Bull**** Jobs - What's your take?
Discussion
I recently stumbled across David Graeber (now sadly passed I see) and his Bulls
t jobs study.
There are obviously going to be a lot of people who agree and disagree with his analysis, but I wondered if anyone else has recently (particularly post lockdowns) had similar thoughts?
The thought of doing what I do now for the rest of my life has officially scared me - I would love to find something with more tangible output that I am good at and have convinced myself that this year, even if I don't move out of my very stable and to be fair excellent employer, I am going to interview with other companies for jobs that I wouldn't normally go for to see what happens.
t jobs study. Wikipedia said:
.
In Bullst Jobs, American anthropologist David Graeber posits that the productivity benefits of automation have not led to a 15-hour workweek, as predicted by economist John Maynard Keynes in 1930, but instead to "bullst jobs": "a form of paid employment that is so completely pointless, unnecessary, or pernicious that even the employee cannot justify its existence even though, as part of the conditions of employment, the employee feels obliged to pretend that this is not the case."[1] While these jobs can offer good compensation and ample free time, Graeber holds that the pointlessness of the work grates at their humanity and creates a "profound psychological violence".
The author contends that more than half of societal work is pointless, both large parts of some jobs and, as he describes, five types of entirely pointless jobs:
flunkies, who serve to make their superiors feel important, e.g., receptionists, administrative assistants, door attendants, makers of websites whose sites neglect ease of use and speed for looks;
goons, who act to harm or deceive others on behalf of their employer, e.g., lobbyists, corporate lawyers, telemarketers, public relations specialists, community managers;
duct tapers, who temporarily fix problems that could be fixed permanently, e.g., programmers repairing bloated code, airline desk staff who calm passengers whose bags do not arrive;
box tickers, who create the appearance that something useful is being done when it is not, e.g., survey administrators, in-house magazine journalists, corporate compliance officers, quality service managers;
taskmasters, who manage—or create extra work for—those who do not need it, e.g., middle management, leadership professionals.
I fear that I am firmly in the box ticker category and it has actually made me contemplate my career quite a bit - I can't stop thinking about it. I've watched a couple of his talks which are largely the same but it really does make you think.In Bulls
t Jobs, American anthropologist David Graeber posits that the productivity benefits of automation have not led to a 15-hour workweek, as predicted by economist John Maynard Keynes in 1930, but instead to "bullst jobs": "a form of paid employment that is so completely pointless, unnecessary, or pernicious that even the employee cannot justify its existence even though, as part of the conditions of employment, the employee feels obliged to pretend that this is not the case."[1] While these jobs can offer good compensation and ample free time, Graeber holds that the pointlessness of the work grates at their humanity and creates a "profound psychological violence".The author contends that more than half of societal work is pointless, both large parts of some jobs and, as he describes, five types of entirely pointless jobs:
flunkies, who serve to make their superiors feel important, e.g., receptionists, administrative assistants, door attendants, makers of websites whose sites neglect ease of use and speed for looks;
goons, who act to harm or deceive others on behalf of their employer, e.g., lobbyists, corporate lawyers, telemarketers, public relations specialists, community managers;
duct tapers, who temporarily fix problems that could be fixed permanently, e.g., programmers repairing bloated code, airline desk staff who calm passengers whose bags do not arrive;
box tickers, who create the appearance that something useful is being done when it is not, e.g., survey administrators, in-house magazine journalists, corporate compliance officers, quality service managers;
taskmasters, who manage—or create extra work for—those who do not need it, e.g., middle management, leadership professionals.
There are obviously going to be a lot of people who agree and disagree with his analysis, but I wondered if anyone else has recently (particularly post lockdowns) had similar thoughts?
The thought of doing what I do now for the rest of my life has officially scared me - I would love to find something with more tangible output that I am good at and have convinced myself that this year, even if I don't move out of my very stable and to be fair excellent employer, I am going to interview with other companies for jobs that I wouldn't normally go for to see what happens.
LankyFreak said:
If somebody out there needs someone to do a bullst job, please get in touch. I love doing nothing, bonus if it's paid, more bonus if I'm at a computer
Ha I didn't say I do nothing, I work hard and have a high output and seem to be good at what I do, it's more the concept as a whole in terms of it's position in society. t job, please get in touch. I love doing nothing, bonus if it's paid, more bonus if I'm at a computer joropug said:
Ha I didn't say I do nothing, I work hard and have a high output and seem to be good at what I do, it's more the concept as a whole in terms of it's position in society.
hahaha, I understand what you mean I was just advertising my abilities... I do feel that most jobs now are completely pointless but I struggle to be bothered about it..I worked in a bullst job in a bullst team at a local council. Over £100k in salaries for completely unnecessary work that just inconvenienced proper businesses and offered nothing to the council tax payers of the county. My experience of working at that county hall was that you could probably cut half the jobs there without any impact on local residents. I left after 6 months, I just couldn’t do something so utterly worthless, it was soul destroying. My manager had been there over 25 years. Her entire life’s work amounted to nothing more than mildly inconveniencing utilities companies for no reason.
t job in a bullst team at a local council. Over £100k in salaries for completely unnecessary work that just inconvenienced proper businesses and offered nothing to the council tax payers of the county. My experience of working at that county hall was that you could probably cut half the jobs there without any impact on local residents. I left after 6 months, I just couldn’t do something so utterly worthless, it was soul destroying. My manager had been there over 25 years. Her entire life’s work amounted to nothing more than mildly inconveniencing utilities companies for no reason.@OP
Your personal self worth, confidence, happiness and many other things depend to a significant degree upon you viewing your work as "worthwhile". i.e. it needs to be done, is valued, is appreciated and has real outputs etc.
