4 ms·

You don't have a right to a subjectively not bullshit job. The purpose of your job as your employer sees it isnt to provide meaning in your life. If you think

by anm89 6y ago

You don't have a right to a subjectively not bullshit job. The purpose of your job as your employer sees it isnt to provide meaning in your life. If you think your job is bullshit, then search for a different one or quit, or suck it up and decided that your bullshit job is better than unemployment. The only bullshit I smell here is these peoples utopian views on the nature and purpose of employment and their entitled attitudes.

perfunctory 6y ago
I think you misunderstand the premise of the book. What they call a BS job is not the one you dislike, or find it a drudgery. It's rather the one you don't understand the purpose of.
- anm89 6y ago
  I don't misunderstand the premise at all. Whether your job has purpose or not isn't for the employee to decide. Thats for the employer to decide. It's your job to decide whether you want to trade your time for their money. If they decide they want to pay you to do something, and you decide that you want to take their money, than your subjective evaluation of whether the job has purpose is irrelevant as long as you keep the job.
  - kennyadam 6y ago
    keep licking dem boots
    - anm89 6y ago
      By understanding the nature of the system I work in, i make a set off tradeoffs that work for me and its treated me very well over my life. I promise you I do a whole lot less boot licking than average and I'm happy to bootlick when I decide the trade off is in my favor on a case by case basis. The people who end up licking boots are the ones who can't see the reality of their situations and go in with unrealistic expectations. Then they complain when things aren't working out for them.
  - thomaslord 6y ago
    I think the idea here is that employers are paying people for something because they believe it provides value, but it isn't actually providing value. In terms of "should this position exist at the company" the employer gets final say, but if my boss pays me to sit alone in a room and do nothing all day that's objectively purposeless regardless of what my boss says. An employee's perception of a job not having purpose can have a large impact on their productivity (humans in general tend to do badly when they're expected to do tasks they see as pointless for too long). Because of this, it's in the employer's interest to either explain the value an employee provides to the company sufficiently well that the employee doesn't feel that their job is pointless. If there is no way to convince the employee of that, the employee is likely either unqualified to understand their duties or genuinely doing a job that doesn't need to be done.
    - anm89 6y ago
      I don't really disagree with anything here. Lots of jobs are probably counterproductive to the employer, and probably equally suck from the employees perspective. But the only entity which gets to make the call for if that job should exist at the end of the day is the employer. If you don't believe any malicious intent to provide intentionally purposeless jobs on the side of the employer (and while you could say many bad things about modern corporations, I don't think they have any incentives to do this specific bad thing) , the only rational assumption is that their organizational structure, to the best of its decision making ability, thinks the existence of that job does benefit their bottom line. I think people are reading my response as being some kind of corporate apologetics, and from my opinion that couldn't be further from the case. I intentionally stay far away from large corporate entities in terms of jobs because I think they suck. My point is that is the only vote any off us get and that is the way it should be at the end of the day. Complaining that some big Corp isn't providing purpose to you is the same as complaining about gravity. I mean you have a right to do it, but you aren't changing anything.
      - anm89 6y ago
        edit: I'll make one exception here. If a corporation was trying to rent seek in the sense that hiring a person who does literally nothing gave them a tax incentive or something, you could end up with an employee who has literally no functional purpose within the organization. They would still be serving a purpose as a proxy for the rent seeking but from their perspective they would be doing nothing. This is still not a believable scenario in my mind as they employer would already be paying them and would probably have them do some other thing as well. Also the job would still have purpose it would just be very abstract.
  - perfunctory 6y ago
