What’s Your Profession?

Have you ever worked on a project with a dilettante? Also known as hack, poseur, amateur, or layman.

Notable examples include the hobbyist photographer: dropped $700+ on a who-gives-a-shit-megapixel digital SLR and think they’re Thomas Hawk because they’ve taken a few shots on their last exotic all-inclusive family resort vacation. The would-be copywriter: launched their very own blog (bravo for you!); writing an e-book off and on for the last 7-years or so, a mediocre collection of short stories loosely based on their childhood experiences (yawn). The weekend designer: took a few art classes back in high school, dabbles in logos and rustic illustrations; designed the invitations for their cousin’s wedding. The ‘hack’ web developer: prefers not to work with raw mark-up, but rather drag n’ drop graphically-oriented templates; couldn’t write a line of code if their life depended upon it.

These people bring to mind a scene in the film 300.

King Leonidas, leader of the Spartan army, marching into battle against the Persians is approached by one of his allies Daxos and his cobbled-together band of Arcadian men. Daxos upon seeing that Leonidas has assembled a mere 300 soldiers and who will inevitably be facing more than 100,000 of king Xerxes’ men feels Sparta’s chances of successfully defending their country’s border are grim at best.
King Leonidas, undeterred by Daxos’ cowardly remarks, says that he has brought more soldiers than the seemingly larger Arcadian contingency, pointing out that Daxos’ so-called army are not soldiers but rather sculptors, potters and blacksmiths and who are hopelessly unprepared for the looming battle at hand.