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The rise of the pointless job

theguardian.com

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Re: The rise of the pointless job

#451

Post by sverige »

rangibaby wrote: post #399
sverige wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But a lot more have been smoking weed.

TBF driving while tired is probably more dangerous than driving after smoking cannabis

I agree, but driving while high is not at all safe. Sure, it's less bad than drinking, but it's still more dangerous than driving when sober (and rested). Accident rates have gone up since legalization. [0,1,2]

[0] https://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/21/auto-crashes-are-on-the-rise...

[1] http://gazette.com/study-finds-fatal-crashes-in-colorado-hav...

[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/06/26/what-...

Re: The rise of the pointless job

#452

Post by randomdata »

learc83 wrote: post #439
randomdata wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's just basic supply and demand. Top paying jobs like CEO are top paying because the supply of trusted people, who boards are willing to hand control over billions of assets to, is vanishingly small. Programming jobs are reasonably well paying because businesses are careful about who they hand their code over to, although not the extreme degree of CEO. And something like fry cook is low paying because those busines…

It's not just basic supply and demand though. There are many other factors driving up CEO pay. 1. CEO pay at public companies is public, so they feel the need to keep up with other companies. 2. The incestuous relationship between CEOs and the boards of directors that set their pay. CEO compensation isn't tied to performance.

> 1. CEO pay at public companies is public, so they feel the need to keep up with other companies.

That's just basic supply and demand. Since pay is public, people know how much the other party will balk at, affecting the supply.

> 2. The incestuous relationship between CEOs and the boards of directors that set their pay.

That's just basic supply and demand. Like I said, the people who have that kind of relationship are vanishingly small.

> CEO compensation isn't tied to performance.

There is no pay that is truly tied to performance. Just basic supply and demand.

Re: The rise of the pointless job

#453

Post by gkya »

rayiner wrote: post #397
gtvwill wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If packing your own groceries fills your definition of work and doesn't just come under "shit you just do to get something from one place to another because you need it in your life". You REALLY need to get out and perform a variety of jobs. Like damn you gotta be about as useless as tits on a bull if you think pulling the food your going to eat that is NECESSARY FOR YOUR SURVIVAL off a bench and into a bag is work.

Growing food is necessary for my survival but I don’t do that myself. Grocery bagging is also not trivial. You can’t just throw things into a bag in random order, you need to think about it. A well packed set of shopping bags is a big convenience, and I don’t want to spend the bandwidth to do it. There is a big difference between a job that creates convenience for other people and one that’s redundant or pointless.

> You can’t just throw things into a bag in random order, you need to think about it. A well packed set of shopping bags is a big convenience, and I don’t want to spend the bandwidth to do it.

Please tell me that you say this only to win the argument, because, come on. Putting things into something else is as trivial as it gets, and I can assure you that, even though I have never seen one, a person whose job is to fill the bits someone else bought into bags for them will give absolutely zero fucks about how he puts them things into them bags. Except maybe it's somewhere like Harrods, I guess, if they are paid high enough (now I recalled this: there was a comment or an article recently about an employee of Harrods whose job was to get fired when customers came to complain about other personnel).

Re: The rise of the pointless job

#454

Post by ghaff »

gaius wrote: post #429
ghaff wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OTOH last time I was in St.Pancras there was a guy collecting the fees to use the washroom and keeping things tidied up. People in the US would be outraged to pay for using a bathroom under those circumstances. Japan can be even worse. I’ve seen it at hotel seven when you’re eating at the hotel restaurant.

OTOH last time I was in St.Pancras there was a guy collecting the fees to use the washroom The toilets at St Pancras are free and always have been. He was just some random guy you gave money to!

Maybe was another a London station. Recall there being a turnstile.

Re: The rise of the pointless job

#455

Post by gkya »

dragandj wrote: post #345
walshemj wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Machiavelli's was worried that the mercs would take over. Which is effectively happened in India princes and kings hiring foreign mercs from France and Britain. Another example is the Janissaries in turkey.

Janissaries were slave-warriors rather than mercenaries, though.

Slave-warriors in the name only though. They were literally one of the most powerful classes in the entirety of the empire for many centuries, after the dynasty and the dirigents themselves.

Re: The rise of the pointless job

#456

Post by droidist2 »

madeofpalk wrote: post #434
modbait wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Through my long career, I've notice virtually no correlation between my pay and the utility of my position. And indeed, I've had one or two jobs like yours. Sadly for my bank book, I can only stand being useless for relatively short stretches. I still reminisce about my lowest paying job, my first. It was probably the most enjoyable and satisfying. It was also useful, though perhaps not at the top of that list. It's…

As I continue my (relatively young as a 20-something year old) web development career, I occasionally look back at my KFC job I had during uni and end of school with great fondness. I honestly really enjoyed that job - it was fun working with great people doing a job of the right level of complexity and mental stimulation.

Well you're only in your 20s, it's not too late to make KFC your career if that's your passion.

Re: The rise of the pointless job

#457

Post by ciupicri »

viridian wrote: post #449
sverige wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

It depends on what you measure. Crashes are going up ever so slightly vs population growth, but fatalities per crash has astoundingly been reduced by about 70%, which is to say that you were more than 3x as likely to die in crash in 1980 vs 2011.

That's because we have better cars now which offer better protection for passengers and pedestrians: seat belts, air bags, "softer" bumpers, collision detection, etc.

Re: The rise of the pointless job

#458

Post by rhino369 »

gkya wrote: post #453
rayiner wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Growing food is necessary for my survival but I don’t do that myself. Grocery bagging is also not trivial. You can’t just throw things into a bag in random order, you need to think about it. A well packed set of shopping bags is a big convenience, and I don’t want to spend the bandwidth to do it. There is a big difference between a job that creates convenience for other people and one that’s redundant or pointless.

> You can’t just throw things into a bag in random order, you need to think about it. A well packed set of shopping bags is a big convenience, and I don’t want to spend the bandwidth to do it. Please tell me that you say this only to win the argument, because, come on. Putting things into something else is as trivial as it gets, and I can assure you that, even though I have never seen one, a person whose job is to fi…

You probably only think this because you don't do a good job. There are strategies and methods for bag packing that produce better results.

You figure out how to build a base, how to seperate items by contimination risk, learn how to fill a bag up.

People who do it poorly give you 15 bags when 7 will do.

The biggest incentive is to do it faster. The job is boring as sin, so you just want to get it over with.

It's also a good job for mentally challenged people. It's low stress, something they can learn, and something they can do well at.

Re: The rise of the pointless job

#459

Post by AmericanChopper »

gaius wrote: post #431
AmericanChopper wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The analogy to the army isn’t a very good one. It’s not a zero sum situation. A country can only devote so much of its GDP to the army, so the country with the biggest economy ends up with the biggest army. You don’t end up with 195 armies of equal size. The other thing that it misses is that the army is intentionally a vehicle for social mobility, and perhaps the most efficient one at that. The army is available to…

the country with the biggest economy ends up with the biggest army But that isn’t true. Look at the size of the North Korean army.

Are you actually suggesting that it’s larger than the US army?

Re: The rise of the pointless job

#460

Post by gaius »

AmericanChopper wrote: post #459
gaius wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the country with the biggest economy ends up with the biggest army But that isn’t true. Look at the size of the North Korean army.

Are you actually suggesting that it’s larger than the US army?

US Army 476,000 regulars, North Korea 1.1M. So yes, twice as big in terms of people.
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