need $1M in equipment just to get started, and/or permission from NASA or the NRC, then the professionals are probably going to enjoy a slight edge... This is ultimately why I quit physics and stuck with computers. When there's that much money involved just to get started, the politics are more important than the science in terms of even being able to do anything, let alone anything good.

Of the emerging NBIC technologies, only InfoTech has a low entry barrier. So a lot of amateur infotech people are better than the pros. AFAIK, the rest - nano, biotech, and cognition - require too much investment just to start off, for various reasons. So there aren't many amateurs.

Robotics is becoming cheaper every day, you've seen amateurs starting to compete with the pros there for some years now - that's because much of the state of the art is pure infotech. As the pros make more progress with the artificial congnition side, I'm hoping that will become cheaper to get into as well. I'm also hoping by the time my kid is old enough to want a chemistry set, they'll have a nanotech version and a biotech/genetics lab version, at least. While I'm hoping, I may as well also hope for a Clinch Pick to show up in my mailbox tomorrow. ;)

[MDS]

Pistolsmithing, some of the stuff that come out of the other forums, is truly disturbing. Just cause you own a Dremel and fit a drop-in grip safety doesn't mean that you are a pistolsmith.

Yeah, but man, that goes for the pro's, too! There is some foul stuff coming out of some pro gun smithies...

[TCinVA]

Professional status doesn't really mean anything any more. The fact that someone spends at least 40 hours a week doing something doesn't mean they are any good at it.

Plenty of teachers can't teach.
Plenty of cops can't do a reasonable job of basic police work.
Plenty of "managers" don't understand the difference between getting a certification in being a facilitator of the seven highly efficient habits of effective people and actually being a leader.
Plenty of mechanics are unable to use their own diagnostic equipment or perform work that doesn't involve breaking something else.

...and we could go on and on.

[TGS]

Professional status doesn't really mean anything any more. The fact that someone spends at least 40 hours a week doing something doesn't mean they are any good at it.

I think we have different definitions on what professional status is, as well. I wouldn't call somebody a professional just because they work 40 hours a week.

US Marine? Professional warfighter. King Abduls Most Loyal Excellence of Heart and Fervor Conscripts Regiment?

no.

[BLR]

Professional status largely means licensure today. Licensure follows a specialized education overseen by the professional organization (AMA, NSPE, and so on).

Medical doctors, to call themselves doctors to the public, are licensed.

Similarly lawyers.

Similarly engineers.

Similarly nurses, and so on.

The alternate definition of "professional" merely states that someone is engaging in a job for financial gains. That is more relevant to the "professional" vs "amateur."

From my perspective, the mark of a professional, regardless of the profession, is the pursuit of continuing education and betterment. Some people have a disposition for that, some do not.

ETA - Amen, Mario! There is some real 1911 butchery going on out there under the guise as recognized "professional" 'smithing. :(

[orionz06]

Licensure largely serves as a barrier to keep the less dedicated out. I suspect if there were live sure requirements for any of the activities mentioned the things that lead me to the post wouldn't exist in such a large scale.

[Odin Bravo One]

Although all LE and military use firearms to some extent, I don't consider them pro firearm users. Firearms are just tools incidental to their jobs and most spend far too little time working on their firearms proficiency.

Professional shooter examples in my view are the competition shooters who are fully sponsored and that is their main job. Or, someone like Todd Green who teaches firearms as a full time job. Most of these folks shoot a lot better than I, the hobbyist, do - most LE and military don't.

Shooting is also my hobby, so I have managed to, over many years, put some distance in proficiency between myself and my peers. However, there isn't a "shooter" on the planet that I would choose to have watching my back in a shooting situation over one of said peers. When it comes to use of deadly force, there is far more to it than simply marksmanship and gunhandling. And perhaps in some minds, military and LE spend far too little time on firearms proficiency. But when the job requires much more than just shooting, choices have to be made. There are skills required by our military that require far more training and practice to get and remain proficient than shooting. Failure to maintain an extremely high level of proficiency in those other areas is also much more likely to result in death, or serious permanent injury than something as simple and straight forward as a gunfight.

