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On the phenomenon of bullshit jobs

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Re: On the phenomenon of bullshit jobs

#211

Post by dllthomas »

byEngineer wrote: post #123
dognotdog wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't take it out on socialism! Under those principles, the banks either would not have existed in this form in the first place, or been allowed to go bankrupt just as you suggest. What happened with the bank bailout was pure capitalism, the banks simply bought the government!

Tea Party members voted against bank bailouts. Not democrats, not old-republicans. My point is, yes, you can buy democrats and some republicans to vote in favor of more government spending. But you apparently can't buy them all to do it. During cold war you could try to buy Moscow communists as much as you wanted so they allowed you open bank branch in USSR, but this would never happen. You can try buy guys like Ron…

"But you apparently can't buy them all to do it."

I'm sure Bill Gates, when he goes shopping, just buys the eggs he expects to need. That doesn't show us that he can't buy all the eggs in the store.

Re: On the phenomenon of bullshit jobs

#212

Post by jimbokun »

jerf wrote: post #184
sklogic wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fact, large corporate entities are nearly as wasteful and inefficient as the socialist bureaucratic state-controlled monsters from the USSR. Looks like key here is in being monstrous, not in the underlying ideology.

While I sometimes describe myself as "libertarian", this is actually closer to one of my core positions. Large organizations become large because somehow, at some point in their past, they discovered how to produce some sort of wealth greatly in excess of what they were spending to produce it. This creates security for the entity. This security means that they are no longer getting feedback from the real world about…

I think you're on to something.

It's fascinating to me how executives are so often enamored with large mergers and acquisitions, while it seems very rare for such transactions to result in greater overall growth or profitability. I suspect the real reason is to increase the buffer between the CEO and real world feedback. At some level, I suspect the executives instinctively know the real reason to increase the size of the organization is to further insulate them from market feedback.

Certainly makes more sense than the underlying financials in most cases, as far as I can tell.

Re: On the phenomenon of bullshit jobs

#213

Post by shkkmo »

retrogradeMT wrote: post #201
ams6110 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It seems that the answer should be, at least in the shot term, for good managers to recognize the 40 hours "available" concept and provide more flexible schedules. No one gains from having an office full of workers surfing Facebook on friday afternoon. Let people be someplace else if it their queue is empty. From the outside, it seems like startups do this better than most.

Except what seems to actually be happening in some cases is "40 hours onsite" and "available 24/7 via email"

Re: On the phenomenon of bullshit jobs

#214

Post by normloman »

facepalm wrote: post #154
kefka wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Silicon Valley is not indicative of jobs in the US. What some developer there gets has little/no bearing on what happens elsewhere. You also did not argue the core assertion that the employer-employee contract is heavily skewed to the employer. That has been true for the last 30 years. Productivity has made great inroads, yet pay and benefits have dropped significantly. So yes, this is a government issue. The emp…

If employers have such a sweet deal, just become an employer? Why is there an entitlement for employment?

Because most new businesses fail. So the people best suited to start ones are people with a safety net: a lot of cash saved up, or a well off family to support them.

In short, the people who can't afford to lose their jobs also cannot afford to fail in business.

Re: On the phenomenon of bullshit jobs

#215

Post by JulianMorrison »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #164
JulianMorrison wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

B Ark jobs aren't awful jobs, though. A chinese woman once started talking to me in a bakery, saying she wanted to practice her english. She'd spent time in Australia and recently come back to China to look for a job. "What kind of job are you looking for?" I ask. "I want to get a job in an office." When "working in an office" is the height of your ambition, a B Ark job is as good as things get. If you're looking for…

No, they are still awful. Just awful on different levels of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. If your job leaves you insecure for basic survival and safety, then merely having your esteem and self actualization trashed looks like heaven.

Re: On the phenomenon of bullshit jobs

#216

Post by dragonwriter »

deelowe wrote: post #171
dognotdog wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't take it out on socialism! Under those principles, the banks either would not have existed in this form in the first place, or been allowed to go bankrupt just as you suggest. What happened with the bank bailout was pure capitalism, the banks simply bought the government!

s/capitalism/corporatism Many capitalists (myself included) tend to not support corporatism. Capitalism assumes individuals owning smallish businesses. The minute a business becomes large enough to influence the federal government, things get weird and I'm not sure the system works as intended.