    > Whether your job has purpose or not isn't for the employee to decide. Thats for the employer to decide. Says who? The point is, we are free to define what a BS job is anyway we want. This book simply postulates that the job is BS if a person performing the job thinks it is. You are free to come up with alternative definitions. - A job is BS if a congress committee designates it as such. - A job is BS if NYTimes editorial board says it is. - A Job is BS if employer files for bankruptcy. For me, the definition adopted by the book is at least not worse than the alternatives. Once we defined it we can talk about how many BS jobs there are etc. Or, to rephrase, how many people think they have a BS job. > It's your job to decide whether you want to trade your time for their money. And yes, I can trade my time for their money and still have freedom to call their job BS.
    - anm89 6y ago
      > Says who? Says the company who created the job. They created the job you think is bullshit. They have the right to do so. If you want to make this bullshit job not exist, they are the one you'd have to convince. What is your goal here? Sure I think a lot of these jobs are BS too. The point is it doesn't matter at all what you or I think unless you're advocating for some specific change. Congress as far as I know has never outlawed a job for being pointless nor do they have any authority as far as I know to do so. The NY Times can say whatever they want about any job in the world but they don't have any say in the issue. If the company goes out of business than the problem resolves itself. So is your goal to complain to the internet that you don't like the fact that some job exists. If so, sure, scream to the skies about how dumb these jobs are. If you are saying something should change, that's when the stuff I'm talking about is relevant because you are going to find that your perception of them being bullshit does not give you any avenue to make them not exist.
earthscienceman 6y ago
I love that it's considered entitled to imagine creating a world that's not based on the machinery of capitalism and subjecting people to work jobs that are created by fealty to business. It's possible to be economically productive and consider the methods in which we create our economy. We are capable of that.
- anm89 6y ago
  Sure, go start your own company and do whatever the hell you want. Go start a commune and grow radishes and have drum circles. I'm not saying that sarcastically, that actually sounds great and you have the absolute right and ability to go do it and create something purposeful for your life. But if you go work for Johnson and Johnson what makes you think you are entitled to them providing purpose for you? I mean demand it all you want, they aren't going to give it to you and they shouldn't. They bulk produce soap. It isn't their concern what you subjectively think is purposeful. They need someone to inspect the labels on those containers. The purpose is that it makes them money, not that it provides you happiness and that is the way it should and always will be.
  - igammarays 6y ago
    If the job is indeed necessary to bulk produce a household necessity like soap, then that’s not what is defined as a “bullshit job” by Graeber. Producing soap, no matter how boring, is not a bullshit job. He’s talking about jobs that literally do nothing useful for anyone, could be removed with no consequences, not even to the company paying them. These jobs exist, and I’ve seen it.
    - anm89 6y ago
      This is total nonsense. Are you suggesting that there are companies out there, who are making money but do literally nothing? Or are you suggesting that within companies that do something, there are people who are paid staff but who have no job description? That doesn't make any sense. Every company claims it does something and claims that every employee has some role. The bullshit jobs part is when people perceive that it doesn't actually matter, not when they literally do nothing and have no job description. I challenge you to present an example of a bullshit job, given your own criteria, that doesn't also meet mine. I assure you can't because it essentially tautologically cannot exist.
Mouse47 6y ago
>The only bullshit I smell here is these peoples utopian views on the nature and purpose of employment and their entitled attitudes. Shame on these people! Wanting to contribute to society in a meaningful way! The entitlement! Kids these days...
- anm89 6y ago
  Shame on them for expecting purpose to be handed to them by some employer. They should want to contribute to society and they should find a way to go do it. But that's not the job of literally every employer. It's their job as a person.
amiga_500 6y ago
Read the article, not just the headline, my corporatist friend.

