bullshit jobs

[khazalid]

http://strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs/

Hey, you there. Yeah, you. Are you working a 'bullshit job'?

tl;dr:

In the year 1930, John Maynard Keynes predicted that technology would have advanced sufficiently by century’s end that countries like Great Britain or the United States would achieve a 15-hour work week. There’s every reason to believe he was right. In technological terms, we are quite capable of this. And yet it didn’t happen. Instead, technology has been marshaled, if anything, to figure out ways to make us all work more. In order to achieve this, jobs have had to be created that are, effectively, pointless. Huge swathes of people, in Europe and North America in particular, spend their entire working lives performing tasks they secretly believe do not really need to be performed. The moral and spiritual damage that comes from this situation is profound. It is a scar across our collective soul. Yet virtually no one talks about it.

[got tonkaed]

eh probably. it pays pretty decently though so I am cool with keeping it, thank you kindly.

[waauw]

Some people are too stupid to understand that even working systems need change.

[khazalid]

eh probably. it pays pretty decently though so I am cool with keeping it, thank you kindly.

go on then, what is it?

[got tonkaed]

I have a financial services job. I work from home about 50 hours a week and make enough money to do whatever I want with the rest of the time.

Seems a pretty fair trade to be honest. Premise of the article seems kinda first world problem-y to me.

[2007spaceodyssey]

Being an archaeologist I think my work does not HAVE to be done. It is of little use for society. But I believe it is meaningful.

[khazalid]

I have a financial services job. I work from home about 50 hours a week and make enough money to do whatever I want with the rest of the time.

Seems a pretty fair trade to be honest. Premise of the article seems kinda first world problem-y to me.

it is indeed, as the article makes clear in the opening refrain. a problem it remains, however.


sounds like you've got a pretty decent set-up. but think inside the box - could you do that job in 20 hours? is 50 hours arbitrarily high? do you have time to procrastinate, doodle, drink tea and idly browse t'internet at work?

[khazalid]

Being an archaeologist I think my work does not HAVE to be done. It is of little use for society. But I believe it is meaningful.

i would concur. have an exemption.

[mrswdk]

Dumb article. He just writes off all white collar jobs as being worthless and serving no valuable purpose, which is obviously not true. If they were worthless then no one would pay those people to do those jobs.

[got tonkaed]

I have a financial services job. I work from home about 50 hours a week and make enough money to do whatever I want with the rest of the time.

Seems a pretty fair trade to be honest. Premise of the article seems kinda first world problem-y to me.

it is indeed, as the article makes clear in the opening refrain. a problem it remains, however.


sounds like you've got a pretty decent set-up. but think inside the box - could you do that job in 20 hours? is 50 hours arbitrarily high? do you have time to procrastinate, doodle, drink tea and idly browse t'internet at work?

Oh yeah, I'm working about 10 hours a week if we are talking about paying attention.

I am just punched in for 40 more hours than that. At the end of the day I would probably need to be logged in for a while to make people think i was worth the money they pay me.

People talk about work-life balance all the time. Really you just focus on your life being balanced, work is just a part of it. But at the end of the day, you still gotta pay the bills and figuring out how to have money to buy the stuff you want or do the things you wnat to do.

[khazalid]

I have a financial services job. I work from home about 50 hours a week and make enough money to do whatever I want with the rest of the time.

Seems a pretty fair trade to be honest. Premise of the article seems kinda first world problem-y to me.

it is indeed, as the article makes clear in the opening refrain. a problem it remains, however.


sounds like you've got a pretty decent set-up. but think inside the box - could you do that job in 20 hours? is 50 hours arbitrarily high? do you have time to procrastinate, doodle, drink tea and idly browse t'internet at work?

Oh yeah, I'm working about 10 hours a week if we are talking about paying attention.

I am just punched in for 40 more hours than that. At the end of the day I would probably need to be logged in for a while to make people think i was worth the money they pay me.

People talk about work-life balance all the time. Really you just focus on your life being balanced, work is just a part of it. But at the end of the day, you still gotta pay the bills and figuring out how to have money to buy the stuff you want or do the things you wnat to do.

well that's exactly the nub of the article. keynes predicted that with the advance of IT and increased automation, we should be working around 15 hours per week - ushering in a golden age of advances in the arts, sciences, etc as people have increasing free time to devote themselves to their interests / passions / whatnot. your job would seem to be a prime exemplar. read the article

[khazalid]

Dumb article. He just writes off all white collar jobs as being worthless and serving no valuable purpose, which is obviously not true. If they were worthless then no one would pay those people to do those jobs.

reading comprehension: F

[riskllama]

i'm a night-watchman at an abandoned cranberry silo. society would crumble if my post was eliminated.

[got tonkaed]

I don't mind the article and I'd suspect I would like the book. I guess where I start to tune out is the idea that its hard to relate to the problem on a human level. On a macro level you can certainly go well this is all a bit crap and we are under rewarding jobs that matter. No problem with that argument.

I get lost a bit when we have to boil it down to people being upset at dinner parties or corporate lawyers being upset that their jobs aren't more meaningful. That just sounds kinda whiny to me. I would think people who found a way to look at the system, and make it work for them are protesting a little too much.

It would be great if we all had more time to pursue our passions. Until we realized that we are passionate about netflix and trash tv programs.

