Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The rise of the pointless job

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

371–380 of 499 posts

Re: The rise of the pointless job

#371

Post by [deleted] »

sverige wrote: post #304
epc wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was that guy as a kid, at least for road work. The role rotated through my crew while everyone else worked in the manhole or on the street. Part of the reason for it to be a human is to serve as a witness for the police when a distracted driver plows into the road crew. This was in the 1980s, I’m sure drivers pay much more attention today.

> This was in the 1980s, I’m sure drivers pay much more attention today. Missing the /s. Drivers today are far worse than they were in the 80s.

[deleted]

Re: The rise of the pointless job

#372

Post by joncrane »

iriNjfk993 wrote: post #71
mfoy_ wrote: post #27

Keynes was a little more direct: "The government should pay people to dig holes in the ground and then fill them up."

The frustrating thing is though: we have plenty of real demand Social work, infrastructure repairs, mental health services. But all the effort coalesces around BIG Corp. and Douche Co. needs first Somehow we’re convinced that Bezos and Koch’s are more important than our neighbors Some looney economists will tell you it’s proven in physics these people are just better Ignoring the history of violent imperialism and co…

> Social work, infrastructure repairs, mental health services.

But not everyone is suited for that work, much less qualified to perform those services, and perhaps most importantly, not everyone WANTS to.

Raise the salaries for those professions and more might, and of course with a UBI people are less incentivized by earnings to get into a specific job.

Re: The rise of the pointless job

#373

Post by baxtr »

ctime wrote: post #228
WJW wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is visited the USA just once (in 2003), but there was an old man that took my bag off the end of the luggage belt at the airport and handed it to me. I could easily have picked it up myself, but he was there for those 30 centimeters of bag travel. I remember being amazed about it and remarking the pointlessness of that job to my coworkers.

I've never once seen this in my life (I typically have over 100k miles of airline travel per year) and have been traveling for work in the US since 2000. I don't understand how this scenario would play out, does he just grab a bag at random and hold it over his head? Read off the tag? Most people I know would be incensed if someone else were to grab their bag off the luggage belt. You might be confusing this with cur…

Similar to people who pack your groceries into bags at cashier. Have only seen this in the states, nowhere else

Re: The rise of the pointless job

#374

Post by neilwilson »

The point of a job is to allow you to put your own time beyond your own use and use it to serve others.

This simple 'proof of burn' of your finite life is what gives the money exchange value.

If you want others to give up their time to produce a surplus for you then you need to do the same. Otherwise they'll just take the productivity themselves and have Friday off.

Re: The rise of the pointless job

#375

Post by rayiner »

baxtr wrote: post #373
ctime wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never once seen this in my life (I typically have over 100k miles of airline travel per year) and have been traveling for work in the US since 2000. I don't understand how this scenario would play out, does he just grab a bag at random and hold it over his head? Read off the tag? Most people I know would be incensed if someone else were to grab their bag off the luggage belt. You might be confusing this with cur…

Similar to people who pack your groceries into bags at cashier. Have only seen this in the states, nowhere else

Packing your own groceries is work and boring though.

Re: The rise of the pointless job

#376

Post by matwood »

expensivedrone wrote: post #80

I'm a programmer working at a big-tech company. I make ~$350k/year, even though my job could be done equally well by a college intern. I only do ~2 hours of productive work in an average day. My previous jobs were far more interesting and challenging, and I had apparently done extremely well in my interviews. Hence why I got an offer with an extremely good compensation package. However, the team that I go put into, i…

> only to have my team-lead actively micromanage and stonewall me in order to bring my productivity down to a crawl

When leading, my default is to give people space. Unfortunately, that means if someone needs micro-managing I'm typically not the right person. This is different than mentoring, which I enjoy (not sure if I'm any good at it though ;) ). And obviously, I'm always there for questions. What I don't understand is how leads/managers have the time micromanage people. If a person can't trust their team to do a good job, then they should not be leading a team.

