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Bullshit Jobs

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1–10 of 576 posts

Re: Bullshit Jobs

#2
> It seems to be an issue of people spending time and money to create and satisfy procedures that degenerate into rituals, so that they can look all procedural and responsible in front of – courts? regulators? investors? I don’t know.

Direct supervisors? I don't think someone inventing or enforcing a procedure like this is trying to satisfy investors. They're mostly concerned with their own job security and chances of promotion. I propose that a big chunk of the economy is made of such chains of people trying to please their direct bosses.

Re: Bullshit Jobs

#4
It would be ok to replace "Mr Smith tells me he has chronic back pain" with "Mr Smith has chronic back pain", if the former is enough evidence to make that diagnosis. If he was diagnosing Mr Smith with cancer, or depression, the doctor's note wouldn't include a scan of the tumour or a transcript of the interview: the doctor should abstract those away and just present the conclusion.

Re: Bullshit Jobs

#5
Reminds me of a distant previous job where I requested a 24" LCD for monitoring and doing other tasks, the response was why I need such a large LCD while everybody in company just have 17"? Though it's no written in paper but generally you can't be different than all other employees unless you have a very strong reference. And this case it's doctor's note.

Re: Bullshit Jobs

#6
post #3

The article[1] linked in the OP is an interesting read of its own. [1] http://strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs/

Isn't copying content from the article just a bullshit comment???

Joking aside, your comment made me read the article. I agree with it almost entirely, except I don't believe there needs to be a conscious decision to invent bullshit jobs for them to appear everywhere. I believe people are capable of hiring other people for bullshit jobs and not questioning why they do it without some kind of conspiracy.

Re: Bullshit Jobs

#7
I felt that the note could be understood as mildly passive aggressive. Maybe adding something like “I have no reason not to believe him/her” would remove any interpretation that you're writing this note out of obligation but do not believe the patient.

Good post btw; I have no input on ethics and would be stumped as well.

Re: Bullshit Jobs

#8
post #3

The article[1] linked in the OP is an interesting read of its own. [1] http://strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs/

Thanks, I was reluctant to read the article which censored word "shit"

Re: Bullshit Jobs

#10
post #4

It would be ok to replace "Mr Smith tells me he has chronic back pain" with "Mr Smith has chronic back pain", if the former is enough evidence to make that diagnosis. If he was diagnosing Mr Smith with cancer, or depression, the doctor's note wouldn't include a scan of the tumour or a transcript of the interview: the doctor should abstract those away and just present the conclusion.

This is especially true for pain diagnosis which is inherently subjective and if possible relies on self evaluation (even though some methods exist to complement or replace self evaluation with external observation).
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