Bullshit Jobs - Page 3

On June 29 2014 00:14 urboss wrote:
from the interview:

"When I talk about bullshit jobs, I mean, the kind of jobs that even those who work them feel do not really need to exist. A lot of them are made-up middle management, you know, I’m the “East Coast strategic vision coordinator” for some big firm, which basically means you spend all your time at meetings or forming teams that then send reports to one another. Or someone who works in an industry that they feel doesn’t need to exist, like most of the corporate lawyers I know, or telemarketers, or lobbyists…. Just think of when you walk into a hospital, how half the employees never seem to do anything for sick people, but are just filling out insurance forms and sending information to each other. Some of that work obviously does need to be done, but for the most part, everyone working there knows what really needs to get done and that the remaining 90 percent of what they do is bullshit. And then think about the ancillary workers that support people doing the bullshit jobs: here’s an office where people basically translate German formatted paperwork into British formatted paperwork or some such, and there has to be a whole infrastructure of receptionists, janitors, security guards, computer maintenance people, which are kind of second-order bullshit jobs, they’re actually doing something, but they’re doing it to support people who are doing nothing."

On June 29 2014 01:28 SixStrings wrote:
Here's some insight into one of these bullshit jobs, the one I'm doing right now to pay for uni, two days a week.

The Germany military has a subcontractor that does their IT work.
The IT firm has subcontractor that does their logistics.
The logistics firm has a subcontractor that does their personell management and I work for that company.

Let's say soldier A moves to an office two rooms further down the hall.
Instead of just carrying his computer over there, he has to fill out a form.
The IT subcontractor will get the form, people will read it and approve it and forward it to the logistics firm.
The logistics firm will then have to approve the moving down the hall and will request personell from us.
The office people in my company will then do whatever they do and now I come in.

I get an email, be at barracks B at time C. Usually these barracks are 100 to 500 kilometres away from my home, so I will get a rental car. I take the rental car, drive to the barracks, let dispatch know that I arrived, fill out a form, unhook the computer, will load the computer into a box, seal the box, have a guy from the logistics firm carry the box to the next room, where I unseal the box, fill out another form, hook up the computer, call dispatch to tell them how long I took, get a couple of signatures, take my rental car back home, send dispatch a letter with all of the paperwork and then get payed.

So instead of the soldier carrying his computer for five meters, two people drive for a combined 6-10 hours, fill out around 15 pages of paperwork and waste good 400 € of taxpayers' money.

On June 29 2014 01:59 oneofthem wrote:

well if this is what 'bullshit' means here then it's rather flimsy. the 'actually important people' may be fulfilling the function of the organization but the surrounding people are also necessary to save time for these people. there are exceptions of organizational inertia etc but largely that's the rationale for creation of these bullshit jobs, to save cognitive resources

On June 29 2014 00:26 itsjustatank wrote:
How exactly are you going to 'change' the system. I will posit that this article is bullshit worthless ivory tower elitism unless you can articulate a world beyond capitalism and a way to attain it that isn't simply 'rethink the world' or 'change.'

Honestly, I can probably replace the essay with random gibberish generated by the Dada engine and attain the same result.

On June 29 2014 01:09 itsjustatank wrote:
When alternatives to capital are framed as just thinking about a world to be, nothing ever happens. There is, however, a cruel sense of pleasure gained by verbally or textually chipping away at this big 'system,' which is why threads like this exist and why people like the professor in the essay do as well (and he gets paid to experience it). Each person involved in it thinks things are changing incrementally, but like others have said in this thread, the 'system' remains as it was a hundred years later. This is the circularity of academic discourse surrounding capitalism and quote-unquote solving it.

On June 29 2014 02:06 urboss wrote:

I guess you misunderstood the point.
Let's say that there are 10 actuaries who do - in the grand scheme of things - useless work.
These 10 actuaries need a whole support system to keep them going.
They need administrators, receptionists, janitors, security guards, computer maintenance people etc..
All those people do is to support the people that do useless work.
That means, those people's work also becomes useless.

On June 29 2014 02:09 phil.ipp wrote:


haha, you sit at home watching all these sad people running in their circle, calling themself "academics", when they are in fact just talking gibberish, as we all know it hasnt changed anything in the last hundred years (whaaat!?!?)

BUT

you on the other hand ... you see through all these illusions.

we are not in battlestar galactica, it did not happen all before and will happen again, so thinking, talking, doing something will change nothing - what seems to be your motto

luckily things change ALL the time, even the "system" changes all the time, at least here in europe, dont know where you coming from. if it changes for the good or the worse, is on us, electing the right people to do the things we wish.

and to make a good decision on who to elect, guess what, talking about the things happening around us, and the things we wish to happen, is really important.

On June 29 2014 02:08 oneofthem wrote:

it's not very productive to engage the issue on such a coarse grain level, as if the choices are simply status quo vs everyone has everything yay.

graeber does write in this crusading voice and that may rankle some people and provoke a reaction in the other extreme, but it is quite clear that automation and greater pursuit of rationality in the management of capital is producing profound changes, and most of this stuff can't be controlled or directed. it's just something to think about at this stage.

On June 29 2014 02:06 urboss wrote:

I guess you misunderstood the point.
Let's say that there are 10 actuaries who do - in the grand scheme of things - useless work.
These 10 actuaries need a whole support system to keep them going.
They need administrators, receptionists, janitors, security guards, computer maintenance people etc..
All those people do is to support the people that do useless work.
That means, those people's work also becomes useless.

On June 29 2014 00:59 urboss wrote:

Yes, that thought also worries me.
I guess the answer would be 24/7 state-controlled entertainment.
Sounds familiar?

On June 29 2014 02:20 itsjustatank wrote:
The last seventy years of liberal democracy and social democratic rule in Europe has seen the bolstering of capital, the appearance of the same economic crises, and no solvency of the fundamental inequalities that exist in the 'system.' Piecemeal action termed as reform simply doesn't work on an overall basis, but, sure, it is cognitively a step beyond dreaming a world to be. It's functionally just as bad, assuming you think the status quo is bad.

On June 29 2014 02:28 Dangermousecatdog wrote:


Actuaries are useless work? Wow who knew that the underscoring of risk in modern insurance which enable the British Empire, the Dutch Empire and other great Trade Empires which exploded into the world in the mid 18th century were totally bullshit jobs!

But seriously, how is actuary useless? It is a service in great demand by business, by consumers, by almost everyone who wants to share risk taking. The fact you think actuary is pointless speak volumes.

On June 29 2014 03:06 urboss wrote:

Nowhere did I say that all actuaries do useless work, far from that.
In gave an example of 10 actuaries who do useless work.

You could imagine 10 actuaries that formulate the corporate risk policy for an investment firm.
Or in other words, they are pushing papers for a company that pushes papers.
All they ever produce is steam.
None of what these people do has any tangible value in the grand scheme of things.

These jobs only exist because someone else places value on it.
Why does someone place value on it when in fact they produce nothing but steam?
Because our economic system nurtures this kind of stuff.

On June 29 2014 03:03 Cynry wrote:
Maybe I misunderstood, but isn't what tank is saying is that we lack proper alternative to capitalism ? And disregarding if that's what he thinks or not, isn't that true so far ?

On June 29 2014 03:03 Cynry wrote:
Maybe I misunderstood, but isn't what tank is saying is that we lack proper alternative to capitalism ? And disregarding if that's what he thinks or not, isn't that true so far ?