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Bullshit Jobs

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Re: Bullshit Jobs

#471

Post by jjoonathan »

Notorious_BLT wrote: post #445
Chathamization wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not just about bullshit jobs but about bullshit consumption, and the curious moral frameworks that support it. I've been thinking about this a lot lately. Many jobs seem to have a net negative value for society - soda, highly processed food, credit cards, car dealerships, (most) sales people, etc. We'd probably be better of as a society paying these people to do nothing than to do what they do now; we'd be eve…

Credit cards definitely provide value, the anti-every-using-credit crowd seems to not understand how they work. If my pet ever needs thousands of dollars of emergency vet care, I can now pay for that using my credit, and then spread my payment of that bill over a longer period.

Expedited access to a shitty line of credit is worth 5% of every transaction you ever make (or whatever they skim these days)? Please.

Re: Bullshit Jobs

#472

Post by hinkley »

benmaraschino wrote: post #426
stirlo wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was like WTF at this and had to google it. From Wikipedia... "Academic staff: 2,219 Administrative staff: 12,508 excluding SHC Students: 16,430" Oh how far western civilisation as fallen to end up with the statistics above. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_University

If you actually go to the source behind that figure ( http://facts.stanford.edu/administration/ ) and scroll down, you'll find that it actually doesn't refer to the number of administrators--far from it--but rather just the total number of non-academic (i.e., not faculty) staff. Indeed, that figure includes service and maintenance staff, clerical workers, and employees of SLAC, in addition to "managerial and professi…

At my university the graduate students (in the engineering college, at least) were frequently research assistants. In that case you would probably be counted as an employee of the university.

That data point could change the student-employee ratio from 1:1 to 2:1

Re: Bullshit Jobs

#473

Post by ci5er »

bena wrote: post #468
ci5er wrote: post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. If you have 51% of the people declaring that 49% percent of the people should start with nothing, and that they (by right of popular demand) should get the 49%'s stuff, as a starting point, then, ... that's a clear definition, I guess. And it's satisfactory to most people, I guess. I still feel vaguely unnerved.

While 51% can be defined as "most", "most" doesn't necessarily mean "at least 51%". I was being rather vagueish, because requiring 100% acceptance is likely to be impossible. For instance, I really doubt that the white supremacist movement is going to find any situation where members of other ethnicities get as much or more than any of their members to be "equitable" according to their values. But just because they w…

Well, yeah: not having the agents of the monopoly on preemptive violence that the state has reserved to itself getting too trigger-happy is something that I think all us plebes can agree upon.

When you are talking about normalizing starting conditions (up-thread), you are talking about ad-hoc/post-hoc redistribution of assets. Presumably assets that have been earned at an earlier time based on providing customers products or services that they wanted to buy at a price they were willing to pay, at a margin above their cost to the producer, allowing the wealth to accumulate. Like Steve Jobs creating a company that sells iPhones generating wealth.

Now - Steve Job's offspring will start at a better position in life than my children will. They didn't earn it - but my children didn't either. I find myself vaguely uncomfortable with the idea that I/we could form a group of 51% or 55% or 65% or even 80% that would vote to expropriate from them their property, so that I/we could distribute those spoils amongst ourselves. Is the current state 'fair'? Almost certainly not! But legitimized piracy by democratic consent? Where would it end?

Re: Bullshit Jobs

#474

Post by jpttsn »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #443
jpttsn wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The external point of view is dubiously helpful. Lions eat antelope; when they die their bodies become grass; the antelope eat the grass. Suppose they all agreed not to do this.

Antelope eat grass and breed. If they eat faster than the grass can regrow, they starve and die, and their bodies become grass. Death through starvation is unpleasant. Suppose they could agree to breed less, as to not expand beyond carrying capacity of the place they live in. They would lead a happier life. Point being, some feedback-driven systems are good, and some are bad.

Good being, a smaller number of happier lives? Huh. Anyway,

Optimizing for the whole is different than optimizing for the parts.

What seems redundant on a high level can be critical on a lower level.

To each antilope eating grass is purposeful. As may be the work of each Department in your original example.

Re: Bullshit Jobs

#475

Post by petra »

AlexanderNull wrote: post #431
TeMPOraL wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally not against checklists, especially in aviation. It's just something is rubbing me with the recipe for business involving such degree of micromanagement. > Another example: when cooking a new dish, if you start with a recipe you'll probably get up to speed faster than just winging it. This doesn't mean there's no creativity. Fair, but a recipe is about as far from a checklist as you can get while still retaini…

Former chef here, the variance in balances of different chemical constituents can be so massive between two pieces of fruit picked from the same tree that precise recipes would be useless without requiring each reader to have access to a mass spectrometer (and any clue as to what its readout means). This is largely where the "art" in culinary arts comes in. While you could teach someone to read a mass spectrometer to…

This raises an interesting question, relevant for more than cooking: In a process with variable "inputs" , is there a method(probably statistical) to create a recipe that will work,even with this variability, while minimizing the expertise needed ?

