Bullshit jobs: why they exist and why you might have one

[Javaman]

https://www.vox.com/2018/5/8/17308744/bullshit-jobs-book-david-graeber-occupy-wall-street-karl-marx

Do you have a job that you secretly believe is pointless?

If so, you have what anthropologist David Graeber calls a “bullshit job.” A professor at the London School of Economics and a leader of the early Occupy Wall Street movement, Graeber has written a new book called Bullshit Jobs: A Theory.

He argues that there are millions of people across the world — clerical workers, administrators, consultants, telemarketers, corporate lawyers, service personnel, and many others — who are toiling away in meaningless, unnecessary jobs, and they know it.

It didn’t have to be this way, Graeber says. Technology has advanced to the point where most of the difficult, labor-intensive jobs can be performed by machines. But instead of freeing ourselves from the suffocating 40-hour workweek, we’ve invented a whole universe of futile occupations that are professionally unsatisfying and spiritually empty.

This, at least, is the story he tells in his book. Much of it is persuasive, some of it overly simplistic, but nearly all of it is interesting. I reached out to Graeber to talk about the book and the broader phenomenon of “bullshit jobs.”

more at link with a brief interview with the author of the book...


after reading the article, do you think you have a bullshit job?

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[Turbineguy]

1. Farmers and musicians.

Everyone else (me included) has a bullshit job.

[unblock]

3. farmers literally work with bullshit

ask a musician about bullshit in their job, but pull up a chair first, you'll be there a while. it's just that their bullshit rhymes.

[jberryhill]

2. I have an uncle who thinks he's a hen

[unblock]

4. we thought about getting him cured, but we like the eggs too much!

[Boxerfan]

8. If he can lay eggs who is to argue??

That is a worthy occupation egg layer.

[unblock]

5. few jobs/professions are actually bullshit in and of themselves

they make sense given the rest of the economy.

for instance, much of the health care payment and administration is bullshit.

we've got this bizarre set-up of fee-for-service healthcare that is so expensive it requires insurance, and this bizarre set-up where insurance pools are isolated at the employer level.

given that set-up and things that flow from that, a lot of jobs make sense, such as private healthcare insurance sales, medical debt collections, hsa adminstration, etc.

but the whole set-up is bullshit and could be replaced if we could somehow swap it out for a more sensible healthcare policy.



i work in finance. arguably it's all bullshit as it depends on esoteric laws that describe securitizations, obscure accounting policies that enable off-balance sheet treatment, etc.

and yet, some companies would fail and many jobs would be lost if we didn't do what we do.

[LanternWaste]

7. We certainly place a high priority on the imaginary.

From deities to governments to nations to economies... all without form or substance except in our own imaginations.

[Bonx]

6. I think it would be fun to work in China as a white monkey

and embrace the bullshit.

[moondust]

9. Don't have one myself.

But it bothers me how many unfulfilling jobs there are out there that so many people have to do just to pay the bills. Of course if the job pays the bills then it's not exactly meaningless.

[sdfernando]

10. I work at INITECH

Enough said!

[safeinOhio]

11. Self employed

Boss keeps me busy doing cool stuff.

[hunter]

12. Our entire economic system is bullshit.

This thing we call "economic productivity" is actually a measure of the damage we our doing to our planet's ecosphere and our own human spirit.

[WhiskeyWulf]

14. Exactly. nt

[BuffaloJackalope]

13. I will never be unemployed as long as there are stupid people in the world.