> but they started blaming me personally every time I pointed out any ways of improving the way we do things.

Even if it was your fault, this is wrong. All problems are the leads problems. The lead should be asking him/herself why you went around them to the manager? The manager should be asking the lead the same question.

I'm so happy I don't work in a big company anymore.

Re: The rise of the pointless job

#377

Post by sureaboutthis »

Almost related. Perhaps outdated. I worked in television for 10 years as a broadcast engineer. In a large city this is a union job.

I was given the task of testing and repairing some equipment that had been in a back room for a while. I was the new kid so I didn't know the routines of the day but one of my duties was to operate the camera for a five-minute newscast in the afternoon. This only entailed rolling the camera into place, pointing at the news person, focus and I was done till the newscast was over.

I was poking around the equipment in the backroom when one of the scruffy old men quickly came into the room. "Hey, you're supposed to be on the set for that newscast!", he said. I must have lost track of time cause I didn't know it was so late. I rushed to the news set, got everything ready, put on my headphones and looked around to see no one else was there and it was still an hour before the news was to be broadcast.

Thinking the old man was the one who got the time wrong, I went back to my other work, thinking I could get a few things done but, minutes later, the same old man came in to chew me out. "Do you know how long it took us to get your job into our union contract?! If management looked through the window and saw no one out here, we'd be in big trouble. You get out there now!!"

So I went back on the set, now understanding that I was required to stand there for 53 minutes, headset on, waiting for work to begin.

Re: The rise of the pointless job

#378

Post by matwood »

HillaryBriss wrote: post #293
not_real_acct wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On a Monday I quit my job and gave my two week notice. The next day my wife was fired. The day after that, my old boss offered me a raise if I would stick around. I did both jobs simultaneously for six months. In my entire life nothing has been more lucrative than this. I've tried investing in stocks, bonds, and real estate. Nothing has been more lucrative than double-dipping. The thing that's so bizarre, is that it…

FWIW, according to Warren Buffet, most people will easily make more money through their actual work / expertise, than they ever will through investing.

Absolutely. This is common advice from people like Dave Ramsey. Figuring out how to make more money is the fastest way to wealth and/or financial freedom. Taking a second job, upleveling your current job, or getting a new job at higher pay goes a long way when combined with a strict budget.

Re: The rise of the pointless job

#379

Post by matwood »

billfruit wrote: post #365
amelius wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instead of zoning out, why not work on a cool side-project?

Ethically slightly problematic to work on some side project, than in doing creative time wasting.

Yeah. If I'm on work time, working on a potential side project feels ethically wrong. This is different than wasting time on HN, or reading about some new programming language because that knowledge gain could be used at work at some point.

Re: The rise of the pointless job

#380

Post by Legogris »

foamflower wrote: post #83
lainga wrote: post #15

I have said this before, but I see some parallels between the modern world and Japan during the early Tokugawa era. Japan had pretty much reached a steady state by the time Tokugawa Iyeyasu came to power in 1600; most of the available land had been cultivated or settled, and, especially after the policies of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, society was locked in a rigid structure without much room for advancement or unrest. As a…

When my family lived in Japan years ago, we noticed that when taking the train, approximately three attendants checked our tickets before we boarded a train. At least two of those jobs are "bullshit" in terms of producing wealth, but they are socially beneficial in a culture where the social contract requires near-zero unemployment. (I, apparently like you, can't help but remember this kind of arrangement when listen…

I was also thinking exactly this during my couple of years in Japan - that having a huge amount of "bullshit jobs" is one way of keeping unemployment low in an increasingly automated economy where growth is stagnating.

In an economy where having a job (or somehow having attained large sums of money because of luck/previous endeavors) is necessary to not be an outcast, this is one way of mitigating this or at least pushing the larger problem forward. We would very likely have a huge crisis if all bullshit jobs were to disappear overnight.

Post reply on HN