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Bullshit Jobs and the Labourisation of Work

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Re: Bullshit Jobs and the Labourisation of Work

#31

Post by whatshisface »

lordnacho wrote: post #18
0db532a0 wrote: post #12

I recently deleted my LinkedIn account after growing sick of the irrelevant messages from recruiters and the mind-numbing, inane posts from the cult of self-proclaimed thinkers, influencers, TED luminaries and Elon Musk sympathisers. One of Oleg Vishnepolsky’s golden posts was the final straw. I decided that I didn’t want to be a part of the bullshit and self aggrandisation any more. And why not, since I’d already de…

Actually, one of the reasons I still use LinkedIn is that their algo isn't that great. It keeps throwing up the occasional article that I actually want to read, often because some random person I'm mysteriously connected to liked it. If the algo gets "too good" I find it gets too samey. Also there's some humour to be found when every other person is a "thought leader" but graduated less than 10 years ago. The self-pu…

>You can imagine how deflated the person would feel if you met them IRL and started asking proper questions.

You could make anyone unhappy by "asking the proper questions," irrespective of what they have in their LinkedIn profile. Doing that is called "being mean."

Re: Bullshit Jobs and the Labourisation of Work

#32

Post by jahaja »

sowbug wrote: post #28
coldtea wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s the second half of the article that contain the real insights - that what are termed “bullshit” jobs, and despised by the people working them, actually do create economic value. Only there's no proof, just some handwaving. I'd rather trust those actually doing the jobs for their assessment of them.

An employer profitably exchanges wages for labor. That profit is the economic value. If this weren't true, then all businesses would be bankrupt. By definition, non-owner employees are insulated from that economic value. It's unclear, then, why you'd prefer their assessment over that of someone looking at the business as a whole.

How would one measure each employee's individual profitability?

Re: Bullshit Jobs and the Labourisation of Work

#33

Post by TeMPOraL »

sowbug wrote: post #28
coldtea wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s the second half of the article that contain the real insights - that what are termed “bullshit” jobs, and despised by the people working them, actually do create economic value. Only there's no proof, just some handwaving. I'd rather trust those actually doing the jobs for their assessment of them.

An employer profitably exchanges wages for labor. That profit is the economic value. If this weren't true, then all businesses would be bankrupt. By definition, non-owner employees are insulated from that economic value. It's unclear, then, why you'd prefer their assessment over that of someone looking at the business as a whole.

Because employers are unavailable for comment. Few would be willing to say out loud that their business is bullshit, but makes money, simply because of negative PR effect.

That someone's willing to pay for it doesn't automatically imply the job is useful on the societal scale, and the latter is IMO a more important concept. There are plenty of businesses that can earn money even though everyone would be better off if those businesses weren't being done.

Re: Bullshit Jobs and the Labourisation of Work

#34

Post by delinka »

madengr wrote: post #15
0db532a0 wrote: post #12

I recently deleted my LinkedIn account after growing sick of the irrelevant messages from recruiters and the mind-numbing, inane posts from the cult of self-proclaimed thinkers, influencers, TED luminaries and Elon Musk sympathisers. One of Oleg Vishnepolsky’s golden posts was the final straw. I decided that I didn’t want to be a part of the bullshit and self aggrandisation any more. And why not, since I’d already de…

I’d delete my account if I could remember the password. The emails are sent straight to the junk folder.

Password recovery, set new password, promptly delete account.

Re: Bullshit Jobs and the Labourisation of Work

#35

Post by antonkm »

JamesBarney wrote: post #16
0db532a0 wrote: post #12

I recently deleted my LinkedIn account after growing sick of the irrelevant messages from recruiters and the mind-numbing, inane posts from the cult of self-proclaimed thinkers, influencers, TED luminaries and Elon Musk sympathisers. One of Oleg Vishnepolsky’s golden posts was the final straw. I decided that I didn’t want to be a part of the bullshit and self aggrandisation any more. And why not, since I’d already de…

There is definitely value to LinkedIn, for all the obvious reasons. It let's you keep up to date with new jobs, and old colleagues. But you probably already decided that it's not valuable enough to keep you on the platform. Only thing I can add if you ever start your own company it's becomes over an order or magnitude more valuable.