20 years ago I decided my job wasn't worthwhile and that set me off down a route that was much more successful. If your job is not worthwhile it will affect your well-being (unless you are a waster happy in such work, which you clearly aren't).
Your personal self worth, confidence, happiness and many other things depend to a significant degree upon you viewing your work as "worthwhile". i.e. it needs to be done, is valued, is appreciated and has real outputs etc.
20 years ago I decided my job wasn't worthwhile and that set me off down a route that was much more successful. If your job is not worthwhile it will affect your well-being (unless you are a waster happy in such work, which you clearly aren't).
At the risk of offending some there is now a vast army of bullst jobs to watch over the people actually doing the difficult jobs that require qualifications.
A lot of these bullstters are just senior staff that have lost touch with anything relevant but have 'common sense' in their armoury.
I bet they haven't even broken step during lockdown and had a seemless transition to doing nothing from home.
I wish I was one lol.
t jobs to watch over the people actually doing the difficult jobs that require qualifications.A lot of these bulls
tters are just senior staff that have lost touch with anything relevant but have 'common sense' in their armoury.I bet they haven't even broken step during lockdown and had a seemless transition to doing nothing from home.
I wish I was one lol.
Not my usual account because many people on PH actually know me.
I work in the IT sector, I get paid hundreds of thousands a year for mainly creating reports on how well my business is doing.
I've pointed out on several occasions that they should just an admin and replace me.
If I left tomorrow our business wouldn't be impacted by a penny and one of our world wide VP's gets 45 minutes a month back by not having to speak to me.
For my own sanity, I may have to just leave.
I work in the IT sector, I get paid hundreds of thousands a year for mainly creating reports on how well my business is doing.
I've pointed out on several occasions that they should just an admin and replace me.
If I left tomorrow our business wouldn't be impacted by a penny and one of our world wide VP's gets 45 minutes a month back by not having to speak to me.
For my own sanity, I may have to just leave.
Painless said:
Not my usual account because many people on PH actually know me.
I work in the IT sector, I get paid hundreds of thousands a year for mainly creating reports on how well my business is doing.
I've pointed out on several occasions that they should just an admin and replace me.
If I left tomorrow our business wouldn't be impacted by a penny and one of our world wide VP's gets 45 minutes a month back by not having to speak to me.
For my own sanity, I may have to just leave.
thats the thing I work in the IT sector, I get paid hundreds of thousands a year for mainly creating reports on how well my business is doing.
I've pointed out on several occasions that they should just an admin and replace me.
If I left tomorrow our business wouldn't be impacted by a penny and one of our world wide VP's gets 45 minutes a month back by not having to speak to me.
For my own sanity, I may have to just leave.
i dont know about u but i feel trapped because of my salary
djc206 said:
I worked in a bullst job in a bullst team at a local council. Over £100k in salaries for completely unnecessary work that just inconvenienced proper businesses and offered nothing to the council tax payers of the county. My experience of working at that county hall was that you could probably cut half the jobs there without any impact on local residents. I left after 6 months, I just couldn’t do something so utterly worthless, it was soul destroying. My manager had been there over 25 years. Her entire life’s work amounted to nothing more than mildly inconveniencing utilities companies for no reason.
So very true.t job in a bullst team at a local council. Over £100k in salaries for completely unnecessary work that just inconvenienced proper businesses and offered nothing to the council tax payers of the county. My experience of working at that county hall was that you could probably cut half the jobs there without any impact on local residents. I left after 6 months, I just couldn’t do something so utterly worthless, it was soul destroying. My manager had been there over 25 years. Her entire life’s work amounted to nothing more than mildly inconveniencing utilities companies for no reason.I have a relation who worked for a local council. Most of the staff had been there for decades and if they did anything wrong, or were poor performers, were simply moved to a different department. Very little ability evident in many of the staff and silly high salaries too.
Better staff left rather than accept a job with little achievement, or job satisfaction.
DanL said:
Anthropologist is a bullst job..
Would you care to expand on that? t job..Do bear in mind that Anthropology and its influence covers a very broad spectrum including medicine, industrial and civil design and emerging areas such as cyber-anthropology and Ai.
