Bullshit Jobs
Feb. 21st, 2025 10:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ysabetwordsmithA lot of modern jobs don't really accomplish anything important, and the people in them know that and hate it. That article talks primarily about why this happens.
It doesn't really touch on the fact that this wrecks people's mental health. People need to feel useful and find meaning in life. If they are stuck in pointless jobs, that makes them miserable and vulnerable to mental illness or injury. And what do we see in society? Lots of people who feel lonely, anxious, depressed, disconnected, and otherwise unhappy much of the time.
Humans evolved to spend much of their time meeting survival or social needs. So for instance, procuring and preparing food, making tools or clothing, tending a home, finding a mate, raising children, storytelling for education and entertainment. The farther people get from those things, the more likely they are to feel that their work is pointless. Of course, there are also hobbies and creative expressions. People have painted for tens of thousands of years, made beads and jewelry, drawn designs on their dishes, and so on. These activities also generate a sense of satisfaction. A life that leaves no time for them will also probably lack satisfaction.
So look at your life. Do you make or repair things? Provide vital services that not everyone can do? Or are you stuck in an abstract job that doesn't really contribute to life on Earth? Do you have some hobbies that give you a sense of fun and accomplishment? Do you have time to nurture relationships? Or are you stuck spending all your time and energy on subsistence activities, with none left over for actively living a life?
If you're unhappy with the results of that assessment, think what you can do to change it. You might not be able to change a dayjob quickly, but you can pick up a hobby whenever you wish. Some hobbies are cheap or free, and most are flexible regarding the time you invest in them. You could also try to make friends based on some practical activity, such as cooking, gardening, or crafts. It's your life. Live it.
It doesn't really touch on the fact that this wrecks people's mental health. People need to feel useful and find meaning in life. If they are stuck in pointless jobs, that makes them miserable and vulnerable to mental illness or injury. And what do we see in society? Lots of people who feel lonely, anxious, depressed, disconnected, and otherwise unhappy much of the time.
Humans evolved to spend much of their time meeting survival or social needs. So for instance, procuring and preparing food, making tools or clothing, tending a home, finding a mate, raising children, storytelling for education and entertainment. The farther people get from those things, the more likely they are to feel that their work is pointless. Of course, there are also hobbies and creative expressions. People have painted for tens of thousands of years, made beads and jewelry, drawn designs on their dishes, and so on. These activities also generate a sense of satisfaction. A life that leaves no time for them will also probably lack satisfaction.
So look at your life. Do you make or repair things? Provide vital services that not everyone can do? Or are you stuck in an abstract job that doesn't really contribute to life on Earth? Do you have some hobbies that give you a sense of fun and accomplishment? Do you have time to nurture relationships? Or are you stuck spending all your time and energy on subsistence activities, with none left over for actively living a life?
If you're unhappy with the results of that assessment, think what you can do to change it. You might not be able to change a dayjob quickly, but you can pick up a hobby whenever you wish. Some hobbies are cheap or free, and most are flexible regarding the time you invest in them. You could also try to make friends based on some practical activity, such as cooking, gardening, or crafts. It's your life. Live it.
(no subject)
Date: 2025-02-22 04:21 am (UTC)Thoughts
Date: 2025-02-22 04:37 am (UTC)It's largely true that "dog groomer" exists because people are too busy to groom their own dogs, although some furstyles are admittedly so complex as to require expert training. The mainstay of the job, however, tends to be basic wash and brush type activities, because the fancy cuts are expensive which few people can afford.
Then you have to consider the personal aspect. For a dog lover, getting paid to work with dogs all day (whether groomer, walker, boarder, etc.) could be a dream job. But to most people it would not feel very satisfying.
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2025-02-22 06:50 am (UTC)Re: Thoughts
Date: 2025-02-27 03:44 am (UTC)(Yes, I do know that those jobs provide important emotional and social benefits to folks, even though they aren't really stuff I'm interested in doing or spending money on.) So, dog groomer is probably useful in a similar way (plus, some people are unable to take care of their pets fur themselves for a wide range of resons.)
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2025-02-27 05:28 am (UTC)Re: Thoughts
Date: 2025-02-27 02:40 pm (UTC)My main issues with that job were the pay (not enough to live on) and the hours (working a flexible 'part time' schedule, but it can't be flexible when I have medical appointments or want to visit out of town relatives).
And of course, if I complain*, people say I should get another job rather than actually wanting to discuss the problems.
*not to the bosses/at work, I know not to complain about retail hours there
(no subject)
Date: 2025-02-22 04:32 am (UTC)But most of the other jobs I saw people having were office stuff - creating paperwork and handling it, or else drudgery of service jobs (store clerks, gas station attendants, hairdressers, etc.) I blame the Industrial Revolution for the way people got trained to get up six hours earlier than their bodies wanted, put on clothes that were uncomfortable and unflattering, travel for an hour or so in an uncomfortable vehicle to a place they didn't want to go to, spend eight hours doing something they hated until they were "allowed" to go home, taking the same unpleasant transportation home, to do household chores until they had to go to bed to get up too early next morning. We also made school for children follow that pattern - wake up before dawn, put on suitable clothing, go to a building where everybody's job was to make you follow orders, while in the company of your peers who loathed you, go home and do homework. Turning us into obedient little cogs in the machine.