[mrswdk]

Dumb article. He just writes off all white collar jobs as being worthless and serving no valuable purpose, which is obviously not true. If they were worthless then no one would pay those people to do those jobs.

reading comprehension: F

Over the course of the last century, the number of workers employed as domestic servants, in industry, and in the farm sector has collapsed dramatically. At the same time, “professional, managerial, clerical, sales, and service workers” tripled, growing “from one-quarter to three-quarters of total employment.” In other words, productive jobs have, just as predicted, been largely automated away

i.e. in the author's eyes, manual labor is productive, professional, managerial, clerical, sales and service labor is not

[got tonkaed]

Also, do you have a bullshit job Khazalid?

[waauw]

Dumb article. He just writes off all white collar jobs as being worthless and serving no valuable purpose, which is obviously not true. If they were worthless then no one would pay those people to do those jobs.

He's unable to look at it from a business perspective sure, but he does make a point. Bureaucracy can be a dragging weight if extended too far. And though many marketing campaigns do serve corporate objectives, they aren't always beneficial for a society as a whole. Sometimes they are detrimental.

[mrswdk]

Another one of the author's incredible pearls of wisdom:

It’s as if someone were out there making up pointless jobs just for the sake of keeping us all working.'

Wrong. It's as if someone wants those tasks performed and is prepared to pay someone else to perform them.

To think, he's a professor at one of the UK's most esteemed universities. World's most bullshit job: professor of anthropology at LSE!

[khazalid]

no, what he's saying is that keynes was proved correct - but that these 'white collar' jobs, as you put it, have filled the void left behind by automation without due cause. anyone who has ever spent time dealing with HR departments must surely intuit the truth of that argument. incidentally, the author does not argue that these white collar jobs are entirely unessential; merely that the 40/50 hour working week is, as GT has illustrated for us. i heard a few of the complaints about the former name of this thread along the lines of 'i use cc at work - the thread name is nsfw'. so on, so forth

[got tonkaed]

I'd suspect the author also is probably using a somewhat dated way of looking at corporations in terms of being able to instill loyalty and voice to workers.

I think most of us think of corporations as that thing that laid off all of those old people and gave them a jacket or something as they hit their 40 year milestones and left them with no retirement plan. We had a pretty bad decade especially in the US for big business treating employees.

You certainly see more places trying to develop cultures within the company, especially ones that appeal to younger employees. I would imagine a lot of your older workers aren't getting a ton out of that since it isn't really designed for them, but a ton of younger workers probably feel a lot more attachment and meaning to their job/employer than the author is giving them credit for.

[khazalid]

Another one of the author's incredible pearls of wisdom:

It’s as if someone were out there making up pointless jobs just for the sake of keeping us all working.'

Wrong. It's as if someone wants those tasks performed and is prepared to pay someone else to perform them.

To think, he's a professor at one of the UK's most esteemed universities. World's most bullshit job: professor of anthropology at LSE!

and pray tell, what tasks are you currently performing at work that allow you to spend 12 hours a day on CC?

[khazalid]

I'd suspect the author also is probably using a somewhat dated way of looking at corporations in terms of being able to instill loyalty and voice to workers.

I think most of us think of corporations as that thing that laid off all of those old people and gave them a jacket or something as they hit their 40 year milestones and left them with no retirement plan. We had a pretty bad decade especially in the US for big business treating employees.

You certainly see more places trying to develop cultures within the company, especially ones that appeal to younger employees. I would imagine a lot of your older workers aren't getting a ton out of that since it isn't really designed for them, but a ton of younger workers probably feel a lot more attachment and meaning to their job/employer than the author is giving them credit for.

that is very true; he does skirt round the issue somewhat by expressly commenting on 'those who know their jobs to be meaningless' (i paraphrase).

the article is not long and not terribly nuanced or subtle, and vastly oversimplified in certain regards, but there is an undeniable truthfulness and logic to it.

[got tonkaed]

For sure. There is no reason with the technology that we have for the work week to have headed in the direction that it has. It just tends to be the case that the best way to limit the work week in 2015 is to be your own business owner, which typically requires you to have already found that passion the author expects you need a shorter work week to pursue.

[mrswdk]

Dumb article. He just writes off all white collar jobs as being worthless and serving no valuable purpose, which is obviously not true. If they were worthless then no one would pay those people to do those jobs.

He's unable to look at it from a business perspective sure, but he does make a point. Bureaucracy can be a dragging weight if extended too far.

Bureaucracy can be cumbersome, but that doesn't mean we can just declare bureaucracy to be worthless. There are a variety of public administration jobs that are very useful.

And though many marketing campaigns do serve corporate objectives, they aren't always beneficial for a society as a whole. Sometimes they are detrimental.

As above: those marketing campaigns generate value for someone, so they can't be said to be 'pointless'.

[waauw]

Dumb article. He just writes off all white collar jobs as being worthless and serving no valuable purpose, which is obviously not true. If they were worthless then no one would pay those people to do those jobs.

He's unable to look at it from a business perspective sure, but he does make a point. Bureaucracy can be a dragging weight if extended too far.

Bureaucracy can be cumbersome, but that doesn't mean we can just declare bureaucracy to be worthless. There are a variety of public administration jobs that are very useful.

And though many marketing campaigns do serve corporate objectives, they aren't always beneficial for a society as a whole. Sometimes they are detrimental.

As above: those marketing campaigns generate value for someone, so they can't be said to be 'pointless'.

No but incrementally they might approximate pointlessness.