~20% of my shop's jobs came from LinkedIn 2018. All those jobs landed by me surfing on the couch watching Netflix (senior dev in Sweden).

But I use it as hunting grounds. Can't stand how people portray themselves on LinkedIn - so much bullshit going on.

Re: Bullshit Jobs and the Labourisation of Work

#36

Post by [deleted] »

0db532a0 wrote: post #22
JamesBarney wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is definitely value to LinkedIn, for all the obvious reasons. It let's you keep up to date with new jobs, and old colleagues. But you probably already decided that it's not valuable enough to keep you on the platform. Only thing I can add if you ever start your own company it's becomes over an order or magnitude more valuable.

Yes that’s what I’m worried about. Too late now, I suppose.

[deleted]

Re: Bullshit Jobs and the Labourisation of Work

#37

Post by andyidsinga »

see also Gervais Principle: https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-...

edit: elaborating a little on why I referenced the Gervais Principle:

It's an interesting guide to understand the relationship between executives, middle-management, and the worker/producers and the relationship each has with "The organization".

Per the gervais principle, a lot of the bullshit job phenomenon is explained through the relationship an employee has with reality and the organization in which they work.

In gervais, the sociopaths at the top (executives) and the losers at the bottom (actual producers of some value) both have some grasp on reality - whereas the clueless middle are full of cognitive dissonance about the reality of their position and loyalty to the idea of the organization. So, IMHO, the clueless category, in moments of honesty are the ones most likely to call out their position as a "bullshit" job.

Re: Bullshit Jobs and the Labourisation of Work

#38

Post by TeMPOraL »

temp-dude-87844 wrote: post #29

The LinkedIn angle doesn't contribute to the other points, and even as framing it doesn't help. While the stuff put on there may be fictitious and the interactions with it are just signalling, it doesn't relate to the observation that many people seem to place a higher significance on their work than just a paycheck, or that they expect some degree of fulfillment, a chance to make an impact, or an opportunity to leve…

> And despite all the armchair economists repeating the refrain that the economy is not zero sum, people aren't blind and know that their relative losses to their peers affect their future prospects and likely stunt them for life.

Economy as a whole may not be zero-sum, but this reminds me of the stuff we did on maths/physics classes. You'd have a thing X with some aggregate quality, but there was a way of "drawing a circle", selecting a subset of X which has the opposite aggregate quality. It's easy to draw circles over our economy that surround areas that are zero-sum, or even negative-sum. I think a lot of complaints about bullshit jobs come from people who realize they're stuck in one of such areas.

Re: Bullshit Jobs and the Labourisation of Work

#39

Post by hodgesrm »

JamesBarney wrote: post #16
0db532a0 wrote: post #12

I recently deleted my LinkedIn account after growing sick of the irrelevant messages from recruiters and the mind-numbing, inane posts from the cult of self-proclaimed thinkers, influencers, TED luminaries and Elon Musk sympathisers. One of Oleg Vishnepolsky’s golden posts was the final straw. I decided that I didn’t want to be a part of the bullshit and self aggrandisation any more. And why not, since I’d already de…

There is definitely value to LinkedIn, for all the obvious reasons. It let's you keep up to date with new jobs, and old colleagues. But you probably already decided that it's not valuable enough to keep you on the platform. Only thing I can add if you ever start your own company it's becomes over an order or magnitude more valuable.

I just used it for exactly that purpose today. It's the modern successor to the Rolodex.

Re: Bullshit Jobs and the Labourisation of Work

#40

Post by slfnflctd »

m0llusk wrote: post #9

Picking apart the jobs as bullshit metric directly might not be the only or best path. There is a known and confounding spectrum currently exhibited in most developed economies where some of the most valued labor such as teaching the young and caring for the sick and elderly turn out to be among the lowest paid while some of the highest paid labor is so detailed an specialized that it ends up in being sufficiently ad…

> dollars lost per human life improved

This could be a fun 'fuzzy metric' to kick around for a while, I like it.

It would likely be way too inaccurate across different professions & regions to tie directly to anything with major consequences - especially quantifying "improved" - but it does seem likely to turn up some helpful insights.

I'd certainly be happy to see a more accurate reflection of this in how various workers are compensated. I expect there are more than a few superstars of positive human impact in our world just barely scraping by who are rarely properly acknowledged for their value.

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