[Dagga Boy]

I agree, and without trying to make it a 100% shooting/gun thing there should be a vested interest in being good at shooting for a person who may see a gunfight on the job. I'm not getting at all cops should give Bob Vogel a run for his money but some should be a little more interested than shooting one 60 round qualification a year.

*I am purposely trying to avoid the shooting vs gunfight thing as well. We likely agree but that is a thread not worth having.*



Oh, why are we going to avoid that one? Like Sean M., my hobby is shooting, which translated well to my profession. In my profession, I carried a gun as a lethal force and human management tool.

I am on my way to "gouge people" at the gunshow, but I will address this more when I get home.

[orionz06]

They are different things and gun fighting isn't a hobby in the sense of my question. My original point can exist without shooting as well, it just so happens we are all here because of it.

Baking is a unique one. More often than not you see good enough and need to go to the hobbyist to get great. Often hobbyists branch out to make a little cash.

[R.M.T.]

Yeah, but man, that goes for the pro's, too! There is some foul stuff coming out of some pro gun smithies...

Ok, I will make this more specific, most true pros are American Pistolsmithing Gild, which if you look at the standards are pretty tough. There are people who claim to be pro's but it is pretty they are just full of...you get the picture.

I have to give credit to the "amateurs", that are some damn good guys who don't try to make a living at it.

I hope this clarifies my position, and you are right there are some awful "pro's" out there as well.

[Dagga Boy]

"Shooting as an example has most serious enthusiasts shooting much better than LE and military, on average"

This was brought up in this context, so I get the impression that this started out as a "cops can't shoot for crap" and enthusists are simply awesome. That is why I brought up gunfighting, and then all of sudden its not about that. Here is the reality-94% of cops will never be in a shooting. How "important" is "shooting" vs. "people management" with a gun. In this regard, they are Much better than the enthusiast who is totally untested. Also, there is a huge difference between those hobby shooters at a place like this forum, and the rest of the shooting public.....who in my humble opinion are far worse than most cops both shooting and with gun handling (and both are fairly pathetic in most of our minds here).

With anything, you can get real good with a single focus on one skill. As a cop, I was serious about a lot of skills. I was a fairly accomplished shooter, and have won multiple gunfights and lots of trophies. I can drive far better than a 99% of the population, have been in pursuits that looked like Ronin, and with that same skillset have maxed that speed allowed at the Nascar track in Fontana without being a actual NASCAR driver. I spent 40 hours a week on a Mountain Bike at one point as my full time cop job. I not only have choked out guys while balancing on a bike and using my other hand to secure a sawed off rifle in the guys pants (big difference than the road rider balancing at a stoplight), as well as setting downhill speeds within 10 mph of the World Champion on the Kamikaze Downhill at Mammoth (I may also still hold the nighttime speed record). I learned to fly a jet turbine helicopter, and have been in far more fights than most "martial artists". Cops do lots of shit while carrying a gun and shooting rarely is the result of most encounters. Soldiers do a ton of crap that doesn't involve "shooting". Very few ever get into extensive combat. With that said, many soldiers know lots of things that hobby shoots never will.

We could almost use the "why are knife fighting hobby guys so much better than surgeons in knife fighting". The guy who spends his life in a Filipino Martial Arts program may look fricking wicked with a knife, while a "professional" cutter like a surgeon doesn't know much about different katas and movements. With that said..........when the day comes that either may have to use a knife to protect themself, I wouldn't bet against the guy who has spent a lifetime cutting flesh, is unfazed by blood, knows where vital organs REALLY are and how to cut them, and is used to people being a piece of meat. Then there is the guy who can really move a knife around fast and is competent in deploying it in a sterile environment, but may not really do well when his first real cut is in the middle of a fight.

