13 ms·

How the 'lazy girl job' took over work TikTok

45 points by momirlan 3y ago

pjc50 3y ago
The important word "TikTok" is missing from the title, which might lead people to believe this was about real trends rather than whatever the heck is going on over there at any particular time.
- NavinF 3y ago
  Yeah the title is BS. Lazy jobs are pretty uncommon and they get eliminated every time a company gets acquired or restructured
  - tennisflyi 3y ago
    Sure but you get to ride that title and any amount of experience to the next level.
- dang 3y ago
  We've put it back now.
momirlan 3y ago
who can blame a generation that is burned out even before they start in this upside-down world ?
- chayesfss 3y ago
  [dead]
christkv 3y ago
She should get a government job she would fit right in.
andrewfurey2003 3y ago
How is that job adding value? Why does it exist?
- _aaed 3y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_Jobs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_Jobs
- Ekaros 3y ago
  It doesn't. I think sometimes it comes to empire building in large corporations. Where value of managers is decided by how many people are under them. Not by what they actually produce. Or if the people are capable enough to make PKIs look good enough...
- jfengel 3y ago
  A job doesn't have to add value at each instant to add value. Companies can't spin up new workers in an instant. So for some jobs, they'll need to keep people on staff but not really working. They're there for specific tasks, or when more effort is needed, or for intermittent operations. A lot of office jobs aren't like factory lines, where output is constant and directly related to input. That doesn't make the job bullshit. It just means that "40 hours per week" is an arbitrary number, the result of centuries of conflict between labor and management, and there's nothing sacred about it. The amount that the job is worth depends on the job and the company, but it has nothing whatsoever to do with hours served. They need an employee to be prepared to fill that job, and the pay is negotiated on that basis. There's no reason to be expect it to be a straightforward function of prevailing hourly wage and 40 hours per week.
  - OkayPhysicist 3y ago
    It seems like this shouldn't be a hard concept to explain to software devs. We're knowledge workers. The company hires us for our knowledge (knowing how to tell a computer what to do) and then retains us mostly for our knowledge (understanding the resulting code), so that when that knowledge is necessary, it doesn't need to be recreated.
Aurornis 3y ago
> “A lazy girl job is basically something you can just quiet quit,” she says in the two-and-a-half minute video. “There’s lots of jobs out there where you could make, like, 60 to 80 K and not do that much work and be remote.” As an example, she zeroes in on non-technical roles, where she feels the hours fall within a 9-to-5 schedule, and believes the pay is enough to allow for some financial freedom. This influencer branded it “lazy girl job” but this concept is wildly popular among young people of all genders right now. I was invited to be a mentor in a career-focused program for college students. The number of students who wanted advice about how to get easy remote jobs where they didn’t have to do any work was depressing. The ideas they got from social media were wild. It was usually more Reddit than TikTok, but the concepts were the same: Overly confident internet posts had convinced them that most people don’t actually do much work at work and that it was all one big game. They thought remote work was the final piece of the puzzle that would turn these jobs into easy paychecks so they could have near total freedom without having to give up more than a couple hours per day to send some emails. The weirdest part for me was how much they wanted to believe these internet influencers over the mentors in the group. It was hard to get some people to understand that the influencers were selling them a dream as a way to increase their follower count. I guess people will always have an appetite for hearing what they want to hear.
- vsareto 3y ago
  It's not really a dream, you can indeed get those jobs. If a company has those jobs, it means their managers/leadership are doing the exact same lazy job, so you are in good company. An alternative is simply to be good at your job and get your work done and have spare time. If you want behaviors to change in this situation, businesses need to give better direct incentives for finishing work early. Right now, the reward for getting your work done quickly is more work.
- sneed_chucker 3y ago
  Most office jobs outside of the software engineering bubble are like that. People do very little actual work. Making such roles fully remote is basically the final step.
  - deleted 3y ago
boffinAudio 3y ago
[flagged]
- sourcecodeplz 3y ago
  Actually, starting from 2013/15 these conditions did appear out of thin air with the unregulated non-stop printing of dollars. Unlimited VC funds for almost any start-up in tech. Near zero interest rates. Those were the times that got us here.
  - myth2018 3y ago
    Indeed. And it lasted long enough for younger workers think that was normal.
- dopidopHN 3y ago
  At the same time, if progress is creating more crap or further degradation of our environment… maybe redefining progress as a metric would be interesting? But yes, someone has to do work indeed. Growing up, the plan was that the robots would do that and we would write poetry. Kinda worked the other way around eventually.
- mnd999 3y ago
  If you work harder and make more money all that happens is your landlord puts the rent up and takes it. So why bother?
  - NavinF 3y ago
    In your hypothetical scenario, your disposable income would go down over time because your income stays constant and rent increases every year. Eventually you'll be homeless
    - harimau777 3y ago
      If you are screwed either way, then it's not surprising that people choose the option where they don't have to work hard.
cumshitpiss 3y ago
[dead]
hliyan 3y ago
Before responding to what you think the article is about, it might be worthwhile reading up to the point where it explains this person was once working 60+ hours a week as a consultant and the resulting personal damage inspired her to come up with this (admittedly over the top) concept.
- WarOnPrivacy 3y ago
  > this person was once working 60+ hours a week as a consultant and the resulting personal damage inspired her to come up with this Past even that: Given how vastly more complex the business of routine living is (compared to my parents' generation), I'm hesitant to throw shade on folks seeking less demands from employment.
- pavel_lishin 3y ago
  > this (admittedly over the top) concept. The name is over the top, but the concept isn't: a low-stress job that earns you a living wage without pushing you to burnout.
paleotrope 3y ago
If my recent exposure to broadcast tv commercials is an example the "lazy girl job" is a way more common idea than just in internet culture
glimshe 3y ago
The people advocating lazy jobs will be the same ones wanting to hire people to mow their lawns, clean their houses, fix their cars, serve and cook for them at restaurants, pilot their airplanes, clean their pool, collect their trash, replace their roof, fix their AC and repair their leaking pipes. The people doing these difficult and generally back breaking jobs won't be too happy spending 10 hours a day working while the lazy girl is drinking mojitos in the swimming pool.
- inkcapmushroom 3y ago
  I'd love a lazy job so I can do all those things during work hours instead of after the workday and commute. (except piloting airplanes or cleaning pools, I don't need to do that)
insickness 3y ago
It is interesting that there's little discussion about the gender aspect of this, given that the job title includes the term "girl." Studies suggest that women place a higher priority on work-life balance compared to men. Moreover, it could imply that women are more inclined to pursue this line of work, particularly in fields like social media and influencing, where attractiveness can be leveraged as an advantage.
jacknews 3y ago
I think the author needs to spend more time perfecting midjourney prompts.
tennisflyi 3y ago
> “There’s lots of jobs out there where you could make, like, 60 to 80 K and not do that much work and be remote.” Let me know where, please. I guess I'm trash, but I've never stood a chance/have the resume to make it past ATS... Edit: Also, some of these are posted on Reddit every now and then and create a real hubbub, e.g., some email pusher for Uber recently - https://www.reddit.com/r/antiwork/comments/s9iviz/the_misogyny_in_this_sub_is_so_gross_everyone/htojp5q/ https://www.reddit.com/r/antiwork/comments/s9iviz/the_misogy...
nunez 3y ago
i don't mind people seeking out easy money jobs like this as long as they don't complain about people who work harder making more money than them!
Delancy56 3y ago
[dead]
brucenigel442 3y ago
[dead]

