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On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs

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Re: On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs

#111

Post by jonnathanson »

We need to distinguish between two separate, tangentially related issues: bullshit jobs and bullshit hours.

Most of the classes of jobs mentioned in this piece are not, in and of themselves, entirely bullshit. Rather, the idea that each of these people actually needs to be in the office, pretending to be continually and evenly busy, for 50+ hours a week -- that's bullshit. Work ebbs and flows in a very different way for each type of job; it is not evenly distributed across the day or week. The belief that it is leads us to create busywork, the dread and bane of all office workers.

We are struggling to unshackle ourselves from the remnants of the old, industrial workweek, which was developed around assembly lines at automobile factories. Most of us aren't building Model T's anymore. And yet, we have laws and/or employment contracts charting mandatory minimum workweeks, mandatory minimum hours per day, etc.

Some jobs really do require 40, 50, or even more hours per week. Many, and I'd dare say most, do not. Especially the white-collar administrative and "paper pushing" positions mentioned in this article. The jobs themselves aren't unnecessary (at least not in reasonable quantity), but the idea that all jobs are normalized around the same schedule is absolute lunacy.

Re: On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs

#112

Post by conjectures »

mbesto wrote: post #95
zeteo wrote: post #75

I disagree that the answer is moral and political and that the "ruling class" sat down to decide most people should work bullshit jobs. The phenomenon is more elegantly explained by pure economics: as less time is expended extracting resources and producing things, more energy is absorbed by the zero-sum, gimmicky game of selling and marketing them. To give credit where it's due, I first saw this credible argument on…

Right on! Or as Seth Godin puts it:[0] > Attention is a bit like real estate, in that they're not making any more of it. Unlike real estate, though, it keeps going up in value. [0]- http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2011/07/paying-atten...

Except that the world population is increasing (more of us), proportionally fewer people live in grinding poverty (more time) and more of us have access to diverse communications technology (more access). Seems to me attention isn't much like real estate.

Re: On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs

#113

Post by RyanZAG »

JonnieCache wrote: post #79
RyanZAG wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alright, I understand the argument now, thank you. I still disagree that anybody is trying to make this occur through nudges, a plan or any sort of action - considered or not. I believe it is the result of human kind's base urge to find meaning in themselves and their lives. I'd say that even if people in power were to try and push people into jobs, the people being pushed out of jobs would seek to find any job they…

It's a bit more than a just plausible argument. There's a whole cabinet department devoted to it: http://www.theguardian.com/society/2010/sep/09/cameron-nudge... https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/behavioural-insi...

I'm still not convinced. The attempt by one government to carry out 'economic nudging' does not mean that the nudging has had any real effect. There is also the problem that countries without such attempts (eh.. Sri Lanka?) are having any different results in people working bullshit jobs.

Again, the argument is plausible but is a long way from being compelling, for me at least. The simplest answer - that people are doing what they do because it's how people work - is far more compelling for me. The right answer is usually the one that passes the 'least surprise' test the best.

What would surprise you more?

  1. A group of the government and wealththy individuals
     are managing to convince the entire population into
     working bullshit jobs.

  2. People without jobs don't feel they have a purpose
     and try to create a purpose in any way they can,
     such as copying those who do appear to have a purpose.

Re: On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs

#114

Post by ap22213 »

alanctgardner2 wrote: post #106
ap22213 wrote: post #89

Part of the problem is that it's really hard to quantify the social value of failure. So, a lot of people opt to take the easy path and do more busy work. At least, then they may show that their busy work had some productivity and output. I see this all too often in software development. Instead of people chasing wildly challenging ideas, they choose to re-write things over and over. How many programming languages do…

What counts as a wildly challenging idea in applied computer science? A new programming paradigm? I actually can't think of anything I would drop everything to pursue right now, and I suspect most people are the same way. I think it's naive to assume everyone would do something wonderful if only they were unfettered by corporate shackles. For most people writing a good ORM or programming language would be an achievem…

I could probably make a list of things, but they'd be specific to my particular needs. Generally, each week, I think of one or two services or products that I wish I had.