In addition to your misuse of "corporatism" as identified by tatterdemalion, you seem to be redefining "capitalism" to mean "what deelowe likes"; capitalism historically -- from the time that name was first given to an economic system by nineteenth century critics of the then-existing system in developed countries -- has always referred to a system which features unfettered accumulation of capital, and it is a system which was formed by cpaital accumulating so much in the hands of a few wealthy influencers outside of the feudal aristocracy despite feudal rules that restricted many kinds of capital flows that the elite of that new capitalist class were able to influence the existing governments to remove the feudal restrictions. The exact thing that you say is "weird" and doesn't seem to be capitalism working as intended is the origin and essence of capitalism, and the thing which motivated its early critics to bother criticizing -- and in the process naming -- capitalism.

Re: On the phenomenon of bullshit jobs

#217

Post by nshepperd »

loup-vaillant wrote: post #122
rakoo wrote: post #44

> The answer clearly isn’t economic I beg to differ. I totally agree with the paradox (with the advances in technology, humans should be working less) but the problem, today, is economic: - In order to live you need money - In order to obtain money you need to work (except for the lucky too few) - Therefore, work needs to exist to provide people with money, to the point of creating "useless" jobs if needs be How are…

As far as I know, the job market is not demand driven. So, the number of people who work isn't really determined by how many people need money. It is determined by how many jobs there is. In other words, jobs don't exist to provide people with money. They exist to provide the boss with labour. The fact that people need money is just very convenient for the capitalists.

That doesn't seem entirely true. If most people didn't need money to live, they would be less willing to sign up for "bullshit jobs", meaning employers would have to provide more enticing compensation, potentially resulting in a reduction in people working such meaningless jobs.

In other words, the job market is currently supply driven, but that is due to the fact that demand is inelastic -- everyone needs money to live.

ETA: There is also an indirect effect through public policy: politicians will not want to pass legislation that reduces the number of jobs, since that would increase unemployment figures, making them look bad. Of course, the fact that high unemployment figures are bad is a result of people needing to work to live.

Re: On the phenomenon of bullshit jobs

#218

Post by normloman »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #93

I am reminded of a quote from an economics professor. "Why do big nations have a lot of jobs, no matter how much they are producing? As it turns out, this is a very interesting question" This is the robots-are-coming-for-us fallacy rearing its head again. Once again, the premise is that we only need certain things -- food, shelter, electricity, internet, health care. Once robots make these things, well dang, there wo…

I see what you mean about the robots: productivity goes up, but we always find new things to consume.

But

1. Is there a limit to how much we can consume? Look at the super rich. They have more money then they know what to do with, so they stash it in hedge funds. The middle class drives consumption more than the rich. Leads me to think there's a point where consumption doesn't grow with your income.

2. The bullshit jobs discussed in the article are not about creating novel and scares things to consume. Advertising, corporate law, etc, has an arms-race element. Companies spend more on advertising to keep up with their competitors.

Re: On the phenomenon of bullshit jobs

#219

Post by humanrebar »

foobarqux wrote: post #206
humanrebar wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair enough, but can you do that until you're 80? And what happens when you have a serious knee problem or a pregnancy? I suspect it's exceptional that someone can do physical labor for 40 hours a week for 45 weeks a year for 60 years. The common response is, "Well, yeah, but you should retire at some point." And that's a fair response, but farm workers are severely under-charging if they expect to work for 30 years…

People worked in factories for 14+ hours of continuous work.

At what life expectancy? And, again, what happened if they were injured?

Re: On the phenomenon of bullshit jobs

#220

Post by AndrewKemendo »

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.

Ah, I disagree. I think that if you are in one of those jobs and continue to justify your existence and the existence of the job, you are just reinforcing it.

For example, I know I am in one of those jobs so I tendered my resignation a few months ago and will be gone in December. Hopefully no one else fills it.

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