You don't understand what I am saying. >> This is people saying their own jobs are useless Yes, people have jobs that they know are useless. They know the

You don't understand what I am saying. >> This is people saying their own jobs are useless Yes, people have jobs that they know are useless. They know they are just going through the motions. They are in complicated organizations that can't measure their value and they know they are free riding. However, there are also people in the same type of organizations who think they are really valuable, who may actually have a negative value. My point is that in certain types of work it is hard to measure and this results in poor attribution or exploitation (pretending you are doing something). >> Ultimately it is testable. Have people quit or get fired and see if anything bad happens. No, that's exactly what I disagree with. You are also thinking about work the way a horse does it and not considering real world situations. Let's say I have three development execs at a movie studio and I fire one. Does something bad happen? I am still going to pick a script from one of the other two and it will be a hit or a flop. That tells me nothing about what the work out put of the third fired executive, which I might not be able to judge the impact of until I look back a few years. I know-- from experience-- that is the same with the creative director of a video game. You may not know for sure if their ideas are good or if they are did a good job unless you see through what they are doing. Or artists who are most time the useless, or mediocre, but every now and then produce an essential piece of key art. In case it isn't obvious I work in entertainment. But I believe their are similar cases in software engineering, recruiting, strategy planning, human resources, general leadership, etc. Where firing a person tells you nothing about what they would have done had they worked for a year. (edited for spelling)