Meh. Didn't John Stuart Mill describe the Indian empire as "indoor relief for the British middle classes"?
Bullshit Jobs
321–330 of 576 posts
Re: Bullshit Jobs
#322Earlier quoted context omitted.
Have you considered staying at the current job, not showing up, AND getting another job? I realize this is unethical but is it actually illegal? One of my friend’s coworkers did this but I didn’t know the coworker well enough to see how it turned out. I have always been curious.
Pretty sure this is illegal as well, what with non competes and all
Depends on your state.
In places like CA, you'd probably be fine to offer services to a company that's completely unrelated to your nominal employer, as long as you don't use privileged information from your "main" job.
That being said, have a friendly chat with your own lawyer before doing this.
Re: Bullshit Jobs
#323I am fairly convinced that bullshit jobs (and entire bullshit industries) exist as a consequence of the following things: 1) There is less and less actual work to be done due to technological progress; 2) There are economic incentives to create larger and larger organizations; 3) Society hasn't found a rational way to redistribute wealth yet. This is tragic. Entire human lives are being wasted on this dystopia of bor…
> Even though there is not much actual work to be done, people still tend to tie their self-worth and social status to employment.
What can replace this though. There is needs to be something that creates a social hierarchy. We can only operate in an hierarchy.
Re: Bullshit Jobs
#324I don't think requiring a doctor's note is necessarily bullshit. Special chairs are more expensive so it's a shallow cut to prevent everyone wanting one just because it's available. If they are more comfortable and the two people sitting next to you have one, wouldn't you want one too?
Now obviously there is potential for fraud and so there is some bs as the author notes. But let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater I can see a reason the company would have this process.
Re: Bullshit Jobs
#325I am fairly convinced that bullshit jobs (and entire bullshit industries) exist as a consequence of the following things: 1) There is less and less actual work to be done due to technological progress; 2) There are economic incentives to create larger and larger organizations; 3) Society hasn't found a rational way to redistribute wealth yet. This is tragic. Entire human lives are being wasted on this dystopia of bor…
An angle that appears to be underexplored, is what happens if you let males compete for sustainability. We might be underestimating the effect of classical (or perhaps even biological) provider roles of males, i.e. the amassment of resources to attract a mate. If we could transform this in competition in sustainability, then it might make a huge difference. Current approaches to sustainability might exactly fail beca…
I've made this observation as well. It goes further than diet, of course. Cars and clothes is another example.
The only thing that could change this behavior is if women selected for mates practicing sustainability.
Re: Bullshit Jobs
#326University administrators.[1] Stanford is busily building their new Redwood City "campus". It's all administrators . No students. No faculty. No research. 13 office buildings. 2700 staff. Initially, the campus will be home to Stanford employees working in such critical areas as the School of Medicine administration; Stanford Libraries and University Archives; the major administrative units of Business Affairs; Land,…
"In 2017–18, Stanford is a $6.3 billion enterprise." http://facts.stanford.edu/administration/finances Takes a lot of people to manage that much money.
More like: it takes a lot of people to justify budget and tuition increases.
Re: Bullshit Jobs
#327I am fairly convinced that bullshit jobs (and entire bullshit industries) exist as a consequence of the following things: 1) There is less and less actual work to be done due to technological progress; 2) There are economic incentives to create larger and larger organizations; 3) Society hasn't found a rational way to redistribute wealth yet. This is tragic. Entire human lives are being wasted on this dystopia of bor…
As Dr Ford from WestWorld said something like 'Human are very predictable and run in tight loops' while explaining there is not much difference between man and machine.
As I reflect on my life it does seem very predictable outside work. At office it is still a bit interesting due to all sort of random issues crop up in a work day.
Re: Bullshit Jobs
#328Earlier quoted context omitted.
Programmers are not researchers; lab techs are not researchers; many other people who do work for the academics are not 'academic staff' (and can't be paid as such). It's not hard to imagine what that sort of structure leads to.
I was a "research assistant" for several years and my senior colleagues were "staff scientists". I think you'll need some evidence to support the claim that research assistants are being considered administrators because I really doubt that.
shrug I was just responding to the GP with 10 'academic staff' and 70 'administrative staff'. It's not like every professor has 7 secretaries there. Every university divides things differently. I was just pointing out that the 10/70 is not what it looks like at first, or rather, what some people here seen to think. (at least, I think - I'm not GP, maybe they actually do have 7 secretaries each).
Re: Bullshit Jobs
#329Earlier quoted context omitted.
Have you considered staying at the current job, not showing up, AND getting another job? I realize this is unethical but is it actually illegal? One of my friend’s coworkers did this but I didn’t know the coworker well enough to see how it turned out. I have always been curious.
Pretty sure this is illegal as well, what with non competes and all
Only if you actually violate the non compete (and even then it will be state-specific).
Re: Bullshit Jobs
#330Earlier quoted context omitted.
"If that is true, then your researchers are effectively managers here. The real workers are lab techs, programmers etc." Well yeah. Professors are like business unit leaders/managers, acquiring funding for research and setting the main outline of what to do. Then the others (usually, although not always, designated 'administrative staff', or grad students/post docs) execute the work. I'm not sure I would call them 'r…
>>you mean 'real work' as 'producing something', but 'creating the circumstances in which others can produce something' is also work. The thing is its always easy to see who 'produces something'. When you start talking about 'creating the circumstances', you trigger of a chain of helpers, who help helpers, who ... and so on. Until you arrive at a point where there is a whole hierarchy of people sitting just to approv…
Well yeah, sure. That's how it works when scaling any organization. I'm not sure what I'm arguing here; I know for a fact that most universities have too much admin staff, but it's not like they all sit around all day writing reports to each other (at least not most of them). Students nowadays expect a mental health program, housing- and career advisers, clubs and events, they want to see the school in the newspapers, they want to be offered international exchanges and internships. All very understandable, but someone needs to make all that happen. Couple that with the fact that universities cannot be 'efficient' in the sense that they get as much done as possible for as little money as possible (because that's just not in the DNA of universities), and you get the current situation.