[rob_s]

Nyeti, I think you're looking for criticism where there is none. However, I also don't consider a typical street cop as a professional in regard to any one of the multitude of skills theoretically required for the job either. A full time cop is a professional cop, not a professional shooter, driver, fighter, biker, secretary, etc. even though he may use all of those skills in the performance of his duties. I wrote a lot of emails at work, but that doesn't make me an IT pro, or a professional typist.

That said, the only professional shooters in my mind are those that are paid to shoot and only shoot, which means virtually no cops or mil and limits the pool to sponsored competition shooters only. Given that, there are precious few non-professional shooters that can keep up with a pro without throwing in qualifiers like "because gunfight" or "because mindset".

Several of the other examples used here, such as cooking, are similar to the cop example in that a chef/owner or baker/owner has to deal with a lot more than just the kitchen and, just like a professional performer, can be financially successful thanks to shrewd marketing, being in the right place at the right time, having the right friends, aesthetics over performance, etc.

What's better, the cop that has won dozens of gunfights, or the cop who has never been in a gunfight because he has better situational awareness and better verbal skills? As a taxpayer, I say the latter.

[TGS]

Nyeti, I think you're looking for criticism where there is none. However, I also don't consider a typical street cop as a professional in regard to any one of the multitude of skills theoretically required for the job either. A full time cop is a professional cop, not a professional shooter, driver, fighter, biker, secretary, etc. even though he may use all of those skills in the performance of his duties. I wrote a lot of emails at work, but that doesn't make me an IT pro, or a professional typist.

That said, the only professional shooters in my mind are those that are paid to shoot and only shoot, which means virtually no cops or mil and limits the pool to sponsored competition shooters only. Given that, there are precious few non-professional shooters that can keep up with a pro without throwing in qualifiers like "because gunfight" or "because mindset".

100% what I was thinking.

I'm amazed at how many people I meet who don't realize what else goes into being in the military other than guns and shooting...roughly 1/5 of troops in the Army are even infantry at that. And within the infantry, not all of them have the job of pulling the trigger on a rifle......and hardly any of them at all are expected to use a pistol.

Professional and amateur shooters don't practice load plans for an ambush, patrolling, the finer points of machine gun employment (read: science) such as plunging indirect fire, memorize 9-lines or learn how to compose and brief an op-order. They don't know what a supporting effort is and how it effects the main effort, nor can they articulate what a base unit is let alone know how to use it. How about implicit vs explicit communication with team members? Non-existent. A professional shooter doesn't utilize overlapping fields of fire, machine gun cards, or even buddy rushes. A professional shooter doesn't revolve his mission around an intent, rather than a simple, specific task.

All of what I wrote is basic stuff, as well. Very basic. And that's only the infantry. If you're not in the infantry, guess what? Your job is supporting those infantry.

An infantryman is not a professional shooter. He's an infantryman. A professional shooter is some dude/dudette that likes to run around other dudes/dudettes on the weekend while wearing tight spandex shirts with logos. An infantryman is someone who locates, closes with, and destroys the enemy through fire and maneuver or repels their assault through fire and close combat. For the most part, in modern conventional warfare the trigger-pullers are mostly there as defense to the combined arms team as a whole...whether a troop can do a sub-7s FAST vs a 12s FAST is just about as irrelevant to being an infantryman as you can get in the grand scheme of things. A platoon of Rob Leathams will lose every single god-damn time against a squad of infantry in combat, because they know nothing about being an infantryman. An infantryman will never beat Rob Leatham on the range, because he doesn't spend all day shooting. He spends all day practicing to be an infantryman.

And that's just the infantry. Labeling the hot, nerdy LCpl IT wizard geek from S-6 or the heavy airlift mechanic as professional shooters is.....yah. You get the point.

[Dagga Boy]

I usually refer to cops, some military and others in similar jobs as "professional gun carriers" as that is a much more descriptive of what they do.

"What's better, the cop that has won dozens of gunfights, or the cop who has never been in a gunfight because he has better situational awareness and better verbal skills? As a taxpayer, I say the latter".

