Some (not all) of these jobs provide slack to an organization. A human is effectively paid a retainer, or given an excuse to on premise and engaged, so that the

Some (not all) of these jobs provide slack to an organization. A human is effectively paid a retainer, or given an excuse to on premise and engaged, so that they have the knowledge, context, and social capital to deal with unusual or unforeseeable situations when they arise. Giving someone a job that causes them to feel useless or disengaged, in order to maintain their readiness, is bad management. The existence of a job whose value can't be summarized on a process chart is not. The article was entertaining enough satire, but in the end had me wishing for an alternate version that categorized the forces that create and sustain jobs. It pretended to this, but by starting from the assumption that corporations and managers are idiots or ill-intentioned, it sacrificed insight for populism. I recommend _Slack: Getting Past Burnout, Busywork, and the Myth of Total Efficiency_, Tom DeMarco, 2002.