Trust me, I'm a professional

[ladyofastolat]

I was filling in a form today that would allow me to be let into prison (in a professional capacity, I hasten to add), and I need to attach three photos, all counter-signed by "someone with a professional qualification."

Yes, I know this is nothing new, but for some reason it really annoys me. I have a professional qualification. Pellinor has a professional qualification. We also regularly invite friends around and spend the weekend blowing their heads off. We spend weekends dancing, drinking, and singing every song known to man while collapsing slowly into the nearest gutter. Pellinor likes to conquer the world, and knows more than anyone ought to know about swords and armour. I like to be incredibly mean to defenceless fictional characters. The fact that we have professional qualifactions says nothing important about who we are. We could murder bunnies in our spare time, or be inveterate liars, or run a drugs ring out of our living room. Just because I'm a chartered librarian doesn't mean I can't be evil incarnate.

It just seems so old-fashioned, harking back to out-dated class issues, when your humble little farm hands and factory workers lived in a totally different world from the lofty local doctor or solicitor, and the middle and upper classes just knew beyond doubt that "their kind of people" were good chaps in every way, whose word could not be doubted. That isn't today. That isn't now. I don't like it, and want it to go away.

*sigh* I'm probably being very silly. Probably no-one else has a problem with this.

Comments

[hmmm-tea.livejournal.com]

professional qualifactions... ...chartered librarian

Are there actual librarian qualifications then?

What sort of thing do they cover? Generally stuff for public libraries or stuff that might be useful to other libraries too.

I've been given a library to look after at work and at the moment am generally making it up as I go along (or perhaps that should be I've been given a room full of books to turn into a library...), so if there's any courses that may give me a bit more guidance that I can suggest to my boss it would be good to know about them...

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

There are library qualifications, yes. Technically, you can only be called "a librarian" if you've got the qualifactions. Most people who work in libraries don't, though. You get the professional qualification by either doing a librarianship degree, or, as I did, doing a normal degree, working in a library for a bit, and then doing a post-graduate qualification (either full time, or part time, while continuing to work). This sets you up for work in any type of library, not just public.

Even after you've got that, you're only a "qualified librarian", not a "chartered librarian." To get chartership, you have to work for a few years, and write various reports on your professional development and learning experiences.

It's ten years since I did my post-grad course, and since then the only reading I've kept up with is stuff relevant to public libraries, so I can't advise on books or courses that would be useful to you. It could be useful to get in touch with CILIP. (http://www.cilip.org.uk/) That's the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals. I don't know if they do, but they might run brief overview courses, for people in your situation, who don't need a librarianship qualification, but just want some pointers to get you going in the right direction.

[parrot-knight.livejournal.com]

I entirely identify with your having this sort of problem. Professional qualifications have mushroomed - there is an optional university teaching diploma now (probably a good thing) which will probably become compulsory within a decade. When I was a finalist I strongly rejected any sort of career which involved a professional qualification - I was a strong believer in the myth of the general arts degree, or at least told myself that I was.

[nilsigma.livejournal.com]

You are right. The whole of our society is still riddled with these class distinctions, although the counter-signing bit has improved for passports at least. Tracking down a magistrate used to be quite hard!

Presumably the prison service has to be extra careful about who gets in, and who gets out! I would have thought they would have been more interested in a criminal record check than a dubious signature.

[pellegrina.livejournal.com]

I always stubbornly tick "professional" in those online surveys you sometimes get on online news sites, though it's plainly apparent that the compilers of the survey would not consider librarians to be "professionals" but some flavour of managers or administrators.

[chainmailmaiden]

When Bacchus was applying for the MW he had to have a personal letter of recommendation from another MW and also a personal reference from a civil servant. Fortunately we know several, so this wasn't a problem, but it seemed very strange they were so specific. I wonder what qualities they think civil servants have, that ordinary people don't have?