“So many people spend their working lives doing jobs they think are unnecessary”
1–10 of 206 posts
Re: “So many people spend their working lives doing jobs they think are unnecessary”
#270% of U.S. workers are not engaged at work
http://www.gallup.com/services/178514/state-american-workpla...
Re: “So many people spend their working lives doing jobs they think are unnecessary”
#3Honest in places, but overlooks the Tyler Durdens who have a 'rapscallion' element to their character and behind the front of work, they dutifully play to make the day go by quicker. Also see: dossing.
Re: “So many people spend their working lives doing jobs they think are unnecessary”
#4I can't say I'm surprised and I much agree with this. I've held many positions in both the private and public sector. While the public sector was always inefficient (honestly it was significantly worse than I pictured before starting...far far worse like you could easily eliminate hundreds of jobs without impact worse) private sector is pretty bad in many places as well.
It's also amazing what networking can do to get around many processes that people normally go through which kinda shows how worthless they are. So many times I've been told something that would take weeks or months ended up taking days or hours because I knew someone who could put me on "the rush list" which typically bypassed much of what was required in the first place.
Re: “So many people spend their working lives doing jobs they think are unnecessary”
#5We are living in a post-industrial service economy. Many jobs are not unnecessary, just routine and unglamorous.
Re: “So many people spend their working lives doing jobs they think are unnecessary”
#6Most people who criticize "bullshit jobs" simply lack the perspective to see how these jobs are critically important for society. Take the list from the article itself, one of the "bullshit jobs" listed is actuary. Well, without actuaries, insurance would not be priced correctly, and would be prohibitively expensive or too cheap and insurance companies would go out of business. Either way, insurance would be less available than it is today.
And what does a world with less insurance look like? Insurance lets people trade a small amount of money for protection against a loss of a life-ruining amount of money. Without health insurance or fire insurance, people have to save up as much money as they can in the case of a catastrophic accident which they probably won't have, and possibly declining to spend that money on important things like higher education, etc. And when people are underinsured, they're constantly in a state of baseline anxiety, worry about "what ifs."
Is that the world this author wants to live in? One where he's constantly worrying about what might happen if he gets sick? That's not a world I want.
Re: “So many people spend their working lives doing jobs they think are unnecessary”
#7My takeaway from the article and also based on personal experiences is that governments have shielded themselves from automation. There's just insane fat wherever you look
Re: “So many people spend their working lives doing jobs they think are unnecessary”
#8Most people who criticize "bullshit jobs" simply lack the perspective to see how these jobs are critically important for society. Take the list from the article itself, one of the "bullshit jobs" listed is actuary. Well, without actuaries, insurance would not be priced correctly, and would be prohibitively expensive or too cheap and insurance companies would go out of business. Either way, insurance would be less ava…
Much of Europe works perfectly well with out health insurance.
Re: “So many people spend their working lives doing jobs they think are unnecessary”
#9Most people who criticize "bullshit jobs" simply lack the perspective to see how these jobs are critically important for society. Take the list from the article itself, one of the "bullshit jobs" listed is actuary. Well, without actuaries, insurance would not be priced correctly, and would be prohibitively expensive or too cheap and insurance companies would go out of business. Either way, insurance would be less ava…
I think actuary is a poor example. Graeber himself would might correct himself if he was reminded of what he just said. It's probably a waste of time to hone in on that particular off the cuff statement.
There are still plenty of jobs which are bullshit though. For example my girlfriend is an auditor. Most of her job would disappear if the infrastructure existed to have her clients financial records completely digitised. A program could then analyse the data (which is mostly done at the moment with a bunch of spreadsheets right now) and with higher audit coverage (they can only check/test a fraction of records and transactions). Her workload could go from 5-6 days a week to 2.
Re: “So many people spend their working lives doing jobs they think are unnecessary”
#10Most people who criticize "bullshit jobs" simply lack the perspective to see how these jobs are critically important for society. Take the list from the article itself, one of the "bullshit jobs" listed is actuary. Well, without actuaries, insurance would not be priced correctly, and would be prohibitively expensive or too cheap and insurance companies would go out of business. Either way, insurance would be less ava…
>Most people who criticize "bullshit jobs" simply lack the perspective to see how these jobs are critically important for society.
Ok, so that's one that you cherry picked. How about these?
* Private equity CEOs
* Lobbyists
* PR researchers
* Telemarketers
* Bailiffs
Tell us how the world would be worse off without them.
You could argue that some of these are doing actual harm to society, actually.