Re: Bullshit Jobs

#476

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #140
Jaruzel wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that these jobs are bullshit jobs, it's that commonly they are wrapped up in bullshit procedures . These procedures typically appear when there's an initiative to reduce costs. The easiest and cheapest way to employ an unskilled person to do a skilled job is to hand them a book of 'procedures' on their first day and say "Everything you need to do and know is in this Book". No time consuming cross-training re…

This is what frustrated me after reading the "E-myth" book. Apparently, the recipe for successful business is to enshrine everything in superdetailed Book of Procedures, and have employees follow its content like they were programmable automatons. Now maybe this works , but eliminating human agency like this doesn't sit well with me for some reason.

That's an uncharitable interpretation of what The E-Myth had to say. His point is that you need to make the business run in a way that is independent of you being there. It doesn't mean removing agency from your employees: that is a very bad thing. It means creating enough procedures that people aren't left floundering around waiting to be told how to do something.

Re: Bullshit Jobs

#477

Post by Qworg »

petra wrote: post #475
AlexanderNull wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Former chef here, the variance in balances of different chemical constituents can be so massive between two pieces of fruit picked from the same tree that precise recipes would be useless without requiring each reader to have access to a mass spectrometer (and any clue as to what its readout means). This is largely where the "art" in culinary arts comes in. While you could teach someone to read a mass spectrometer to…

This raises an interesting question, relevant for more than cooking: In a process with variable "inputs" , is there a method(probably statistical) to create a recipe that will work,even with this variability, while minimizing the expertise needed ?

"Time Tested" recipes have already done this work - they've performed the process over a long period of time with a wide variety of small input changes/variable ingredients.

For example, the Toll House Cookie recipe has been executed how many millions of times with predictably good results.

Re: Bullshit Jobs

#478

Post by dumbfounder »

Can't he just write a letter "So-and-so wants to bring his own chair to work, and it is important to him. Will you let him?"

It is a note from their doctor. It isn't a medical opinion.

Re: Bullshit Jobs

#479

Post by CalRobert »

logfromblammo wrote: post #400
CalRobert wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just had a kid, and I understand this idea completely. I like being a parent but among other things, it means that major life decisions are MUCH more constrained. Want to live somewhere else? Hope the schools are decent. Want to live in the city? Hope you can afford a bigger flat. Want to go on a holiday? Hope you're ok with a pissed off kid (and neighbours) on a flight, or lots of time spent entertaining them on a…

"It gets easier" is a lie that the longer-serving parents tell the fresh meat, so they have some hope to cling to whenever they start to go crazy. Maybe it gets easier after they get a stable job and move out; I'll let you know after my anecdata results come in. Sure, you eventually stop changing diapers, but that chore gets replaced by something else. And that one by something else, over and over. You're a debugger…

At the very least, I can confirm my 1 year old is far, far, far easier than she was at 3 months old.

Still exhausting, though.

Re: Bullshit Jobs

#480

Post by sonnyblarney »

_jal wrote: post #317
sonnyblarney wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you call 'negative sum' some of us call 'competition' and it's healthy considering the alternative dynamic of monopoly. All corporate systems could be described as various intertwining loops (that intertwine with other corporate loops), it's really a matter of efficiency of those individuals and loops as a system. Sometimes loops seem wasteful ... like lawyers ... until you actually do get sued or need to sue et…

> What you call 'negative sum' some of us call 'competition' The broken windows fallacy doesn't suddenly become net-positive when renamed. Perhaps humans are not capable of improving interaction outcomes any further than we've gotten and humanity has reached peak efficiency re: transaction costs and firm-size, but I have a hard time believing that. > Sometimes loops seem wasteful ... like lawyers ... until you actual…

If it wasn't 'net positive' not only would we not be having this conversation over the 'internet' - we'd still be in the dark ages.

"That 'actually getting sued' part is your induction in to the loop."

No, it's not. It's not always clear what is illegal, what is not, what is infringement, what is not.

Rather than having a totalitarian authority create, divide and control IP etc. we have adversarial law and companies can file suit and work it out in court.

When there isn't overt corruption in the system, it works reasonably well.

That we're even having this conversation over the internet in 2018 is evidence that it's not 'negative sum'.

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