4 ms·

If you're wondering whether a job is worthwhile, the person who works at a job isn't the best person to ask. The person who is paying for that job to be done is

by lacker 3y ago

If you're wondering whether a job is worthwhile, the person who works at a job isn't the best person to ask. The person who is paying for that job to be done is the best person to ask. At a large corporation, that's the manager. Often there's a job that's important, but you can only understand why it's important if you understand how the whole organization works. Someone writes memos that get ignored 90% of the time? Works on projects that get canceled 90% of the time? Well, that can make sense, if the 10% is valuable enough that it pays off. As a manager, it's your responsibility to help make it clear to the people on your team why their work matters. By default, they won't understand this as well as you do.

registeredcorn 3y ago
I'm not saying that you're wrong, but isn't there also an obvious incentive for someone in a managerial position to insist that the people that they manage are doing important work, because it raises the profile/importance of their own position in turn? I suppose this thought is probably an overly pessimistic viewpoint, but generally speaking, many people want to justify the importance of their work so they can continue to be employed - it seems logical that if you're job is to manage others, then a very big part of what your job actually is, is hyping up the importance of those peoples work to justify them needing a manager.
- MightyBuzzard 3y ago
  [dead]
pixl97 3y ago
Eh, even that isn't a great metric at scale. Some managers just grow teams to have a large team size. Saying nothing about the job that needs done.
jzb 3y ago
If you're wondering whether a job is worthwhile, ask "what happens if this stops being done / being staffed?" And you can extrapolate to whatever level and timescale you like. That is, what happens if you stop doing your job? To the company, to the industry, to the world at large. What happens in a month, year, etc. (Assuming the function is not replaced.) Hell, what happens if your department or even company stops existing? Is there a negative effect overall on the world? If you're satisfied making a difference at the company level, and you see an immediate or even medium-term impact on stopping what you do - then congrats, your job isn't bullshit. If you need an impact beyond that, it may be harder to feel your job isn't bullshit. A job may be crucial to an organization but still feel like bullshit if you feel a need to contribute to the world overall. If you stop making / marketing / selling widgets, will that matter?
- Ferret7446 3y ago
  That valuation is not something that can be accurately determined by one organization, let alone one person. It is precisely why centrally planned economies fail.
avgcorrection 3y ago
If people feel that their job is “BS” then telling them that it is unknowable for them doesn't help. Why am I on trial? That's not for me understand.
praptak 3y ago
> At a large corporation, that's the manager. Definitely not at FAANG. One day you are told your product is super important, the next day it gets destaffed and your manager is as confused about this as you are. On the other end of the totem pole there's SVP who might see the spreadsheet columns which dictate this kind of decisions but is too far from the line workers to have any clue about their reality.
black_13 3y ago
[dead]
antisthenes 3y ago
> At a large corporation, that's the manager. Not necessarily. The manager just above the employee usually has almost 0 say in the hiring and compensation process. The hiring manager does have some say in it, but the decision to open up the position in the first place may have been made above the hiring manager by a director level position. And the director that's made that decision is not necessarily the one that is in charge of paying for it. In other words, it's usually more complicated.
JohnFen 3y ago
> Well, that can make sense, if the 10% is valuable enough that it pays off. Even so, that's still a job that's 90% worthless.

by lacker 3y ago

registeredcorn 3y ago

I'm not saying that you're wrong, but isn't there also an obvious incentive for someone in a managerial position to insist that the people that they manage are doing important work, because it raises the profile/importance of their own position in turn? I suppose this thought is probably an overly pessimistic viewpoint, but generally speaking, many people want to justify the importance of their work so they can continue to be employed - it seems logical that if you're job is to manage others, then a very big part of what your job actually is, is hyping up the importance of those peoples work to justify them needing a manager.

MightyBuzzard 3y ago
[dead]

pixl97 3y ago

Eh, even that isn't a great metric at scale. Some managers just grow teams to have a large team size. Saying nothing about the job that needs done.

jzb 3y ago

If you're wondering whether a job is worthwhile, ask "what happens if this stops being done / being staffed?" And you can extrapolate to whatever level and timescale you like. That is, what happens if you stop doing your job? To the company, to the industry, to the world at large. What happens in a month, year, etc. (Assuming the function is not replaced.) Hell, what happens if your department or even company stops existing? Is there a negative effect overall on the world? If you're satisfied making a difference at the company level, and you see an immediate or even medium-term impact on stopping what you do - then congrats, your job isn't bullshit. If you need an impact beyond that, it may be harder to feel your job isn't bullshit. A job may be crucial to an organization but still feel like bullshit if you feel a need to contribute to the world overall. If you stop making / marketing / selling widgets, will that matter?

Ferret7446 3y ago
That valuation is not something that can be accurately determined by one organization, let alone one person. It is precisely why centrally planned economies fail.

avgcorrection 3y ago

If people feel that their job is “BS” then telling them that it is unknowable for them doesn't help. Why am I on trial? That's not for me understand.

praptak 3y ago

> At a large corporation, that's the manager. Definitely not at FAANG. One day you are told your product is super important, the next day it gets destaffed and your manager is as confused about this as you are. On the other end of the totem pole there's SVP who might see the spreadsheet columns which dictate this kind of decisions but is too far from the line workers to have any clue about their reality.

black_13 3y ago

[dead]

antisthenes 3y ago

> At a large corporation, that's the manager. Not necessarily. The manager just above the employee usually has almost 0 say in the hiring and compensation process. The hiring manager does have some say in it, but the decision to open up the position in the first place may have been made above the hiring manager by a director level position. And the director that's made that decision is not necessarily the one that is in charge of paying for it. In other words, it's usually more complicated.

JohnFen 3y ago

> Well, that can make sense, if the 10% is valuable enough that it pays off. Even so, that's still a job that's 90% worthless.