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Here's another way that an employee can misunderstand their own job: Suppose you have an employee who is working for Megabureaucracy Inc. Megabureaucracy is a c

Here's another way that an employee can misunderstand their own job: Suppose you have an employee who is working for Megabureaucracy Inc. Megabureaucracy is a company that's losing money. The employee witnesses waste and inefficiency throughout the company in everything they do. However, that individual employee may be doing work which means that Megabureaucracy is losing less money than it would if the employee did nothing. The employee might conclude that they are in a "bullshit job" - but actually what they are doing is adding value, even though they are part of an enterprise that as a whole is subtracting value. i.e. they are causing it to subtract less value than it otherwise would. The same logic applies for employees that are working in an inefficient department of a company that is efficient in aggregate. Helping an organization that is inefficient to be less inefficient is still economically valuable - but to the individuals concerned they may consider their own jobs as economically valueless.

bachbach 8y ago
A great deal of civil servant jobs fall into that category of yours. A lot of jobs which could be classed as bullshit exist, formalized as 'jobs' because of something missing from somewhere else. Robin Hanson estimate half of US medical costs are not physical but people needing moral support/reassurance from others, dare I say if people feel unloved they crave attention? Another cause of bullshit jobs is sometimes moral responsibility. Who looks after the severely autistic and those born crippled? One perspective is that these are bullshit jobs because, like the Icelandic policy demonstrates, it is strictly speaking possible to prevent some classes of these people from being born. Other people are going to be angry to hear that, since those jobs obviously involve a lot of effort and stress and they would think them the archetype of useful work. I can understand that position but if your job exists mostly because of fetal alcohol syndrome then the moral high ground is due to be hit by tremors in the next economic crisis. This is the kind of thing we don't like to talk about much but, and I'm sure I'm delusional, but reasonable people could hash out sane solutions to prevent most harm. tldr; Bullshit jobs are going to exist on the contours of subjects we find to be touchy or gooey. This is why wedding planners exist.
- lovich 8y ago
  I think, barring sociopaths, most people don't think taking care of the disabled is a bullshit job. A bullshit job is one that you know a tool exists already that could do your entire job. A bullshit job is one where you know the entire output of your work is thrown away or ignored
  - geodel 8y ago
    And what is output of keeping severely disabled people or animals alive. I think the entire output is to feel good about it.
    - disabilities 8y ago
      I worked with people with disabilities. It was frustrating but life-changing. People with disabilities value different things and even though they don't have outward "success" in the eyes of society, they have tremendous heart. I've never been the same since working with them. It exposed a lot of my own "disabilities" trying to relate to people. The writings of Jean Vanier has a lot about this... https://www.larche.org.uk/ https://www.larche.org.uk/
    - lovich 8y ago
      What's the output of keeping you alive when you retire? It's a value we have on it's own, not something we do because it has an economic benefit. Like I said, I think only sociopaths would look at keeping the disabled alive, or helping them day to day, as a bullshit job
      - bachbach 8y ago
        I understand where you're coming from lovich but our morally as a group appears mostly contingent on our prosperity. It's easy for us to cast moral judgement but when we're in a fix - values are frequently flung onto the pyre without a second thought. The new normal becomes normal (with accompanying stories) and anybody who questions the shift is a reactionary. We should be asking ourselves deeper questions before we have these issues so we don't buy into the herd consensus.
m-i-l 8y ago
Yes, sometimes the employee doesn't know things the management does, and if they did it would make the seemingly irrational more rational (or at least slightly less irrational). I could probably write a book about the examples I've seen, but here's one of my favourites to illustrate the point: Domain experts recommend a particular product after a rigorous vendor selection process. However, senior management overrules the specialists and force them to implement the Microsoft solution, which the domain experts have advised is unsuitable for the environment and not a good match for requirements. As the specialists predict, the Microsoft solution takes a lot more time and money to implement and the users hate using it, so the project is deemed a failure, and a new project begins immediately to replace it. Sounds like a complete waste of few years and a few million? Not if senior management had negotiated tens of millions off their annual Microsoft licence fees on the condition of being able to say they were in the process of rolling out this particular Microsoft product.
- foxhop 8y ago
  I think this is why transparency about why your asking the employee to do something is so important. If they understand the end goal and agree with the path they will gladly and proudly take it. The nice thing about transparency is, of they understand the desired outcome and are given sufficient autonomy, they might find an even better path without specific direction from management.
boomlinde 8y ago
Let's spice it up and say that Megabureaucracy is in the business of buying plain t-shirts to print obscene jokes on them. My perception as an employee of the value of my work hinges how much value I believe that it creates for society as a whole, not only on my contribution to my employer or the people that buy the t-shirts. In that sense it really isn't a misunderstanding, just a perspective like any other on what is ultimately a subjective question. Looking at Megabureaucracy only as a closed system in which I can be valuable or not is a rather limited perspective. You could go even further and say that Megabureaucracy is in the business of producing landmines. It generates a lot of value for employees, owners and customers, and my job is to optimize the body of the mine for fragmentation, so my work is absolutely crucial to Megabureaucracy, yet there is an obvious sense here in which I could perceive my work not to be a meaningful contribution to society.