I saw a cartoon recently, in which a woman is in bed with the covers pulled up to her nose. She says, "All I ever do is sleep, eat, and go to work. How come I'm always tired, hungry, and broke?"
(no subject)
Date: 2025-02-22 11:11 am (UTC)Those are the sort of jobs that A.I is perfectly suited for, the daily decision-making that doesn't require imagination or creativity but instead impartial rule following without favouritism. (and most middle mangers fail at.)
Not that I think we're going to see mass lay-offs of middle mangers as they're replaced by A.I's. Because guess who makes those kinds of decisions...
Thoughts
Date: 2025-02-23 08:58 am (UTC)Some people do like service jobs, but many people find them unfulfilling and/or stressful, not a meaningful contribution.
>> Those are the sort of jobs that A.I is perfectly suited for, the daily decision-making that doesn't require imagination or creativity <<
True.
>> but instead impartial rule following without favouritism. (and most middle mangers fail at.) <<
Bear in mind that AI absorbs the prejudices of its creators and/or the material it trains on.
>> Not that I think we're going to see mass lay-offs of middle mangers as they're replaced by A.I's. Because guess who makes those kinds of decisions... <<
It has happened before in market collapses, where people sought to save money by flattening the structure in companies.
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2025-02-27 03:45 am (UTC)Re: Thoughts
Date: 2025-02-27 05:27 am (UTC)Re: Thoughts
Date: 2025-02-27 02:37 pm (UTC)Well, it'll probably end up becoming another big shift in the setup of industry like the shift from agricultural communities to industrialized factory towns.
Possibly the there will be some sort of modern Luddite movement at some point.
(no subject)
Date: 2025-02-22 11:43 am (UTC)I worked 25 of 27 years fulltime at the "lines desk" (audio recordist) in the Hobart Newsroom of Australia's main public broadcaster. (We have national 2 public broadcasters, 27 million people, 2 "BBCs". One of the reasons we're a lucky country.)
Record the sound bites off the wire, dub them to cartridge (later download and playlist them), check against in words and out words, listen to the whole thing if there's time, perform tricky edits the journos couldn't do, the rinse and repeat every one of 8 hours. Sounds like a bullshit job, right?
I had days where it felt like one. 4am starts, year in year out, with political stories, especially, it often felt like same shit, different day. But here's the thing...
Australia's ABC is NPR with teeth and is a Statutory Authority, the Minister can ask questions but the cannot influence editorial policy. We, and I still feel like I belong to them, despite 10 years retired, we were the epitomy of the fourth estate.
When I finished up, made redundant by an "AI" (automated, rather than "thinking") media management system, I had my last day on Christmas Eve, 2014. Having survived cancer (and the love of colleagues helped with that) it was time to go, but "Aunty" as we call "her", had been home away from home, family by other parents, and activist media professionals who knew how to catch the corrupt with their pants down, how to cut the important stories to tell the truth without deception or vested interest.
Boring, repetition is bullshit, but the meaning of the repetition, that wipes out the bullshit. Maybe not on the day, but looking back on the system I was a small cog in...
...without fear, without favour, never afraid to question, even the editor. Always as colleagues.
The "bullshit job" is work that lacks meaning, not work that seems pointless in the moment.
And this from a trade unionist and leftist. Graeber is my people but he was guilding the lilly a bit.
(no subject)
Date: 2025-02-22 07:00 pm (UTC)Agree that "BS work" can be in the eye of the beholder, but also agree that a large number of office jobs, which consist of little more than masturbating a mouse, and thereby moving paper (well, electrons) from one pile to another definitely are BS jobs. With decades of emphasis on college degrees, even bogus ones, we are experiencing a shortage of tradesmen, technicians, and repairmen (Feel free to substitute "-people" for "-men"), which is to say people who can actually do something.
I recall a study about people being hired to chop wood, or rather chop at a log, with the BACK of an axe. They were paid a goodly wage (I think the equivalent of $100K some decades ago) to do so. No one lasted even a week. As one person said, "can't do it, I gotta see the chips fly."
(no subject)
Date: 2025-02-27 03:47 am (UTC)Well ...
Date: 2025-02-27 04:49 am (UTC)However, some repetitious tasks do lend themselves well to meditation.
Then there are the jobs where you get paid to keep an eye on things, or your work time is "until it's done." Card magician Ed Marlo was famous for the latter. He figured out how to finish the required work in very short order, then spent the rest of his 8 hours on the clock practicing card tricks -- for years.
Re: Well ...
Date: 2025-02-27 02:27 pm (UTC)I can easily zone out while looking busy by way of cleaning/sorting, and as long as I am with interrupted (or voluntold to be sociable) I can work quite happily under my own motivation for a long while.
(Granted, I also usually have at least some autonomy, and can see the progress I'm making...)
(no subject)
Date: 2025-02-27 01:51 pm (UTC)Interesting thought. Anything could be meditative if you’re good at it. Sometimes I try walking meditation (key word is “try”).
(no subject)
Date: 2025-02-27 02:24 pm (UTC)Also,suppose someone could take it as an opportunity to make music, but that might be easier in larger groups.