At this very moment, I wish I had a service that would crawl the web and extract recipes and save them in a standard format with standardized ingredients, units of measure, equipment, and procedures. But, that's just me.

Re: On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs

#115

Post by ap22213 »

walshemj wrote: post #107
ap22213 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would be the serious ramifications of vanishing corporate law and private equity?

Try running a company or doing a start up with out a supply of capital.

Is it really so difficult to allocate capital that just about every city needs skyscrapers full of finance people? I'm asking that as a completely legitimate question - I really have no idea of how much work is required to give my small business a line of credit.

Re: On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs

#116

Post by Ygg2 »

twoodfin wrote: post #88
JulianMorrison wrote: post #53

The core cause of bullshit jobs is not conspiracy, it's political economy. We currently choose (IMO a terrible choice) to have a money based society where "don't work" == "don't eat". And so work must be found. This is what it means when politicians talk of "creating jobs".

Just how do you propose eating without working? Someone has to work so she or others can eat.

It would probably had to be heavily subsidized by the state. If you could turn solar energy to food, cheaply and reliantly enough you could never have to starve, and food price would plummet.

Just plop a solar panel and eat your manufactured cucumber. Problem is that agriculture today doesn't create it reliably enough (drought, heavy weather can destroy your crops).

Re: On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs

#117

Post by zdw »

objclxt wrote: post #9

> It’s not entirely clear how humanity would suffer were all private equity CEOs, lobbyists, PR researchers, actuaries, telemarketers, bailiffs or legal consultants to similarly vanish. (Many suspect it might markedly improve.) We'd probably lead full, rich and happy lives until we were all suddenly wiped out by a virulent disease contracted from an unexpectedly dirty telephone.

I think what he's suggesting is inverse of the outcome of HGTTG - that the telephone sanitzers wipe out all the ineffectual upper management people who do no or limited real work.

Neither is a plausible solution, although his seems more valid if you would consider decimating the ineffectual upper management class rather than outright removal.

Re: On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs

#118

Post by ZeroGravitas »

impendia wrote: post #22
RyanZAG wrote: post #20

I was with him all the way until "The ruling class has figured out that a happy and productive population with free time on their hands is a mortal danger ". The author does make the point that it might also be the people themselves pushing for it, at least. The 'ruling class' really doesn't care if anybody is or isn't working pointless jobs. Society as a whole is forcing people into pointless jobs by viewing anybody…

I was with you until the end. Can you provide an example of an academic sabotaging useful production in order to prove his or her value?

The continued existence of lecturing, 4 decades or more after it's been shown to be a poor use of time?

An article I recently read (written only 30 years ago) attributed a lot of this to the academic's ego enjoying the feel of being an expert, when a printed sheet of paper, written by someone else would have a bigger impact on the students attending the lecture.

Re: On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs

#119

Post by mason240 »

Filligree wrote: post #3

Some of what people want is positive-sum: Books, aquariums, theater showings, even cars. As we get more productive, the amount of time you need to work for these decreases. A lot of what people want is zero-sum: Location, status symbols, and so forth. If you want to live in the centre of town you need to work more than anyone else who so wants, not just as much as it takes to cover the maintenance. This is, I believe…

This is exactly it. On a related note, look at how fast food restaurants no longer sell fast, cheap food. Instead they sell experiences. McDonalds has the McCafe thing, and even KFC is trying to rebrand itself as something more like Panera Bread.

We have moved beyond the point where the item itself is readily available, so what is desired now is the experience that goes with it.

Re: On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs

#120

Post by pcrh »

netcan wrote: post #86

" The ruling class has figured out that a happy and productive population with free time on their hands is a mortal danger " I don't know what to call this fallacy, but it needs a name. In a way it's similar to saying "nature abhors a vacuum," "this evolutionary strategy aims to", "the market will.." etc. Those are all personifying emergent phenomenons. They are non person things that behave amusingly as if they have…

I think the word you are looking might be "teleology".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teleology

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