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Significant slice of the U.S. workforce believes their jobs have no purpose

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Re: Significant slice of the U.S. workforce believes their jobs have no purpose

#31

Post by madspindel »

codeTired wrote: post #17

In reality when you really think long and hard many jobs are kind of useless. I could argue that in the grand scheme of things our existence might be completely useless and irrelevant. Yet we spend our short existence doing things which have almost no meaning, some of us try to impress our friends and neighbors. Put up some accomplishments on our useless CV before we turn into dust. Others will raise their offspring…

Ecclesiastes in the Bible begins with:

The words of the Teacher, son of David, king in Jerusalem:

2 “Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher. “Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.”

3 What do people gain from all their labors at which they toil under the sun? 4 Generations come and generations go, but the earth remains forever.

and it ends with:

Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the duty of all mankind. 14 For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil.

Re: Significant slice of the U.S. workforce believes their jobs have no purpose

#32

Post by 0xEF »

codeTired wrote: post #17

In reality when you really think long and hard many jobs are kind of useless. I could argue that in the grand scheme of things our existence might be completely useless and irrelevant. Yet we spend our short existence doing things which have almost no meaning, some of us try to impress our friends and neighbors. Put up some accomplishments on our useless CV before we turn into dust. Others will raise their offspring…

Agreed. We are what we give our time to, and to those that would "brag" about how many hours a week they work, I ask "so, you are just your job, and nothing more?"

When I meet a new person, one of my first questions is what hobbies they have. It throws people off more often than it should that my first question is not about work, and in fact, I specifically avoid talking about work at all. In many of those cases, the conversation dies very quickly, which always makes me a bit sad.

It's not like I hate my job, either. I enjoy it, to the degree that I can, and do wish I had a better tech job, but for the most part it is tolerable and I am left to my own devices. I can talk about work, if someone asks, but mentally, when I am clocked out, my job doesn't exist. I suppose there are lots of people who always think about work, for lack of anything better, I guess.

Re: Significant slice of the U.S. workforce believes their jobs have no purpose

#33

Post by dougmwne »

madspindel wrote: post #31
codeTired wrote: post #17

In reality when you really think long and hard many jobs are kind of useless. I could argue that in the grand scheme of things our existence might be completely useless and irrelevant. Yet we spend our short existence doing things which have almost no meaning, some of us try to impress our friends and neighbors. Put up some accomplishments on our useless CV before we turn into dust. Others will raise their offspring…

Ecclesiastes in the Bible begins with: The words of the Teacher, son of David, king in Jerusalem: 2 “Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher. “Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.” 3 What do people gain from all their labors at which they toil under the sun? 4 Generations come and generations go, but the earth remains forever. and it ends with: Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matt…

What has been, that will be; what has been done, that will be done. Nothing is new under the sun!

Re: Significant slice of the U.S. workforce believes their jobs have no purpose

#34

Post by LatteLazy »

One of the wonders of the modern economy is that you don't need to know the purpose of your job, in fact it probably has 1000s of purposes. You can just do it. Anyone working in finance is basically making capital allocation more efficient and as a result steering millions of decisions in tiny ways. Do they understand it? No. But they don't need to...

Re: Significant slice of the U.S. workforce believes their jobs have no purpose

#35

Post by dougmwne »

McBeige wrote: post #25
bosch_mind wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was just thinking about this on a walk this evening. Life is weird as hell and I find it rare to meet others that share a similar viewpoint

It's so weird. I think that sometimes, but I don't usually think about it. Most of the time it's just a short moment "awake" and aware that all of this is batshit absurd, then recognizing that there's nothing for me here up here except the view, then continue on with my life without remorse towards the next hill top or valley or whatever lies in wait for me. I think it used to give me vertigo, now I'm used to it. I f…

I just had a conversation with an LLM trying to find a word to describe your feeling. Life is indeed weird. Here you go:

The concept of "thrownness" (Geworfenheit in German) was an important existentialist term coined by philosopher Martin Heidegger

. Here's a quick explanation of what it means:

- Thrownness refers to the idea that human beings are "thrown" into existence without getting a choice or having any control over the fact of their being.