45 points by momirlan 3y ago

The important word "TikTok" is missing from the title, which might lead people to believe this was about real trends rather than whatever the heck is going on over there at any particular time.

NavinF 3y ago
Yeah the title is BS. Lazy jobs are pretty uncommon and they get eliminated every time a company gets acquired or restructured
- tennisflyi 3y ago
  Sure but you get to ride that title and any amount of experience to the next level.
dang 3y ago
We've put it back now.

momirlan 3y ago

who can blame a generation that is burned out even before they start in this upside-down world ?

chayesfss 3y ago
[dead]

christkv 3y ago

She should get a government job she would fit right in.

andrewfurey2003 3y ago

How is that job adding value? Why does it exist?

_aaed 3y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_Jobs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_Jobs
Ekaros 3y ago
It doesn't. I think sometimes it comes to empire building in large corporations. Where value of managers is decided by how many people are under them. Not by what they actually produce. Or if the people are capable enough to make PKIs look good enough...
jfengel 3y ago
A job doesn't have to add value at each instant to add value. Companies can't spin up new workers in an instant. So for some jobs, they'll need to keep people on staff but not really working. They're there for specific tasks, or when more effort is needed, or for intermittent operations. A lot of office jobs aren't like factory lines, where output is constant and directly related to input. That doesn't make the job bullshit. It just means that "40 hours per week" is an arbitrary number, the result of centuries of conflict between labor and management, and there's nothing sacred about it. The amount that the job is worth depends on the job and the company, but it has nothing whatsoever to do with hours served. They need an employee to be prepared to fill that job, and the pay is negotiated on that basis. There's no reason to be expect it to be a straightforward function of prevailing hourly wage and 40 hours per week.
- OkayPhysicist 3y ago
  It seems like this shouldn't be a hard concept to explain to software devs. We're knowledge workers. The company hires us for our knowledge (knowing how to tell a computer what to do) and then retains us mostly for our knowledge (understanding the resulting code), so that when that knowledge is necessary, it doesn't need to be recreated.

