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> Similarly, he sees managers as a way to compel people to do work they wouldn't otherwise do, and thus sees those jobs as bullshit. See a quack. Most of us i

> Similarly, he sees managers as a way to compel people to do work they wouldn't otherwise do, and thus sees those jobs as bullshit. See a quack. Most of us in the real world know that managers, no matter how much we despise them or even if we are of the many that thing most manager suck, we know their job is to organize those underneath then. A number of these manager-less companies in the last year have had to introduce managers because they actually do server a purpose: managing! He was a prof of Antropology at Yale before leaving. He is most famous for being a Wobblie, anarchist activist, and one of the heads of the Occupy Wallstreet group (I still have memories of walking by them every day and had no problem having a slice while watching the entertainment). The irony of that statement is that Mr Graeber probably did many managerial types of jobs in his life (like being a manager over grad students, and managing part of OWS), without it strictly being called a manager. if it sounds like a duck...

eyelidlessness 10y ago
First I ever heard of anyone alive at the same time as me being famous for being a wob!
mbrock 10y ago
I don't think it's fair to say that Graeber claims that all managerial work is pointless. Here's a relevant part of the essay in question: > In fact, I’m not sure I’ve ever met a corporate lawyer who didn’t think their job was bullshit. The same goes for almost all the new industries outlined above. There is a whole class of salaried professionals that, should you meet them at parties and admit that you do something that might be considered interesting (an anthropologist, for example), will want to avoid even discussing their line of work entirely. Give them a few drinks, and they will launch into tirades about how pointless and stupid their job really is. It's not a scientific study, but he's talking about people who themselves believe their own job to be basically pointless. I've had such jobs myself, so I sympathize with the idea.
- TeMPOraL 10y ago
  > I've had such jobs myself, so I sympathize with the idea. Indeed. I am a programmer and I can sympathize too! So far all my jobs but one were of the utterly bullshit kind. That's the reason I decided to steer clear of the web world in the future - it seems to me that this part of our industry is made almost entirely out of bullshit, and is mostly about ad delivery, ad infrastructure and SaaS pseudo-products that operate on shitty business models.
  - ashark 10y ago
    Pouring tons of hours of one's life into one project after another with goals you're apathetic about at best and which are probably doomed to failure before they even start definitely makes dev work feel rather nihilistic at times. The percentage of the time I've worked as a dev that has created real, lasting value for anyone is depressingly small. Yet my career is going fairly well. It's hard to complain about that since the money's still coming in, but that's not very satisfying, certainly.
forgetsusername 10y ago
>The irony of that statement is that Mr Graeber probably did many managerial types of jobs in his life What's ironic about it? Where does he argue the merits of managing grad students? >He was a prof of Antropology at Yale before leaving. He is most famous for being a Wobblie, anarchist activist, and one of the heads of the Occupy Wallstreet group What are you "most famous for" so we can determine if we can dismiss your opinions on the basis of those achievements. >had no problem having a slice while watching the entertainment You sound like a real empathetic gem.
VLM 10y ago
All big companies are larger than "some tribalism number". All big companies eventually devolve into fighting tribes. Forcing procedures to make other departments look bad, automating or faking results to make our department look good, etc. Obviously that's BS work which contributes nothing to society. Meanwhile on the other side I've worked for companies as small as three people where we were basically a team of equal contractors with no management required (non-IT outsourced labor, more or less, long story) I would wager that only a very small number of people in between in size provide any value that couldn't be replaced by say, a mailing list and a small shell script or two. I've worked for some good managers. Of course half were below the median by definition and they mostly produced BS work. The grad student analogy is inaccurate, that's more of a mentorship or apprenticeship model.

eyelidlessness 10y ago

First I ever heard of anyone alive at the same time as me being famous for being a wob!

mbrock 10y ago

I don't think it's fair to say that Graeber claims that all managerial work is pointless. Here's a relevant part of the essay in question: > In fact, I’m not sure I’ve ever met a corporate lawyer who didn’t think their job was bullshit. The same goes for almost all the new industries outlined above. There is a whole class of salaried professionals that, should you meet them at parties and admit that you do something that might be considered interesting (an anthropologist, for example), will want to avoid even discussing their line of work entirely. Give them a few drinks, and they will launch into tirades about how pointless and stupid their job really is. It's not a scientific study, but he's talking about people who themselves believe their own job to be basically pointless. I've had such jobs myself, so I sympathize with the idea.

TeMPOraL 10y ago
> I've had such jobs myself, so I sympathize with the idea. Indeed. I am a programmer and I can sympathize too! So far all my jobs but one were of the utterly bullshit kind. That's the reason I decided to steer clear of the web world in the future - it seems to me that this part of our industry is made almost entirely out of bullshit, and is mostly about ad delivery, ad infrastructure and SaaS pseudo-products that operate on shitty business models.
- ashark 10y ago
  Pouring tons of hours of one's life into one project after another with goals you're apathetic about at best and which are probably doomed to failure before they even start definitely makes dev work feel rather nihilistic at times. The percentage of the time I've worked as a dev that has created real, lasting value for anyone is depressingly small. Yet my career is going fairly well. It's hard to complain about that since the money's still coming in, but that's not very satisfying, certainly.

forgetsusername 10y ago

>The irony of that statement is that Mr Graeber probably did many managerial types of jobs in his life What's ironic about it? Where does he argue the merits of managing grad students? >He was a prof of Antropology at Yale before leaving. He is most famous for being a Wobblie, anarchist activist, and one of the heads of the Occupy Wallstreet group What are you "most famous for" so we can determine if we can dismiss your opinions on the basis of those achievements. >had no problem having a slice while watching the entertainment You sound like a real empathetic gem.

VLM 10y ago

All big companies are larger than "some tribalism number". All big companies eventually devolve into fighting tribes. Forcing procedures to make other departments look bad, automating or faking results to make our department look good, etc. Obviously that's BS work which contributes nothing to society. Meanwhile on the other side I've worked for companies as small as three people where we were basically a team of equal contractors with no management required (non-IT outsourced labor, more or less, long story) I would wager that only a very small number of people in between in size provide any value that couldn't be replaced by say, a mailing list and a small shell script or two. I've worked for some good managers. Of course half were below the median by definition and they mostly produced BS work. The grad student analogy is inaccurate, that's more of a mentorship or apprenticeship model.