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On the phenomenon of bullshit jobs

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Re: On the phenomenon of bullshit jobs

#81

Post by tartuffe78 »

JulianMorrison wrote: post #51
ilamont wrote: post #40

Reading this, I was reminded of the "B Ark" from Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy : (1) The B Ark is technically named "Golgafrincham Ark Fleet, Ship B". The Golgafrincham civilization hatched a plan to eliminate its society of its most useless workers, namely its service sector and its paper shufflers. The Golgafrinchans created a legend that their world was about to be destroyed and they needed to build three arks.…

I hate that particular joke because of how it so casually blames the victim. Awful jobs exist in the system and people are crammed into them by economic force.

They are vindicated by the fact that all of the smug high achievers and those they let live are wiped out by a virulent disease contracted from a dirty telephone, since they killed off the telephone sanitizers.

Re: On the phenomenon of bullshit jobs

#82

Post by gjm11 »

ilamont wrote: post #40

Reading this, I was reminded of the "B Ark" from Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy : (1) The B Ark is technically named "Golgafrincham Ark Fleet, Ship B". The Golgafrincham civilization hatched a plan to eliminate its society of its most useless workers, namely its service sector and its paper shufflers. The Golgafrinchans created a legend that their world was about to be destroyed and they needed to build three arks.…

I think a lot of the point of the "B Ark" joke is lost if you forget what comes next: the rest of the Golgafrincham people were wiped out shortly after the departure of the B Ark by a virulent disease contracted from an unsanitized telephone. (The first B-Arker you meet in the story is a telephone sanitizer.)

Re: On the phenomenon of bullshit jobs

#83

Post by jahaja »

binarymax wrote: post #28

I just had a great trip to a cousins wedding and saw a lot of family. My Parents' generation are now just past the 'age of retirement' and are in their late 60s and early 70s. The majority of them are still working in their bullshit jobs. I asked several if they were going to retire soon and they all replied the same. If they retire what would they do? Even though their work is mostly pointless from a job function pe…

To put it bluntly: "it's hard to teach an old dog new tricks".

I think that this a damning criticism of contemporary society when it produces people unable to cope with freedom in it's literal meaning.

However this is not really an individual thing, the problem is rather caused by the fact that "all the others" are unavailable for those with time on their hands - being busy working.

Re: On the phenomenon of bullshit jobs

#84

Post by pidg »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #74

As hammerzeit mentioned, a lot of bullshit jobs are there because of an arms race. Your competitors have marketers, lobbyists and corporate lawyers, so you need them too. If everybody fired 90% of their marketers, marketing dollars would go 10x as far, and things wouldn't change much. Just take a look at marketing. It's an industry that's so big it props up newspapers, television, Google and most of the rest the web…

If being a marketer is a bullshit job, then being a web developer is a bullshit job too.

Most people could spend a week with a marketing book and do some basic marketing. Likewise, most people could spend a week learning WordPress and create a passable website. So let's reduce the number of web developers by 90% too!

Think of the billions it could save in inflated invoices from web agencies (commissioned by clueless marketers).

Let's just reduce all jobs by 90% and make everyone teachers, doctors and street cleaners. I have a really good feeling about this.

Re: On the phenomenon of bullshit jobs

#85

Post by bryanlarsen »

pidg wrote: post #84
bryanlarsen wrote: post #74

As hammerzeit mentioned, a lot of bullshit jobs are there because of an arms race. Your competitors have marketers, lobbyists and corporate lawyers, so you need them too. If everybody fired 90% of their marketers, marketing dollars would go 10x as far, and things wouldn't change much. Just take a look at marketing. It's an industry that's so big it props up newspapers, television, Google and most of the rest the web…

If being a marketer is a bullshit job, then being a web developer is a bullshit job too. Most people could spend a week with a marketing book and do some basic marketing. Likewise, most people could spend a week learning WordPress and create a passable website. So let's reduce the number of web developers by 90% too! Think of the billions it could save in inflated invoices from web agencies (commissioned by clueless…

If it costs you $1M per marketer rather than $100K, you're only going to hire the absolute best.

Re: On the phenomenon of bullshit jobs

#86

Post by ams6110 »

jug6ernaut wrote: post #67
furyg3 wrote: post #48

While there's a lot to debate in the article, kudos to Graeber for talking about a taboo. White-collar employees 'work' (periods of focused concentration) a lot less than 40 hours. There are exceptions, and HNers may deny this fact (because the demographic is different or because the taboo is more powerful in this circle), but Graeber's inebriated cocktail party confessions match my own discussions with friends. Howe…

I am not going to deny anything you said, its almost 100% true. But I believe your missing an important "fact"(maybe). That is its not really physically/physiologically/mentally possible to put in 40 hours of true "work". Not consistently anyways. So as much as it is we not truly putting in 40 hours, its the entire effort to be available for 40 hours IMO that you are getting paid for.