Aurornis 3y ago

> “A lazy girl job is basically something you can just quiet quit,” she says in the two-and-a-half minute video. “There’s lots of jobs out there where you could make, like, 60 to 80 K and not do that much work and be remote.” As an example, she zeroes in on non-technical roles, where she feels the hours fall within a 9-to-5 schedule, and believes the pay is enough to allow for some financial freedom. This influencer branded it “lazy girl job” but this concept is wildly popular among young people of all genders right now. I was invited to be a mentor in a career-focused program for college students. The number of students who wanted advice about how to get easy remote jobs where they didn’t have to do any work was depressing. The ideas they got from social media were wild. It was usually more Reddit than TikTok, but the concepts were the same: Overly confident internet posts had convinced them that most people don’t actually do much work at work and that it was all one big game. They thought remote work was the final piece of the puzzle that would turn these jobs into easy paychecks so they could have near total freedom without having to give up more than a couple hours per day to send some emails. The weirdest part for me was how much they wanted to believe these internet influencers over the mentors in the group. It was hard to get some people to understand that the influencers were selling them a dream as a way to increase their follower count. I guess people will always have an appetite for hearing what they want to hear.

vsareto 3y ago
It's not really a dream, you can indeed get those jobs. If a company has those jobs, it means their managers/leadership are doing the exact same lazy job, so you are in good company. An alternative is simply to be good at your job and get your work done and have spare time. If you want behaviors to change in this situation, businesses need to give better direct incentives for finishing work early. Right now, the reward for getting your work done quickly is more work.
sneed_chucker 3y ago
Most office jobs outside of the software engineering bubble are like that. People do very little actual work. Making such roles fully remote is basically the final step.
- deleted 3y ago

boffinAudio 3y ago

[flagged]

sourcecodeplz 3y ago
Actually, starting from 2013/15 these conditions did appear out of thin air with the unregulated non-stop printing of dollars. Unlimited VC funds for almost any start-up in tech. Near zero interest rates. Those were the times that got us here.
- myth2018 3y ago
  Indeed. And it lasted long enough for younger workers think that was normal.
dopidopHN 3y ago
At the same time, if progress is creating more crap or further degradation of our environment… maybe redefining progress as a metric would be interesting? But yes, someone has to do work indeed. Growing up, the plan was that the robots would do that and we would write poetry. Kinda worked the other way around eventually.
mnd999 3y ago
If you work harder and make more money all that happens is your landlord puts the rent up and takes it. So why bother?
- NavinF 3y ago
  In your hypothetical scenario, your disposable income would go down over time because your income stays constant and rent increases every year. Eventually you'll be homeless
  - harimau777 3y ago
    If you are screwed either way, then it's not surprising that people choose the option where they don't have to work hard.

cumshitpiss 3y ago

[dead]

hliyan 3y ago

Before responding to what you think the article is about, it might be worthwhile reading up to the point where it explains this person was once working 60+ hours a week as a consultant and the resulting personal damage inspired her to come up with this (admittedly over the top) concept.

WarOnPrivacy 3y ago
> this person was once working 60+ hours a week as a consultant and the resulting personal damage inspired her to come up with this Past even that: Given how vastly more complex the business of routine living is (compared to my parents' generation), I'm hesitant to throw shade on folks seeking less demands from employment.
pavel_lishin 3y ago
> this (admittedly over the top) concept. The name is over the top, but the concept isn't: a low-stress job that earns you a living wage without pushing you to burnout.

paleotrope 3y ago

If my recent exposure to broadcast tv commercials is an example the "lazy girl job" is a way more common idea than just in internet culture

glimshe 3y ago

The people advocating lazy jobs will be the same ones wanting to hire people to mow their lawns, clean their houses, fix their cars, serve and cook for them at restaurants, pilot their airplanes, clean their pool, collect their trash, replace their roof, fix their AC and repair their leaking pipes. The people doing these difficult and generally back breaking jobs won't be too happy spending 10 hours a day working while the lazy girl is drinking mojitos in the swimming pool.

inkcapmushroom 3y ago
I'd love a lazy job so I can do all those things during work hours instead of after the workday and commute. (except piloting airplanes or cleaning pools, I don't need to do that)

insickness 3y ago

It is interesting that there's little discussion about the gender aspect of this, given that the job title includes the term "girl." Studies suggest that women place a higher priority on work-life balance compared to men. Moreover, it could imply that women are more inclined to pursue this line of work, particularly in fields like social media and influencing, where attractiveness can be leveraged as an advantage.

jacknews 3y ago

I think the author needs to spend more time perfecting midjourney prompts.

tennisflyi 3y ago

> “There’s lots of jobs out there where you could make, like, 60 to 80 K and not do that much work and be remote.” Let me know where, please. I guess I'm trash, but I've never stood a chance/have the resume to make it past ATS... Edit: Also, some of these are posted on Reddit every now and then and create a real hubbub, e.g., some email pusher for Uber recently - https://www.reddit.com/r/antiwork/comments/s9iviz/the_misogyny_in_this_sub_is_so_gross_everyone/htojp5q/ https://www.reddit.com/r/antiwork/comments/s9iviz/the_misogy...

nunez 3y ago

i don't mind people seeking out easy money jobs like this as long as they don't complain about people who work harder making more money than them!

Delancy56 3y ago

[dead]

brucenigel442 3y ago

[dead]