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I can't name a single job I've taken that was not a bullshit job. Ironically the better it pays, the more bullshit it is. I made some good money on these jobs,

by hsn915 4y ago

I can't name a single job I've taken that was not a bullshit job. Ironically the better it pays, the more bullshit it is. I made some good money on these jobs, but I always hated them. I can't think of a single product I worked on (as an employee) that is objectively net positive value to society. Sure, it has some customers, but these customers are other corporations that are doing bullshit business. The end users themselves probably hate the product. The only things I worked on that I felt had some positive value to society where things I ended up put out there for free. This might be cynical but now I think a large segment of the economy is just bullshit excuses to circulate money around.

imtringued 4y ago
>This might be cynical but now I think a large segment of the economy is just bullshit excuses to circulate money around. It literally is. Money doesn't circulate on its own so we have to force it to circulate through bullshit jobs.
- hsn915 4y ago
  I have found this essay quite illuminating https://autistocrates.substack.com/p/the-nature-of-work https://autistocrates.substack.com/p/the-nature-of-work Quote: > Manual labor is naturally limited – there is only so much ditch that needs digging, only so much shit to shovel, etc. With computers, the situation is different. There is no end to the amount of text documents, pdfs, spreadsheets and other files that can be created; these then need to be reviewed, revised, have each revision tracked and documented separately; this all gets filed into multiple databases and folder structures that all need to be catalogued in new spreadsheets and pdf:s. There are the endless software updates, subtle UI changes that require frustrating periods of adjusting to get used to, compatibility issues with hardware or other programs that take weeks to figure out.
ravenstine 4y ago
It's what happens when the government, industry, and investors create feeding troughs of funding, whether it's through deals, grants, VC funding, stock offerings, tax breaks, backroom handshakes, and so on. I wouldn't say that all the jobs I've had were outright bullshit, but they were often made bullshit by the powers that be. When an organization is frequently making sub-optimal decisions that impact the quality of the product, the role of an employee carrying out those decisions can become that of shoddy workmanship, or performing tasks that aren't as beneficial as management thinks. At this point, I've learned to accept a certain amount of bullshit. As much as I'd like the world to be free of bullshit, there's some utility to corporate bullshit. When companies succeed and grow, bullshit is created to inflate importance and create job security. If the company has entered the "cash cow" phase of its life, actually addressing bullshit almost certainly means threatening at least one person's job. If everyone is making money, why bother, then? Jobs are supposed to suck to some extent, else they wouldn't be jobs. It's not that I wouldn't do what I can to inform a team or business on how something can be done better, but when the forces of business and corporate politics inevitably push back, I let it go. Be somewhat glad that yourself and others get paid to do stupid shit. In any other time in history, our jobs would have been physically a lot more grueling. By tolerating bullshit, we can actually get away with quite a lot. It's one thing if it's a small company where bullshit early on can really hurt them, but why care if BigCo is full of bullshit? If it's full of bullshit, everybody might as well feed from the trough.

by hsn915 4y ago

imtringued 4y ago

>This might be cynical but now I think a large segment of the economy is just bullshit excuses to circulate money around. It literally is. Money doesn't circulate on its own so we have to force it to circulate through bullshit jobs.

hsn915 4y ago
I have found this essay quite illuminating https://autistocrates.substack.com/p/the-nature-of-work https://autistocrates.substack.com/p/the-nature-of-work Quote: > Manual labor is naturally limited – there is only so much ditch that needs digging, only so much shit to shovel, etc. With computers, the situation is different. There is no end to the amount of text documents, pdfs, spreadsheets and other files that can be created; these then need to be reviewed, revised, have each revision tracked and documented separately; this all gets filed into multiple databases and folder structures that all need to be catalogued in new spreadsheets and pdf:s. There are the endless software updates, subtle UI changes that require frustrating periods of adjusting to get used to, compatibility issues with hardware or other programs that take weeks to figure out.

ravenstine 4y ago

It's what happens when the government, industry, and investors create feeding troughs of funding, whether it's through deals, grants, VC funding, stock offerings, tax breaks, backroom handshakes, and so on. I wouldn't say that all the jobs I've had were outright bullshit, but they were often made bullshit by the powers that be. When an organization is frequently making sub-optimal decisions that impact the quality of the product, the role of an employee carrying out those decisions can become that of shoddy workmanship, or performing tasks that aren't as beneficial as management thinks. At this point, I've learned to accept a certain amount of bullshit. As much as I'd like the world to be free of bullshit, there's some utility to corporate bullshit. When companies succeed and grow, bullshit is created to inflate importance and create job security. If the company has entered the "cash cow" phase of its life, actually addressing bullshit almost certainly means threatening at least one person's job. If everyone is making money, why bother, then? Jobs are supposed to suck to some extent, else they wouldn't be jobs. It's not that I wouldn't do what I can to inform a team or business on how something can be done better, but when the forces of business and corporate politics inevitably push back, I let it go. Be somewhat glad that yourself and others get paid to do stupid shit. In any other time in history, our jobs would have been physically a lot more grueling. By tolerating bullshit, we can actually get away with quite a lot. It's one thing if it's a small company where bullshit early on can really hurt them, but why care if BigCo is full of bullshit? If it's full of bullshit, everybody might as well feed from the trough.