Given that the study and application of Anthropology touches almost every aspect of our lives, I'd be interested to understand why you consider it a bulls
t profession. Particularly as it's a field in which I work (Behaviour Change).I'm starting to think I have one of these bullsh*t jobs,
I work for a large multi national electronics reseller and big employer in the local area for the last 10 years, 12 months ago went from being a lead IT site support "engineer" (their title, 2nd level IT deskside support) of a busy 3 man team supporting 1200+ users to having most of the day to day work outsourced and being rebranded an Regional Infrastructure Engineer (region being UK) along with 2 others so now support projects, anything considered "non-standard, network infrastructure issues from a site "boots on the ground" perspective and a conveyor system.
When not needing to escort FEs around site or working on projects I now tend to be sitting making up stuff to do in the office (gathering switch info and MAC address from printers, etc) add to this constantly butting heads with the team who the work was outsourced to (one of which used to work in my team and was TUPED (?) over) with little support from my line management it is making me question if I should look elsewhere.
The problem is as mentioned before on this topic I'm trapped by the money, I am by my own admission getting paid well for very little at the moment and I doubt I would get the same elsewhere, projects will pickup but it's the issues with the outsourced team and lack of backup which I think is the real issue which I have tried to highlight with my manager but I don't expect anything to happen.
Maybe it's just frustration and the crap weather but deffo feels like I have a Bullsh*t job, not sure if this job went it would have much of an impact.
I work for a large multi national electronics reseller and big employer in the local area for the last 10 years, 12 months ago went from being a lead IT site support "engineer" (their title, 2nd level IT deskside support) of a busy 3 man team supporting 1200+ users to having most of the day to day work outsourced and being rebranded an Regional Infrastructure Engineer (region being UK) along with 2 others so now support projects, anything considered "non-standard, network infrastructure issues from a site "boots on the ground" perspective and a conveyor system.
When not needing to escort FEs around site or working on projects I now tend to be sitting making up stuff to do in the office (gathering switch info and MAC address from printers, etc) add to this constantly butting heads with the team who the work was outsourced to (one of which used to work in my team and was TUPED (?) over) with little support from my line management it is making me question if I should look elsewhere.
The problem is as mentioned before on this topic I'm trapped by the money, I am by my own admission getting paid well for very little at the moment and I doubt I would get the same elsewhere, projects will pickup but it's the issues with the outsourced team and lack of backup which I think is the real issue which I have tried to highlight with my manager but I don't expect anything to happen.
Maybe it's just frustration and the crap weather but deffo feels like I have a Bullsh*t job, not sure if this job went it would have much of an impact.
Vasco said:
So very true.
I have a relation who worked for a local council. Most of the staff had been there for decades and if they did anything wrong, or were poor performers, were simply moved to a different department. Very little ability evident in many of the staff and silly high salaries too.
Better staff left rather than accept a job with little achievement, or job satisfaction.
People always trot this out about any government role. May have been true years ago. But in my experience government jobs seem to be paid less than their private industry equivalent and in general have more responsibility, usually dealing with the vunerable or statutory requirements to keep the public's life going. If a company fails some rich blokes buying one less house that year and the customers move to their competitors but if a council fails you have people ssufferings.I have a relation who worked for a local council. Most of the staff had been there for decades and if they did anything wrong, or were poor performers, were simply moved to a different department. Very little ability evident in many of the staff and silly high salaries too.
Better staff left rather than accept a job with little achievement, or job satisfaction.
I'm between box ticker and task master (project manager). It is a bullst job in most modern large organisations because if people self organised, or more specifically if organisations made it easier for people to work together to do the things the need to collaborate to do then the job would be redundant. Half of it is spent trying to cut through process the purpose of which is to prevent individual departments from becoming overwhelmed or exposed, the other big percentage trying to get people to progress your specific bit of work when the have a 10% allocation to your project and a million other things going on.
The notion in big orgs that they should run like the factories of old, and people are the machines just doesn't function. From operations management methods all the way through to process improvement methodology which is rooted in measuring failure of parts per million etc, over layed with change and IT functions that are simultaneously trying to run multimillion pound, enterprise impacting programmes alongside 10 quids worth of small change and expecting to 'control' it by means of ever increasing reporting. I have a steering meeting which nearly outnumbers the number of people actually on the project team. It's ridiculous.
t job in most modern large organisations because if people self organised, or more specifically if organisations made it easier for people to work together to do the things the need to collaborate to do then the job would be redundant. Half of it is spent trying to cut through process the purpose of which is to prevent individual departments from becoming overwhelmed or exposed, the other big percentage trying to get people to progress your specific bit of work when the have a 10% allocation to your project and a million other things going on. The notion in big orgs that they should run like the factories of old, and people are the machines just doesn't function. From operations management methods all the way through to process improvement methodology which is rooted in measuring failure of parts per million etc, over layed with change and IT functions that are simultaneously trying to run multimillion pound, enterprise impacting programmes alongside 10 quids worth of small change and expecting to 'control' it by means of ever increasing reporting. I have a steering meeting which nearly outnumbers the number of people actually on the project team. It's ridiculous.
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