- It suggests humans find themselves born and existing suddenly, through no will or decision of their own. There's an abrupt, arbitrary aspect to being thrown into the world.

- This thrownness highlights the inevitable given facts and limitations of one's particular life, time period, environment, language, culture, etc. that define the situation into which one was thrown.

- Humans do not get to choose the circumstances of their thrownness, which can seem alien, foreign, strange, or absurd. This can provoke anxiety, angst, or existential crisis.

In short, thrownness describes the jarring, arbitrary way humans find themselves existing in a world not of their choosing, highlighting the strangeness and uncertainty of the human condition.

Re: Significant slice of the U.S. workforce believes their jobs have no purpose

#36

Post by washadjeffmad »

No meaning, perhaps. There's plenty of purpose to be found in jobs, like collecting pay to survive or getting out and staying busy.

On the other side, Google can afford to hire a surplus of labor on the chance that even one person makes a contribution that yields significant value or can move up. Amazon and Walmart need voting blocs. There's purpose all around, even if it isn't ours.

Re: Significant slice of the U.S. workforce believes their jobs have no purpose

#37

Post by costanzaDynasty »

Is not starving a meaning?

This will in a way self correct though as Boomers retire and are not replaced. There is a giant demographic workforce crisis that is coming for the entire world. AI will help more than it hurts in this.

When you can't find help, it's the bullshit jobs that go and never come back.

Re: Significant slice of the U.S. workforce believes their jobs have no purpose

#38

Post by nly »

madspindel wrote: post #31
codeTired wrote: post #17

In reality when you really think long and hard many jobs are kind of useless. I could argue that in the grand scheme of things our existence might be completely useless and irrelevant. Yet we spend our short existence doing things which have almost no meaning, some of us try to impress our friends and neighbors. Put up some accomplishments on our useless CV before we turn into dust. Others will raise their offspring…

Ecclesiastes in the Bible begins with: The words of the Teacher, son of David, king in Jerusalem: 2 “Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher. “Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.” 3 What do people gain from all their labors at which they toil under the sun? 4 Generations come and generations go, but the earth remains forever. and it ends with: Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matt…

So nothing is pointless because God actually gives a shit about all of it, no matter how insignificant, and is going to weigh it all up in the end?

I guess that helped some people sleep at night as they laboured away as slaves.

Re: Significant slice of the U.S. workforce believes their jobs have no purpose

#39

Post by pyinstallwoes »

madspindel wrote: post #31
codeTired wrote: post #17

In reality when you really think long and hard many jobs are kind of useless. I could argue that in the grand scheme of things our existence might be completely useless and irrelevant. Yet we spend our short existence doing things which have almost no meaning, some of us try to impress our friends and neighbors. Put up some accomplishments on our useless CV before we turn into dust. Others will raise their offspring…

Ecclesiastes in the Bible begins with: The words of the Teacher, son of David, king in Jerusalem: 2 “Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher. “Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.” 3 What do people gain from all their labors at which they toil under the sun? 4 Generations come and generations go, but the earth remains forever. and it ends with: Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matt…

That’s a really pointless existence

Re: Significant slice of the U.S. workforce believes their jobs have no purpose

#40

Post by wildrhythms »

B.S. jobs [1]: "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."

I see people in the comments always try to existentialize this phenomenon (i.e. draw on meandering philosophical platitudes like "what is the meaning of life"), that is a distraction. Working people are obviously unfulfilled, as the article describes. Fulfilling work does exist, these folks just aren't doing fulfilling work. We all want to do fulfilling work; working people feel like they have no control. To call it another name: labor alienation. [2]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_Jobs

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marx%27s_theory_of_alienation

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