It is possible and commonplace in jobs where you physically work. Construction, any of the trades, factory work, food service... if you work 40 hours you have actually worked very close to 40 hours. There isn't any real opportunity to slack off or stand around in those jobs.

Office jobs, yeah. Many of those are bullshit jobs.

Re: On the phenomenon of bullshit jobs

#87

Post by byEngineer »

jug6ernaut wrote: post #67
furyg3 wrote: post #48

While there's a lot to debate in the article, kudos to Graeber for talking about a taboo. White-collar employees 'work' (periods of focused concentration) a lot less than 40 hours. There are exceptions, and HNers may deny this fact (because the demographic is different or because the taboo is more powerful in this circle), but Graeber's inebriated cocktail party confessions match my own discussions with friends. Howe…

I am not going to deny anything you said, its almost 100% true. But I believe your missing an important "fact"(maybe). That is its not really physically/physiologically/mentally possible to put in 40 hours of true "work". Not consistently anyways. So as much as it is we not truly putting in 40 hours, its the entire effort to be available for 40 hours IMO that you are getting paid for.

I agree. Maybe the solution would be to be paid per task completed. I.e. create a bug tracking system (just like JIRA) where employees (working from home) would bid for how much they could do the task in what timeframe. Something like desk but only company's employees could take part in bidding.

Re: On the phenomenon of bullshit jobs

#88

Post by kissickas »

jahaja wrote: post #71
xpto123 wrote: post #63

Workers in the beginning of the 20th century worked 70 hour 6-7 days weeks, now in many countries we are down to 35h / 5 days. In the next 10 years we will get to 30 or less, we are at a threshold of the 4 day work week that's why its taking longer to cut down on the work hours. The 4 day work week will imply social changes, and therefore the resistance but it will come in the next 20 years. The author understands th…

I don't think those rationalisations hold ups. The facts of workforce expansion and productivity & efficiency gains can't simply be shrugged off by "overpopulation". This is intentional political policy, nothing else.

So you agree with this statement?:

> The ruling class has figured out that a happy and productive population with free time on their hands is a mortal danger (think of what started to happen when this even began to be approximated in the ‘60s).

I was with him until there... I'd like to believe things like that and blame it all on the "evil politicians," but I'm really not sure the "ruling class" is that organized. Then, at the end of the article, he says something that seems much more reasonable to me, although contradictory:

> Clearly, the system was never consciously designed. It emerged from almost a century of trial and error.

So I'm not sure what exactly he's trying to say is the cause.

Re: On the phenomenon of bullshit jobs

#89

Post by tim333 »

Interesting article but Graeber seems to mix up some different issues:

a) We're not working 15 hour weeks. I'd say that's mostly because people like to do things. Give people enough money to not need to work and they'll still want to go build stuff

b) His musician mate made loads as a lawyer, not much as a musician in spite of contributing more to society as a musician. That does seem to be a market failing. Gandhi types preaching peace and making a big positive impact can make nothing, patent trolls can make a fortune while screwing society. Not sure how to fix that.

c) "The ruling class has figured out that a happy and productive population with free time on their hands is a mortal danger" - not convinced by that one. I think it's a failing of the human mind to attribute what are probably emergent market phenomena to plotting human bad guys.

Re: On the phenomenon of bullshit jobs

#90

Post by driverdan »

jug6ernaut wrote: post #67
furyg3 wrote: post #48

While there's a lot to debate in the article, kudos to Graeber for talking about a taboo. White-collar employees 'work' (periods of focused concentration) a lot less than 40 hours. There are exceptions, and HNers may deny this fact (because the demographic is different or because the taboo is more powerful in this circle), but Graeber's inebriated cocktail party confessions match my own discussions with friends. Howe…

I am not going to deny anything you said, its almost 100% true. But I believe your missing an important "fact"(maybe). That is its not really physically/physiologically/mentally possible to put in 40 hours of true "work". Not consistently anyways. So as much as it is we not truly putting in 40 hours, its the entire effort to be available for 40 hours IMO that you are getting paid for.

That's not true. Some jobs may be too taxing to do for 40h but most are not. Even those that are extremely taxing still require the employee to do other tasks as part of their work (eg documentation / paperwork) that reduce the amount of intense work they must do.
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