I am going to take some real exception to the above simply out of facts and not a personal attack on you, because I think it is a lack of not being in this world. I will give an illustration that I think will make much better sense.

As a cop, I was one of those guys who worked weekend nights almost my entire career. I never had a desk job and had a rare rank that required 17 years of street time with no desk work to attain. I wanted to be the first guy to every hot call, I was always in trouble for low tickets and low misdemeanor arrests, yet was literally "off the chart" for speed of response time to in progress felony calls, in progress felony arrests, and was usually at or requested for any high risk situations involving armed suspects. Chances are much higher for someone like me to get in a shooting just by shear numbers of "chances". This is true of many aggressive workers who like hunting predatory human animals. I like hunting armed people:p, which is not the smartest of things to "enjoy". I know plenty of guys just like me who have never gotten in a shooting just because the cards never fell that way, not because of some amazing situational awareness or verbal skills (trust me, on a two way range, you should always avoid it coming to getting shot at). Now, I also worked with a majority of cops who drove really slow to hot calls, and as a flight officer in a helo (where we were on most hot calls first), I have watched several cops drive in circles around the block of a violent in progress felony to avoid getting there first and being alone and would wait till a couple of the "meat-eaters" got on scene first before "arriving". We had many who were always the first to volunteer for "perimeter" or "traffic control" on many hot calls. These were not like "my kind" of cops who drive over a 100 mph with a pistol to go try to get in a gunfight......not tactically sound, but they are truly the thin blue line. Truthfully, 10% of L/E is doing the dangerous stuff a lot as much as possible (these also tend to be "good" shooters and exceptional tacticians).

Now lets switch to my jobs in VIP and high threat protection. In this case I pride myself on having only had to deploy a firearm a couple of times. Verbal and situational awareness skills are really the key because you are trying to avoid trouble at all costs. Many cops do great in this kind of work because they know what "trouble" looks and smells like...the key is to re-train them to avoid it;). These are the skills that most citizens (not in jobs where people call 911 to have you come to there crisis) should be trying to mimic in their daily lives, and honestly the shooting skills of both should be on the same plane on how they are used. How I trained for protection work (CONUS only) was much closer to what many here are doing than what I did as a cop.

Hopefully, this will paint a better picture and get to more of an apples to apples comparison.

[Dagga Boy]

TGS, we were typing at the same time.....good post and I wholly agree.

[JM Campbell]

Gee golly I guess I'll put my .02 in;

In my situation I am only as good as my final product, in these days of subcontracting to save money from in-house employees expenses I have to do the best that I can to preserve not only my job but that of the welfare of my shop staff, this in turn creates my higher standards and expectations. I've always strived to do the best (stems from good upbringing) and am passionate about what I do, not just that but prideful of what I can do and do right.

Hobbyists generally have nothing to loose and can fixate on tasks without reprisal or consequences.

Pro's have a harder line, it has to be done to a quoted "standard" that involves reprisals and consequences.

ETA:
I truly think it has more to do about character and self-worth. What makes anyone good at anything? Dedication to the goal and the fortitude to accomplish it, hobbyists and pro's share that (unfortunately not all of them).

[KeeFus]

Now that Ive got some caffeine in my veins I will toss in my $.02.

I worked for years just doing the basic qualification. I usually could turn in high 90's or a 100 on them so I never really worried about it. In 2007/2008 I really started shooting IDPA and came to enjoy it. I began to practice more at home, which included those mundane dry fire drills as well as more frequent trips to the range praticing movement, drawing, transitions, etc. I am confident that all of that helped me win my gunfight. A lot of folks that have reviewed it say I was lucky, and I do not disagree with that statement. But there is something missing from that statement as well. It's mindset. Winning in any event, whether it be as an enthusiast or as a Pro or as a mil/LEO, is about mindset.

Every year I watch folks on the firing line at once a year qualifications raise their hand if they have a malfunction. My thoughts are always WTF?! You do not usually see that at a USPSA or IDPA event. Now, if the weapon suffers a breakage of some sort the competitor will say so (usually) and move on. From my experience over the past 18 years with watching cops shoot qualifications very, and I mean very few can fix a malfunction and continue on. Our weapons do not usually break because they dont get shot all that much. So, we are left with the ability to function under stress to the list.

