I have observed that, at some point in the last 20 or so years, interviewers started asking candidates about what they’re passionate about. It’s become, in my experience, one of the go-to questions from potential employers and, to a lesser degree (and my chagrin), clients.

It’s a tiresome inquiry, often intended to gauge one’s interest in the employer’s field and how little money a job-hunter will take in the name of pursuing one’s passions. It has nothing to do with assessing a candidate’s competency, skill sets, professional potential, or anything else that actually has an effect on their ability to do a job well.

There are, mind you, a few professions where passion is an aid. Writers and other artists working for themselves, should be willing to endure a certain amount of suffering, keeping in sight a larger goal, a bigger picture. Loving yourself and loving and having enough confidence in your work is invaluable when it comes to navigating the muddy waters of freelancing and contracting. Armed professionals — particularly those in law enforcement and the military — might also find that the day-to-day shitshow is made more tolerable by an adherence to a larger set of values: love of country, love of comrades and community, love of the profession of arms itself.

You’ll notice the operative words in the second to last paragraph above are “suffering” and “love.” Indeed, the Oxford English Dictionary gives the original meaning of passion as Christ-like suffering. It wasn’t used as a synonym for enthusiasm until the 16th century, but I highly doubt anyone was asking the local blacksmith’s apprentice if he was passionate about standing over a forge all day. So why the sudden interest in “passion?”

There may be valid reasons for asking this question, though I doubt anyone actually has them in mind when they’re asking it. It could be an inquiry into whether or not a candidate will fit in with the “company culture,” in which case you need only mimic the flattery and dimwittedness of those around you in order to survive. It may, like so many other interview questions, be a ham-fisted way of attempting to analyze your thought process: how you answer the question, rather than what your answer is. It may an attempt to ascertain your level of commitment to something you actually care about: an awkward way of seeing how hard you’ll work. It may be something that the interviewer read in a mass market paperback of 101 interview questions.

I tend to think that the actual reason for asking this question is that companies believe that a “passionate” employee will endure whatever agonies an organization throws at them: that they will suffer for the sake of the corporation, becoming martyrs for the greater cause of the company and smiling as they’re spoon-fed corporate bullshit. If nothing else, the candidate will give an indication of how willing they are to play these tedious games by how sincere-sounding their answer is.

I don’t take my passions to work with me. As a writer and editor who has worked for both extremely right-wing and extremely liberal media sites, I’ve had to leave as much of my political point of view as possible at home. As a business writer, I need to be able to see things as clearly as possible. As a branded content creator, I need to be able to understand both my client and my client’s audience, remembering that they are not necessarily the same thing. As a content and social media strategist, I have to be able to sift intelligence from data and change tactics when my strategies don’t accomplish my objectives. As a contractor, I need to be able to say “no,” negotiate pay, and respect my skills, my work, and my education as part and parcel of a profession: not a hobby, not a passion.

I am a professional, not a hobbyist.

Writing is my passion, yes. But when it comes to making money, that passion has to take a back seat to professionalism. It’s not about loving what I write about. It’s not about being passionate about business ventures overseas or selling scotch to new dads. It’s about delivering a product on-time that meets the demands of my clients and employers even when I know that those demands will utterly fail to reach their audiences because they haven’t done their jobs. I do my job quietly and let the cards fall where they may, knowing that I have delivered the best possible product.

I’ve never worked for a company I have loved and I am quite sure that I have never worked for a company that loved me.

In “An Irish Airman Foresees His Death,” William Butler Yeats writes:

I know that I shall meet my fate

Somewhere among the clouds above;

Those that I fight I do not hate

Those that I guard I do not love;

My country is Kiltartan Cross,

My countrymen Kiltartan’s poor,

No likely end could bring them loss

Or leave them happier than before.

Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,

Nor public man, nor cheering crowds,

A lonely impulse of delight

Drove to this tumult in the clouds;

I balanced all, brought all to mind,

The years to come seemed waste of breath,

A waste of breath the years behind

In balance with this life, this death.

Yeats’ airman may be the greatest fighter pilot of his time, but it’s not passion that drives him. It’s a “lonely impulse of delight,” entirely separate from love of country, love of community, or even a hatred of his opponents, that drives him into the “tumult in the clouds.” He is a professional. He sees his end — and his profession — clearly and faces it calmly with stoicism and resolve, not passion.

Embedded in an imaginary love of employer or not, passion is just one of many motivations. You know what has generally been my primary motivation for working? The same one that has motivated humans since the beginning of time: wanting to be able to eat, house, and clothe myself.

Yep. Survival. I’m passionate about not starving to death in New York City. I’m passionate about not being reduced to working for sub-minimum wage at “content farms.” I’m passionate about being left alone to do my job with as little interference as possible. I’m passionate about being better than I was yesterday. I’m guessing that’s what most people, at least in my profession, are passionate about.

I’m passionate about moving away from meaningless conversations, useless meetings, corporate newspeak, and strategies that don’t work. I’m passionate about ripping the heart of bullshit out of the American workplace. The more time we spend bullshitting each other, the less work we get done. If we’re going to continue this nonsense about “passion,” then let’s make professionalism — efficiency, efficacy, accountability, and transparency — the most virtuous passion in the workplace and be done with it.