I did no work for a year and no one noticed
leylakazim.substack.com
I did no work for a year and no one noticed
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Re: I did no work for a year and no one noticed
#2[dead]
Re: I did no work for a year and no one noticed
#3Congratulations you had a bullshit job, insufficient oversight and not enough personal and professional pride to do the work you were paid to do (a job is a promise, they promise to pay you and you promise to work. The fact that I have to say this kills me a little bit inside)
You broke your promise and lied about it every day for a year. You proved that your career (that you presumably worked hard to build) was a farce. This says nothing about the nature of work and everything about the quality of person reporting the “problem”.
People like this make me never want to employ anyone ever again. Congrats you destroyed what little faith in humanity I had left. I’m glad you finally quit and I hope you never apply for or are offered a job again. (Clearly not mature enough to manage your own work without an extreme amount of oversight).
Might I suggest something real and tangible? Serve beer or keep chickens. At least when you violate your promise people will know immediately. (Here’s your beer. The glass is empty. No I filled it I promise. It is clearly empty. That’ll be £6. Again, no beer)
Oh maybe this was satire! “Here’s how a bullshit person operating in bad faith would conduct themselves” I don’t think it was satire.
Re: I did no work for a year and no one noticed
#4Not everyone has a bullshit job. If I stopped working for even a couple of days, people would notice, and I would eventually get fired.
Re: I did no work for a year and no one noticed
#5There's a lot of this in the industry world-wide. The bigger the company, the more likely this is to occur.
I think this kind of phenomenon is why I feel that some people rightly should be worried about AI automating their job away.
Re: I did no work for a year and no one noticed
#6I've worked with these people. I noticed.
Re: I did no work for a year and no one noticed
#7Something the author sorta neglects to mention is that this makes you feel like shit, if you have any sort of conscience at all. Corporations largely don't care about individuals, and so maybe you shouldn't care about loyalty to your employer, but if you pride yourself on a skill or being able to do your job competently then doing mass time theft comes up with a nasty side effect; the time you spend planning trips or doing hobbies, or doing anything that you shouldn't be, isn't time that can be fully enjoyed. Additionally, you're taking a big risk, and you're opening yourself up to all kinds of scrutiny and potentially even losing your job if you're caught.
Re: I did no work for a year and no one noticed
#8Congratulations you had a bullshit job, insufficient oversight and not enough personal and professional pride to do the work you were paid to do (a job is a promise, they promise to pay you and you promise to work. The fact that I have to say this kills me a little bit inside) You broke your promise and lied about it every day for a year. You proved that your career (that you presumably worked hard to build) was a fa…
There is a class of people who resent their job based purely on political motives and I can't stand them. If you don't think you're doing enough, try and pick up new work. Don't be afraid to add value to society.
There is an irony that people who tend to resent work are often the same people who proselytize about unions are despite the fact if they were offered a real union job they'd turn their nose up at it. People like this author ruin high-trust societies and hopefully she's only able to work low-trust positions now that she's published this.
Re: I did no work for a year and no one noticed
#9Something the author sorta neglects to mention is that this makes you feel like shit, if you have any sort of conscience at all. Corporations largely don't care about individuals, and so maybe you shouldn't care about loyalty to your employer, but if you pride yourself on a skill or being able to do your job competently then doing mass time theft comes up with a nasty side effect; the time you spend planning trips or…
maybe.
i think the types of environments that foster the culture of bullshit jobs are bereft of conscience (ymmv as far as how you react to that in your own job).
additionally, many people within those environments feel that scrutiny or lack of job security even when they play by the rules.
something i've been thinking about a lot lately is that i don't feel very bad being cynical about these kinds of systems when they're helmed by people who are cynical about me. if my job is at risk due to mismanagement, restructuring, "the market" or anything else that would cause my employer to see me as a line item and not a human being with needs, i have every right to view my employment as an asset to manipulate as i see fit as well. turnabout is fair play. conversely, i've also been lucky to have had some good bosses and i don't act as ruthlessly in those situations.
Re: I did no work for a year and no one noticed
#10Congratulations you had a bullshit job, insufficient oversight and not enough personal and professional pride to do the work you were paid to do (a job is a promise, they promise to pay you and you promise to work. The fact that I have to say this kills me a little bit inside) You broke your promise and lied about it every day for a year. You proved that your career (that you presumably worked hard to build) was a fa…
> waaaahhhhh you broke your promise!! to your employer!!
my current employer broke no fewer than two promises they had made to me within a few months of my starting there. they did this simply because they could: it was cheaper for them and they knew there was little I could do in response. so you'll forgive me if I don't give half a fuck about these people, and do as little work as i can get away with