I first heard about this book a month ago, when an essay [1] tried to connect some vacuous dissatisfaction with social networking with deep insights about the p

I first heard about this book a month ago, when an essay [1] tried to connect some vacuous dissatisfaction with social networking with deep insights about the powerlessness of people who work, in a pivot I found odd and unconvincing [2]. It's tempting to be swayed by the anecdotes of actual people describing the absurdities of their jobs. It's almost like a satire of pointlessness and dysfunction, despite being very real. But it's colored by perspective of people who expect some amount of self-actualization because of the nature of their workplace, when such an expectation is a unilateral construct influenced by their observations of social class. Despite the author's elaborate taxonomy of the types of bullshit work, they're all cases of delegating the least palatable, most mechanical, and least intellectual aspects of an actual decision maker's duties and tasks. It's fashionable to pick on middle management, but they form a translation between boots on the ground and high-level business goals, and serve as a containment layer for the inevitable political turf war. It's common to scoff at rubber stampers, but this serves as a way to tie an abstract policy to a human who can be blamed, when process of the organization is brought under scrutiny. These are standard features of bureaucracies since forever, and while they provide insight into human psychology, they don't speak for broad implications about labor relations and the human condition. And secretaries? They're vital component to smooth operations and screen for potential distractions. The underutilized receptionist is more than just signalling: by definition, they're there for times of need, the same way a security guard is. A security guard isn't pointless just because they never have to intervene: their presence is an effective deterrence against behavior that would call them into visible action. It's difficult for me to derive a meaningful lesson from this book, other than people are prone to be dissatisfied unless they feel like their efforts impart meaningful good in the world. But in my opinion, the privilege of wishing for self-actualization through one's labor is a recent phenomenon. Not too long ago, it was common knowledge that work was drudgery to earn to living, so we didn't expect more out of it beyond that. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18800421 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18800421 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18802087 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18802087