bachbach 8y ago

A great deal of civil servant jobs fall into that category of yours. A lot of jobs which could be classed as bullshit exist, formalized as 'jobs' because of something missing from somewhere else. Robin Hanson estimate half of US medical costs are not physical but people needing moral support/reassurance from others, dare I say if people feel unloved they crave attention? Another cause of bullshit jobs is sometimes moral responsibility. Who looks after the severely autistic and those born crippled? One perspective is that these are bullshit jobs because, like the Icelandic policy demonstrates, it is strictly speaking possible to prevent some classes of these people from being born. Other people are going to be angry to hear that, since those jobs obviously involve a lot of effort and stress and they would think them the archetype of useful work. I can understand that position but if your job exists mostly because of fetal alcohol syndrome then the moral high ground is due to be hit by tremors in the next economic crisis. This is the kind of thing we don't like to talk about much but, and I'm sure I'm delusional, but reasonable people could hash out sane solutions to prevent most harm. tldr; Bullshit jobs are going to exist on the contours of subjects we find to be touchy or gooey. This is why wedding planners exist.

lovich 8y ago
I think, barring sociopaths, most people don't think taking care of the disabled is a bullshit job. A bullshit job is one that you know a tool exists already that could do your entire job. A bullshit job is one where you know the entire output of your work is thrown away or ignored
- geodel 8y ago
  And what is output of keeping severely disabled people or animals alive. I think the entire output is to feel good about it.
  - disabilities 8y ago
    I worked with people with disabilities. It was frustrating but life-changing. People with disabilities value different things and even though they don't have outward "success" in the eyes of society, they have tremendous heart. I've never been the same since working with them. It exposed a lot of my own "disabilities" trying to relate to people. The writings of Jean Vanier has a lot about this... https://www.larche.org.uk/ https://www.larche.org.uk/
  - lovich 8y ago
    What's the output of keeping you alive when you retire? It's a value we have on it's own, not something we do because it has an economic benefit. Like I said, I think only sociopaths would look at keeping the disabled alive, or helping them day to day, as a bullshit job
    - bachbach 8y ago
      I understand where you're coming from lovich but our morally as a group appears mostly contingent on our prosperity. It's easy for us to cast moral judgement but when we're in a fix - values are frequently flung onto the pyre without a second thought. The new normal becomes normal (with accompanying stories) and anybody who questions the shift is a reactionary. We should be asking ourselves deeper questions before we have these issues so we don't buy into the herd consensus.

m-i-l 8y ago

Yes, sometimes the employee doesn't know things the management does, and if they did it would make the seemingly irrational more rational (or at least slightly less irrational). I could probably write a book about the examples I've seen, but here's one of my favourites to illustrate the point: Domain experts recommend a particular product after a rigorous vendor selection process. However, senior management overrules the specialists and force them to implement the Microsoft solution, which the domain experts have advised is unsuitable for the environment and not a good match for requirements. As the specialists predict, the Microsoft solution takes a lot more time and money to implement and the users hate using it, so the project is deemed a failure, and a new project begins immediately to replace it. Sounds like a complete waste of few years and a few million? Not if senior management had negotiated tens of millions off their annual Microsoft licence fees on the condition of being able to say they were in the process of rolling out this particular Microsoft product.

foxhop 8y ago
I think this is why transparency about why your asking the employee to do something is so important. If they understand the end goal and agree with the path they will gladly and proudly take it. The nice thing about transparency is, of they understand the desired outcome and are given sufficient autonomy, they might find an even better path without specific direction from management.

boomlinde 8y ago

Let's spice it up and say that Megabureaucracy is in the business of buying plain t-shirts to print obscene jokes on them. My perception as an employee of the value of my work hinges how much value I believe that it creates for society as a whole, not only on my contribution to my employer or the people that buy the t-shirts. In that sense it really isn't a misunderstanding, just a perspective like any other on what is ultimately a subjective question. Looking at Megabureaucracy only as a closed system in which I can be valuable or not is a rather limited perspective. You could go even further and say that Megabureaucracy is in the business of producing landmines. It generates a lot of value for employees, owners and customers, and my job is to optimize the body of the mine for fragmentation, so my work is absolutely crucial to Megabureaucracy, yet there is an obvious sense here in which I could perceive my work not to be a meaningful contribution to society.