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Bullshit Jobs

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Re: Bullshit Jobs

#541

Post by groestl »

sorokod wrote: post #532
groestl wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're right, but I have a somewhat less dire view on this. I think that large companies optimize for a fundamentally different outcome than smaller companies, like startups. Large companies became large by applying a successful business model, something that startups are still lacking. If you have a working business model and stable cashflow, any change is potentially dangerous and can take down the company.…

Oversimplifying, this is analogous to simulated annealing optimization algorithm that initially tries various solutions - startup mode, and later converges to a (perhaps local) optimum - large company.

Yes, that's the image I had in mind. The cooling is provided by inflexibility, an emergent behavior of large organizations.

Re: Bullshit Jobs

#542

Post by dasmoth »

kahoon wrote: post #227
kamaal wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>There are economic incentives to create larger and larger organizations; One of the real reasons why languages like Lisp and Perl had a short life in MegaCorps is they were anti-dote to large people hierarchies. You can disproportionate work with small teams. Execs and VPs openly boast in company all hands about their 'team sizes' and numbers almost as the biggest accomplishment of their lives. No one is going to b…

If this was true, wouldn't everybody be programming in assembly? E.g. developing a website in assembly would keep more people occupied than HTML/JS/CSS.

If one were being cynical and thinking that optimising for (maximum) headcount is a major driver here, one might want to avoid technologies with substantial barriers to entry, since that might clear the market of qualified people and make further recruitment very hard. The "ideal" technology would be one where almost anyone can pick it up quickly and at least look like they're being vaguely productive, but where even a 0.01-%ile expert will struggle to achieve really exceptional things.

Re: Bullshit Jobs

#543

Post by adrianN »

gniv wrote: post #516
wott wrote: post #485

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nobody would want to live in the world like 100 years ago I for one would definitely want it. That's my favourite period of time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belle_%C3%89poque and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ann%C3%A9es_folles Very active, very interesting times: lots of scientific breakthrough, development of recent theories, lots of experimentations, while a great part of science is still, and for the last ti…

Medicine was definitely not developed enough: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu

Modern medicine is not that much better at dealing with the flu.

Re: Bullshit Jobs

#544

Post by JamesAdir »

As some mentioned before bullshit jobs exist because the corporate world still thinks in terms of hours instead of production. People have zero incentive to reduce or automate their work, something that every solo freelancer is struggling to do daily if he wants to survive.

Since they need to fill their hours quota somehow they create meetings and procedures and more job functions that are needed in order to be in line with those new procedures.

The bigger the corporate the bigger the time and money waste. Meeting become global team meetings that costs tons of money, jobs that can be easily automated become complete departments and so on.

Only in a corporate culture where the only thing measured and compesnated is output - there you will see almost zero bullshit.

Re: Bullshit Jobs

#545

Post by neuromantik8086 »

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.

Well, that's how things work in Human Resource Machine [0] so it probably works well in reality too, right?

[0] https://tomorrowcorporation.com/humanresourcemachine

Re: Bullshit Jobs

#546

Post by gleech »

wott wrote: post #486
gleech wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This "original affluent society" hypothesis is much-promoted but much of it just isn't true. Lee's numbers explicitly counted only the initial foraging of the mongongo nuts, i.e. none of the food processing, firewood gathering or tool maintenance. After adjusting for these, the average !Kung work week is at least 50 hours and probably more. See: http://www.rachellaudan.com/2016/01/was-the-agricultural-rev...

I don't understand the base of this debunk. Nowadays, food 'collecting', food processing, DIY (taking care of tools) are not counted into working time but come extra and are taken from 'free' time. And they amount to 1, perhaps 2, working day equivalent per week.

Sure: "40 hours a week" for moderns is also an underestimate.* But the figure everyone goes around repeating about hunter-gatherers is a more dramatic underestimate. The accurate !Kung estimate is 48-56 hours spent on these things: so we seem to be about the same, but with massively improved quality, cost, and nutrition for us.

The debunking applies to the claim that they had more leisure than us. Lee says: "work week... of 2.4 days per adult... [the bushmen] appeared to enjoy more leisure time than the members of many agricultural and industrial societies."

* Industrialised-world cooking time per week seems to be about 6 hours. https://www.statista.com/statistics/420719/time-spent-cookin... Difficult to find average shopping time, but call it 5-7 hours a week. https://www.statista.com/statistics/521924/time-spent-househ...