Mindset and stress management are key in both arenas. I truly believe that I came through my event not only by luck but by mindset and being able to handle the stress of the moment. I believe that all those drills and practice sessions helped me win. I have seen cops dodge calls, take the long way to calls, wait down the road from calls, the list goes on which leads me to believe that those folks do not have the mindset or coping skills to deal with the situation. Mention going to the range to these folks and its like you have just asked them to pull off a finger nail, with the questioned look on their face asking why? I have told a few folks that I have trained to go back to doing what ever they were doing pre-LEO just because I could see a train wreck in their, or possibly another LEO's, future. I still, after 18 years, like the hot calls and will run through hell with gasoline drawers on to get to one...then take my precious time going to those that are less desireable and look to be BS. I dont know why but its just that way.

So, do I think that someone who is an enthusiast that shoots a match once a month can perform better and possibly shoot better than a mil/LEO who only shoots when they have too? Absolutely. They have performed (draw, shoot, move, perform malfunction drill, transition) under simulated stress. They ahve put hours upon hours of practice into it whereas a LEO puts in 8 hours a year. But then it comes back to mindset and a willingness to press that trigger when its time to press it. Not very many can/will do it until its likely almost too late.

[orionz06]

Any other fields that seem to have hobbyists and "professionals"? I should have never mentioned shooting because that is all people seem to think this is about.

Skyline1 touched on another "why" and that is time. I have all the time in the world to piss around with one image, as JV said, a paid wedding photographer has a deadline and hundreds of proofs to deal with. I have all day or two weekend days to play around with a major correction on the daily driver vehicles, my friends making money detailing have major constraints with time. I recently helped one out and saw some major "good enough" going on. One of the things mentioned from him was that he had a solid baseline of how well the cars would look for each level.

[jetfire]

Any other fields that seem to have hobbyists and "professionals"? I should have never mentioned shooting because that is all people seem to think this is about.

Writing. I was a hobbyist writer until I started getting paid for it, then suddenly I was a professional. Checks make you change your entire thought process about the words you put down on paper. A hobbyist will frequently write things that are better writing than what I'll write, but they won't be good for publishing.

[Dagga Boy]

Writing. I was a hobbyist writer until I started getting paid for it, then suddenly I was a professional. Checks make you change your entire thought process about the words you put down on paper. A hobbyist will frequently write things that are better writing than what I'll write, but they won't be good for publishing.

Even though I get paid, I still consider myself a "hobby gun-writer". I always said I was a hobby gun-writer and professional LEO, while many gun-writers were hobby cops and professional gun-writers.

[MDS]

Writing. I was a hobbyist writer until I started getting paid for it


Even though I get paid, I still consider myself a "hobby gun-writer"

That's probably why nyeti's stuff is better than caleb's. <ducks> ;)

[jetfire]

That's probably why nyeti's stuff is better than caleb's. <ducks> ;)

I learned a long time ago that the only literary criticism that matters reads "pay to the order of."

[R.M.T.]

Welding, the distinction between a hobbyist and professional, is huge and very black and white. The standard is very high, and the craziest part is that you can be a professional one day and one weld later a hobbyist.

FYI: This is in reference to jobs are based on nearly exclusively welding not other jobs that, include welding.

[rob_s]

I learned a long time ago that the only literary criticism that matters reads "pay to the order of."

Which probably also typifies the difference between the pro and the hobbyist. Once the only thing that matters is the money it turns into not much more than a whoring situation.

After years and years on the interwebs I've watched multiple people unwittingly go through the transformation. Most don't even realize it.

[orionz06]

Welding, the distinction between a hobbyist and professional, is huge and very black and white. The standard is very high, and the craziest part is that you can be a professional one day and one weld later a hobbyist.

FYI: This is in reference to jobs are based on nearly exclusively welding not other jobs that, include welding.