by anm89 6y ago

perfunctory 6y ago

I think you misunderstand the premise of the book. What they call a BS job is not the one you dislike, or find it a drudgery. It's rather the one you don't understand the purpose of.

anm89 6y ago
I don't misunderstand the premise at all. Whether your job has purpose or not isn't for the employee to decide. Thats for the employer to decide. It's your job to decide whether you want to trade your time for their money. If they decide they want to pay you to do something, and you decide that you want to take their money, than your subjective evaluation of whether the job has purpose is irrelevant as long as you keep the job.
- kennyadam 6y ago
  keep licking dem boots
  - anm89 6y ago
    By understanding the nature of the system I work in, i make a set off tradeoffs that work for me and its treated me very well over my life. I promise you I do a whole lot less boot licking than average and I'm happy to bootlick when I decide the trade off is in my favor on a case by case basis. The people who end up licking boots are the ones who can't see the reality of their situations and go in with unrealistic expectations. Then they complain when things aren't working out for them.
- thomaslord 6y ago
  I think the idea here is that employers are paying people for something because they believe it provides value, but it isn't actually providing value. In terms of "should this position exist at the company" the employer gets final say, but if my boss pays me to sit alone in a room and do nothing all day that's objectively purposeless regardless of what my boss says. An employee's perception of a job not having purpose can have a large impact on their productivity (humans in general tend to do badly when they're expected to do tasks they see as pointless for too long). Because of this, it's in the employer's interest to either explain the value an employee provides to the company sufficiently well that the employee doesn't feel that their job is pointless. If there is no way to convince the employee of that, the employee is likely either unqualified to understand their duties or genuinely doing a job that doesn't need to be done.
  - anm89 6y ago
    I don't really disagree with anything here. Lots of jobs are probably counterproductive to the employer, and probably equally suck from the employees perspective. But the only entity which gets to make the call for if that job should exist at the end of the day is the employer. If you don't believe any malicious intent to provide intentionally purposeless jobs on the side of the employer (and while you could say many bad things about modern corporations, I don't think they have any incentives to do this specific bad thing) , the only rational assumption is that their organizational structure, to the best of its decision making ability, thinks the existence of that job does benefit their bottom line. I think people are reading my response as being some kind of corporate apologetics, and from my opinion that couldn't be further from the case. I intentionally stay far away from large corporate entities in terms of jobs because I think they suck. My point is that is the only vote any off us get and that is the way it should be at the end of the day. Complaining that some big Corp isn't providing purpose to you is the same as complaining about gravity. I mean you have a right to do it, but you aren't changing anything.
    - anm89 6y ago
      edit: I'll make one exception here. If a corporation was trying to rent seek in the sense that hiring a person who does literally nothing gave them a tax incentive or something, you could end up with an employee who has literally no functional purpose within the organization. They would still be serving a purpose as a proxy for the rent seeking but from their perspective they would be doing nothing. This is still not a believable scenario in my mind as they employer would already be paying them and would probably have them do some other thing as well. Also the job would still have purpose it would just be very abstract.
- perfunctory 6y ago
  > Whether your job has purpose or not isn't for the employee to decide. Thats for the employer to decide. Says who? The point is, we are free to define what a BS job is anyway we want. This book simply postulates that the job is BS if a person performing the job thinks it is. You are free to come up with alternative definitions. - A job is BS if a congress committee designates it as such. - A job is BS if NYTimes editorial board says it is. - A Job is BS if employer files for bankruptcy. For me, the definition adopted by the book is at least not worse than the alternatives. Once we defined it we can talk about how many BS jobs there are etc. Or, to rephrase, how many people think they have a BS job. > It's your job to decide whether you want to trade your time for their money. And yes, I can trade my time for their money and still have freedom to call their job BS.
  - anm89 6y ago
    > Says who? Says the company who created the job. They created the job you think is bullshit. They have the right to do so. If you want to make this bullshit job not exist, they are the one you'd have to convince. What is your goal here? Sure I think a lot of these jobs are BS too. The point is it doesn't matter at all what you or I think unless you're advocating for some specific change. Congress as far as I know has never outlawed a job for being pointless nor do they have any authority as far as I know to do so. The NY Times can say whatever they want about any job in the world but they don't have any say in the issue. If the company goes out of business than the problem resolves itself. So is your goal to complain to the internet that you don't like the fact that some job exists. If so, sure, scream to the skies about how dumb these jobs are. If you are saying something should change, that's when the stuff I'm talking about is relevant because you are going to find that your perception of them being bullshit does not give you any avenue to make them not exist.

earthscienceman 6y ago

I love that it's considered entitled to imagine creating a world that's not based on the machinery of capitalism and subjecting people to work jobs that are created by fealty to business. It's possible to be economically productive and consider the methods in which we create our economy. We are capable of that.

anm89 6y ago
Sure, go start your own company and do whatever the hell you want. Go start a commune and grow radishes and have drum circles. I'm not saying that sarcastically, that actually sounds great and you have the absolute right and ability to go do it and create something purposeful for your life. But if you go work for Johnson and Johnson what makes you think you are entitled to them providing purpose for you? I mean demand it all you want, they aren't going to give it to you and they shouldn't. They bulk produce soap. It isn't their concern what you subjectively think is purposeful. They need someone to inspect the labels on those containers. The purpose is that it makes them money, not that it provides you happiness and that is the way it should and always will be.
- igammarays 6y ago
  If the job is indeed necessary to bulk produce a household necessity like soap, then that’s not what is defined as a “bullshit job” by Graeber. Producing soap, no matter how boring, is not a bullshit job. He’s talking about jobs that literally do nothing useful for anyone, could be removed with no consequences, not even to the company paying them. These jobs exist, and I’ve seen it.
  - anm89 6y ago
    This is total nonsense. Are you suggesting that there are companies out there, who are making money but do literally nothing? Or are you suggesting that within companies that do something, there are people who are paid staff but who have no job description? That doesn't make any sense. Every company claims it does something and claims that every employee has some role. The bullshit jobs part is when people perceive that it doesn't actually matter, not when they literally do nothing and have no job description. I challenge you to present an example of a bullshit job, given your own criteria, that doesn't also meet mine. I assure you can't because it essentially tautologically cannot exist.

Mouse47 6y ago

>The only bullshit I smell here is these peoples utopian views on the nature and purpose of employment and their entitled attitudes. Shame on these people! Wanting to contribute to society in a meaningful way! The entitlement! Kids these days...

anm89 6y ago
Shame on them for expecting purpose to be handed to them by some employer. They should want to contribute to society and they should find a way to go do it. But that's not the job of literally every employer. It's their job as a person.

amiga_500 6y ago

Read the article, not just the headline, my corporatist friend.