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Why I Find Bullshit Work Intolerable

shubhamjain.co

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Re: Why I Find Bullshit Work Intolerable

#21

Post by CharlesW »

steve1977 wrote: post #14
throwawaysleep wrote: post #2

For older people, do you ever find what you are looking for, at least at a reasonable price? I was once the way of OP but then decided that fixing that would involve mostly eliminating other people (and I am highly risk averse, so doing my own thing is not acceptable to me) and I decided that was not feasible. So I embraced apathy and am now the time killing bureaucrat calling meetings about status codes that both OP…

So, you have basically killed your soul?

Who is better off: (1) A MAMAA employee who approaches their job with religious-like zeal, pouring their heart and soul into extended workweeks to feed the gaping maw of Big Tech, or (2) a 9-5 software engineer working at a company nobody's heard of, on projects they don't personally care about, leaving actual time, energy, and creativity for people, projects, and other things that they do care about?

Re: Why I Find Bullshit Work Intolerable

#23

Post by lolsal »

steve1977 wrote: post #18
lijok wrote: post #15

OP does not understand risk management or product delivery and is therefore labelling it as "bullshit". And yet, OP should feel blessed. Not because of the bullshit work, but because they are one of a lucky few who have managed to land a career doing what they love. Speak to any other person that managed to do that, and they all know what OP is describing. My only advice for OP is - work on understanding the purpose,…

Sorry but no. What you see in corporate environments has nothing to do with risk management or product delivery, it’s often just pure ineptitude and useless people artificially trying to justify their existence.

There definitely is waste in big corporations, but not everything you don’t understand is waste.

Re: Why I Find Bullshit Work Intolerable

#24

Post by pseudotrash »

If you think your job isn't BS you probably haven't read enough adversarial content.

0) The Conspiracy Against The Human Race

1) The Machine Stops

2) The One Dimensional Man

3) A City Is Not A Tree

4) Influence

5) La Technique

6) anything from James C. Scott

7) ...

Figuring out the links is left as an exercise to the reader.

Re: Why I Find Bullshit Work Intolerable

#25

Post by lijok »

steve1977 wrote: post #18
lijok wrote: post #15

OP does not understand risk management or product delivery and is therefore labelling it as "bullshit". And yet, OP should feel blessed. Not because of the bullshit work, but because they are one of a lucky few who have managed to land a career doing what they love. Speak to any other person that managed to do that, and they all know what OP is describing. My only advice for OP is - work on understanding the purpose,…

Sorry but no. What you see in corporate environments has nothing to do with risk management or product delivery, it’s often just pure ineptitude and useless people artificially trying to justify their existence.

You are attributing something to malice that can be adequately explained by stupidity.

Few people are out there actively misleading stakeholders about why they're important. If that was the case, businesses would be rushing to fix that problem. What you're seeing is simply overly complex, highly inefficient product delivery pipelines, which have been grandfathered in, and would be too expensive and too risky to fix. So companies continue chugging along as long as the line goes up.

Re: Why I Find Bullshit Work Intolerable

#26

Post by tumdum_ »

thenerdhead wrote: post #20

There is a lot of "bullshit work" disguised as busy-ness. But if you take a step back and capture the essence of this author's perspective, it is that they aren't able to regularly get in the "flow state" because their skills are not being utilized enough nor are the challenges hard enough for them to be utilized. > Repeat this for several years, you won’t feel inspired to create anymore. Maybe someday I would need t…

I would rather sady that the autor has problems with working with other people. My take is that they are complaining that they can’t do the easy parts (“coding”) and are forced to deal with hard parts (communication with other human beings).

Re: Why I Find Bullshit Work Intolerable

#27

Post by rmwaite »

lolsal wrote: post #23
steve1977 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry but no. What you see in corporate environments has nothing to do with risk management or product delivery, it’s often just pure ineptitude and useless people artificially trying to justify their existence.

There definitely is waste in big corporations, but not everything you don’t understand is waste.

Many times in my life someone tried to tell me something that I disregarded as wrong or misguided, only to (years! decades!) later realize the that they were right in ways I just couldn't understand yet.

I suspect (and hope) this will continue for as long as I remain introspective and willing to learn and grow.

I feel like this is one of those things that only time and the perspective it adds can teach you.

Re: Why I Find Bullshit Work Intolerable

#28

Post by steve1977 »

lolsal wrote: post #23
steve1977 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry but no. What you see in corporate environments has nothing to do with risk management or product delivery, it’s often just pure ineptitude and useless people artificially trying to justify their existence.

There definitely is waste in big corporations, but not everything you don’t understand is waste.

Sure. But in the things I do understand, I know waste when I see it (and I see a lot of it).

I actually couldn’t see it as well when I was younger and understood less.

Re: Why I Find Bullshit Work Intolerable

#29

Post by angarg12 »

I think OP is mixing up people who are not career driven (not sure how to better describe them) with bullshit jobs. OP is also conflating potentially dysfunctional workplaces with bullshit jobs (possibly highly correlated but not the same).

I can think of two pieces of advice.

First, if this is important for you, obviously you need to find a less dysfunctional place to work. This might be another company or something else. You might also need to tune your expectations around dealing with "bullshit". Unless you are independently wealthy, you'll need someone to pay you for your work, and often this will mean dealing with stuff you might consider bullshit.

Second, you don't need to justify anyone why you care about this. I have friends who don't care about their job at all, but I am very career driven. This lead to many arguments about different points of view. The epiphany came when I realized that it didn't matter and I don't have to justify myself to anyone. My friends would hate my lifestyle and I would hate theirs; that's fine, different people are wired differently and that's ok.

Re: Why I Find Bullshit Work Intolerable

#30

Post by steve1977 »

lijok wrote: post #25
steve1977 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry but no. What you see in corporate environments has nothing to do with risk management or product delivery, it’s often just pure ineptitude and useless people artificially trying to justify their existence.

You are attributing something to malice that can be adequately explained by stupidity. Few people are out there actively misleading stakeholders about why they're important. If that was the case, businesses would be rushing to fix that problem. What you're seeing is simply overly complex, highly inefficient product delivery pipelines, which have been grandfathered in, and would be too expensive and too risky to fix.…

> You are attributing something to malice that can be adequately explained by stupidity

Oh I didn’t intend to do so, that’s what I meant with ineptitude.

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