How so?

[Keydet08]

Is it not possible to be both?

Using definitions from the 1828 Webster's definition and substituting amateur for its synonym hobbyist

AMATEU'R, n. [L. anator, a lover, from amo, to love.]

A person attached to a particular pursuit, study or science, as to music or painting; one who has a taste for the arts.

PROFES'SIONAL, a. Pertaining to a profession or to a calling; as professional studies, pursuits, duties,engagements; professional character or skill.

PROFES'SION, n. [L. professio.]

2. The business which one professes to understand and to follow for subsistence; calling; vocation; employment; as the learned professions. We speak of the profession of a clergyman, of a lawyer, and of a physician or surgeon; the profession of lecturer on chimistry or mineralogy. But the word is not applied to an occupation merely mechanical.

By these definitions one could be an amateur, a professional, or both. Certainly one who enjoys what he does for a living and seeks to be the best at it will be better than one who simply does enough to get by. If you are skilled in multiple areas and make better money in one than than you would be a "hobbyist" in that lesser paying skill, but that doesn't mean that you aren't good at it.

[Joe in PNG]

I once read a description of a pro golfer as being one who could contain his score while playing badly. In other words, consistency is a part of what separates pros from amateurs. To be able to perform at a good level while under a time constraint, even during a bad day.

A nonshooting example: Jeremy Clarkson is a fast driver with lots of experience driving some awesome cars... but as even he will admit, he can't produce consistent lap times on demand. So, they tamed a racing driver for that very purpose. Now some say he has hypnotic control over anyone named "Steve"... but all we know is he's called "the Stig"...

[R.M.T.]

How so?


Welding in the genres that I am familiar with, including oil line, and major coal fired boilers, you have to certify to even be considered for the job. The certs are extensive very hard and the margin of error is little to none. As to my comments about the margin of being the professional in the field, almost all projects are on a contract basis (even the major ones), if they are inefficient or lack rough field work capabilities they will be removed and replaced because its easier to find a new welder then suffer the consequences later on of poor job performance. Welder are the king of the workers in the field, or so to speak, they have people who do every bit of prep work so that they just have to weld. Again this is in terms of welding in genres that I know, where standards are very high. This may even apply to people who work in fabrication shops and other industries that require welding, it would surprise me if other industries didn't have similar standards to that of boiler making and pipe welding. If you have any insights please give them if you will?

I guess the point to be made is that "professionals" are just people that work in a given profession, whether they are good or bad doesn't matter they are in the sense that I described, professionals. My point is there are people who are held to a coded standard and there the people who aren't. There are most certainly people who are better welders then the "pro's" that don't have the certifications, there for they will likely not work in that given profession.

[jetfire]

Which probably also typifies the difference between the pro and the hobbyist. Once the only thing that matters is the money it turns into not much more than a whoring situation.

After years and years on the interwebs I've watched multiple people unwittingly go through the transformation. Most don't even realize it.

You say "whoring" like it's a bad thing.

[Dagga Boy]

Which probably also typifies the difference between the pro and the hobbyist. Once the only thing that matters is the money it turns into not much more than a whoring situation.

After years and years on the interwebs I've watched multiple people unwittingly go through the transformation. Most don't even realize it.


I just talked to a fellow paid hobby gun-writer, professional LEO who writes for many of the same entities I do. We were laughing how every time we write an article it costs us a fortune. I pretty much write about stuff I am actually using, have thoroughly tested, and have purchased out of pocket. I simply don't do gun reviews. There are plenty of guys who do a great job of having people send them stuff to write about. So, yes I now get paid for my articles, but to me they are more of a journalistic reporting than something I get paid to write. I write because I enjoy it. To get paid for some of my expenses and write some stuff off on my taxes is all I am really looking for. Others need to feed their families, or their lively hood depends on them writing, and that is fine too and I have no issues with it. In reality, they are probably much better at the entire process (professional) than I am, while I just focus on a small area that I am passionate about (amateur).