Re: Bullshit Jobs

#547

Post by neuromantik8086 »

Spakman wrote: post #436
chrisBob wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a research support programmer at the University of Michigan. My job is to help research labs solve programming problems that they can't handle internally. I write interactive Psych experiments, create data processing scripts based on a professors notes, assist with computer controls for new research hardware, ... If I were at Stanford I would fall into that "Admin Staff" bucket. Am I an example of wasteful growt…

That sounds like an interesting and varied role. Are you enjoying it and getting much from it? Anything you don't like about it?

> That sounds like an interesting and varied role.

It is, and it doesn't get as much formal recognition in the research world. Some folks are trying to change this [0], but unfortunately for the moment research software engineers often end up more of a happy accident than a deliberate decision on the part of labs. Part of this is due to weirdness in how funding is allocated for research positions at universities- instead of research programmers being funded through operating expenses like a secretary, administrator or many (but not all) librarians, most lab positions are dependent upon soft money (i.e., grants) that could potentially evaporate unexpectedly. I had a friend at ${BAY_AREA_UNIVERSITY} who almost had this happen to him recently, but fortunately his PI got another grant so he didn't need to get furloughed/laid off. When I was living in Ithaca, I noticed a similar trend of non-faculty taking sabbaticals due to funding issues and then returning 6 months to a year or so later in a different department [1]. That sort of instability in employment is part of what scared me into moving to a major metropolitan area- I still work for a university, but I know I have options (although I'm currently not funded by soft money- last job was though).

[0] https://rse.ac.uk/who/

[1] Possibly more of a perception than a reality.

Re: Bullshit Jobs

#548

Post by bena »

retsibsi wrote: post #527
bena wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, don't dump on the trades. When you get down to the real nitty-gritty, most jobs are technically bullshit. If everything were reduced to rubble and ash tomorrow, CxOs, lawyers, programmers, HR, police, teachers, entertainers, salesmen, advertisers, and countless others become useless occupations. Even doctors lose some of their cachet. Farmers, carpenters, engineers, plumbers, electricians, etc all become way mo…

I don't think 'would be useful in a post-apocalyptic wasteland' is the usual definition (or a very good one) of a non-bullshit job. It's more about how much genuine value the job creates in the real world today.

The problem is defining "value". Some would say entertainment provides some value, some would say otherwise.

I'm focusing on something approaching "minimally viable society".

Re: Bullshit Jobs

#549

Post by barrow-rider »

dvasdekis wrote: post #515
arbitrary_name wrote: post #493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is the supposition that fewer lives is good controversial? What do we owe the unborn and non existent? Surely in any moral framework, if one could prove that additional organisms in an environment degrade the quality of life for all organisms, then it would be a moral decision (in principle) to reduce by attrition the number of new organisms? I am not arguing for population control as the mechanisms to achieve it…

A moral framework is inherently subjective, so it should be no surprise that the rights of the unborn are considered more important in some than others. Christianity arguably disagrees with you - see the tale of Onan. Buddhists likewise consider all life as sacred, in that an animal may previously/subsequently be a human soul. Lastly, many atheist progressives would argue that preservation of the human race is a mora…

> Christianity arguably disagrees with you - see the tale of Onan

"Be fruitful and multiply" is Genesis 1:28.

Onan is, per Jermone and canonical discussions, about spilling seed unnecessarily, but is more about not raping your sister-in-law and betraying dead family than it is about having many children. Nothing in there about the sacredness of babies or anything.

Onan's brother died and by tradition Onan entered into a Levirate marriage with his dead brother's wife, Tamar, to continue the brother's line. If Onan fathered a child by Tamar the child would inherit all of the dead brother's possessions and rights; if there were no sons Onan would inherit everything. So Onan pulls out, meaning he gets to bang the widow, and still gets to keep everything -- which is pretty sleazy.

God isn't really a fan of this, and punishes him accordingly.

Re: Bullshit Jobs

#550

Post by da02 »

mml wrote: post #499
da02 wrote: post #481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why did you stop being a chef? Too much stress from crazy restaurant owners?

I’ll answer for him. It’s a terrible, stressful, dangerous job, with insane hours & criminal working conditions, that pays peanuts. Might just be my opinion.

Thanks. What are some of your favorite jobs/careers? Or are you still looking?
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