Professionals
Visiting a different part of the city, it’s increasingly obvious that different areas are home to different tribes. For instance, in the City itself, you get an awful lot of people and bicycles. This is not, I suspect, because they can’t afford the bus fare. Looking at the bikes and the freshness of the lycra that these people sport as they pass in a day-glo swoosh, this is a two-wheeled tribe that have decided that public transport is simply not for them, possibly because they do not wish to become contaminated with poor.
Then there are men who look normal, except on their feet they have trainers in clown-shoe colours with soles of a thickness that would not look out of place in the glam rock era. That’s right. Men. Wearing trainers to work. What next, lip balm and hair conditioner?
The City is home to Professionals, making their way to work with the same sort of purposeful intent you see insects exhibiting in nature documentaries.
Traditionally the definition of a professional is somebody who gets paid for what they do but lately I’ve been thinking that there’s more to it than that. A mini-cab driver is paid for their work, but so is Lewis Hamilton and I know which of the two better defines the term ‘professional driver’. Of course, this does not mean that you would want Lewis Hamilton as your mini-cab driver, as his habit of stopping for new tyres three times every trip might prove inconvenient, as might his habit of grabbing his fare’s bottle of fizz, shaking it up and spraying it all over the place every time he dropped somebody off at a party.
Roughly, only 3% of people who get paid to do something are expert enough in it to be called ‘professional’ in the true sense of the word. Normally, the deficiencies of the remaining 97% go unnoticed because they work in HR, or B&Q, or somewhere else with initials instead of a name.
Hence, I propose that the definition for professional be: somebody who earns enough to afford a pool and a hot partner, or can change a fucking till roll unaided.
Lawyers are a good example of multi-tiered professionalism. For reasons far too dull to go into I’ve been wandering past the Old Bailey on a regular basis recently and, because the only thing I dislike more than huge corporations are bloody protestors trying to tell me where to drink my coffee, I’ve been popping into Starbucks for my java and really, really, enjoying it (secret recipe: full fat milk, one shot of Big Coffee and a pinch of guilt).
Obviously, there is the standard issue Man With A Beard writing something on his Apple Mac but in the Starbucks near the Old Bailey you also get trios of lawyers clustered round those little tables the size of mushrooms. One has a laptop, one has a file, one has a mobile, all three have worried expressions and no wonder, in twenty minutes they are due in court and this is their prep. There is evidence of muffin consumption.
Meanwhile, and example of the REAL professional was already standing outside the Court. She has adopted the ‘pissed off raven’ look that all successful female barristers acquire when they reach the tipping point of assurance in their profession, with wig, gown and black tights it’s a look they lifted from Patricia Hodge in ‘Rumpole’ but have made their own with the simple addition of a fag. Yes, while the boys and girls are in Starbucks drinking latte and green tea, the real deal is having their breakfast Benson & Hedges without even smirching the slash of red lipstick that proves they can be a successful lawyer and a woman too.
This then is the lawyer you want if you’re in a tight spot. The Starbucks Three are not the team you want defending you if you are facing a ten stretch being banged up in a cell with someone they call ‘The Fairy With The Enormous Cock’. If you’re in trouble, you want your lawyers at the very least to be a) pounding fags and espresso or b) from off telly.
Then there are men who look normal, except on their feet they have trainers in clown-shoe colours with soles of a thickness that would not look out of place in the glam rock era. That’s right. Men. Wearing trainers to work. What next, lip balm and hair conditioner?
The City is home to Professionals, making their way to work with the same sort of purposeful intent you see insects exhibiting in nature documentaries.
Traditionally the definition of a professional is somebody who gets paid for what they do but lately I’ve been thinking that there’s more to it than that. A mini-cab driver is paid for their work, but so is Lewis Hamilton and I know which of the two better defines the term ‘professional driver’. Of course, this does not mean that you would want Lewis Hamilton as your mini-cab driver, as his habit of stopping for new tyres three times every trip might prove inconvenient, as might his habit of grabbing his fare’s bottle of fizz, shaking it up and spraying it all over the place every time he dropped somebody off at a party.
Roughly, only 3% of people who get paid to do something are expert enough in it to be called ‘professional’ in the true sense of the word. Normally, the deficiencies of the remaining 97% go unnoticed because they work in HR, or B&Q, or somewhere else with initials instead of a name.
Hence, I propose that the definition for professional be: somebody who earns enough to afford a pool and a hot partner, or can change a fucking till roll unaided.
Lawyers are a good example of multi-tiered professionalism. For reasons far too dull to go into I’ve been wandering past the Old Bailey on a regular basis recently and, because the only thing I dislike more than huge corporations are bloody protestors trying to tell me where to drink my coffee, I’ve been popping into Starbucks for my java and really, really, enjoying it (secret recipe: full fat milk, one shot of Big Coffee and a pinch of guilt).
Obviously, there is the standard issue Man With A Beard writing something on his Apple Mac but in the Starbucks near the Old Bailey you also get trios of lawyers clustered round those little tables the size of mushrooms. One has a laptop, one has a file, one has a mobile, all three have worried expressions and no wonder, in twenty minutes they are due in court and this is their prep. There is evidence of muffin consumption.
Meanwhile, and example of the REAL professional was already standing outside the Court. She has adopted the ‘pissed off raven’ look that all successful female barristers acquire when they reach the tipping point of assurance in their profession, with wig, gown and black tights it’s a look they lifted from Patricia Hodge in ‘Rumpole’ but have made their own with the simple addition of a fag. Yes, while the boys and girls are in Starbucks drinking latte and green tea, the real deal is having their breakfast Benson & Hedges without even smirching the slash of red lipstick that proves they can be a successful lawyer and a woman too.
This then is the lawyer you want if you’re in a tight spot. The Starbucks Three are not the team you want defending you if you are facing a ten stretch being banged up in a cell with someone they call ‘The Fairy With The Enormous Cock’. If you’re in trouble, you want your lawyers at the very least to be a) pounding fags and espresso or b) from off telly.
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