David Graeber - 5 Types of BS jobs

[@displaychicken]

I’m an operator in an oil refinery. We have process engineers who come and ask us the ABC’s of how we operate our plant. We carefully explain to them what we do and why we do it. The following day we receive an email from them with instructions on how we are supposed to operate the facility. The instructions are precisely what we are already doing, (with some mistakes where they didn’t quite understand or remember our explanation). We are giving directions to ourselves and there are dozens of high priced engineering consultants who have somehow managed to collect a paycheque from this.

[@BuGGyBoBerl]

That actually made me laugh out loud, then very sad. I sometimes imagine what an alien might think of us watching us behave like that

[@SW-qr8qe]

My life in Engineering

[@recursion.]

I mean you can be that engineering consultant if you really think thats an easy job and pays very well.

[@BuGGyBoBerl]

@@recursion. doesnt even make sense. so there is a bullshit job but we shouldnt criticize it and instead do that job?

[@displaychicken]

@@recursion.I already make more than them at around $250k/year. Plus I’m unionized with extremely good benefits and my job is only 5 minutes from my house. No way I would give that up. The process engineers: make less money, have to travel, are non-unionized, with the additional ignominy of having no real purpose. No upside for me.

[@b0bb0btheb0b]

I knew a box-ticker whose job seemed insanely absurd. I worked for a European company and we built equipment that had a big global market. In the US, we had loads of small customers in rural areas who got US government assistance to buy equipment. The rules required that the equipment bought be made in America - but as supply chains have become global, it only needs to be partially made in America (e.g. you can build your stuff with Taiwanese microchips or plastic parts from China without a problem provided at some point you're putting it together in the USA). So we'd build the stuff in Europe, test it, remove a bolt and send it to our American office. We had one employee over there whose whole job was to receive these shipments, check the contents, reattach the bolt, stamp it "Made in America" and then send it off to Bumfuque, Louisiana. We eventually expanded in the US to the point it made more sense to have manufacturing over there and I went over to train the new American employees. That one guy seemed kinda bummed out that he'd lost such a low tempo, laidback job.

[@muteloch2798]

It's a tragedy of our society that there are so few low-tempo and laid-back jobs remaining. I would gladly trade in my job in tech for something that doesn't require my full life dedication to get by. Happily take that pay cut, but the easy jobs have been culled.

[@glennerikf]

@@muteloch2798 I might agree that low-tempo, laid-back jobs are a good thing, but I'm not sure that was the point that @b0bb0btheb0b was making. Because that guy clearly did have a BS job, even if he liked it.

[@nickp5093]

Bumfuque, Louisiana is near The Gape: for those interested.

[@raminrouchi202]

Bumfuque Louisiana

[@AJ-xv7oh]

It obviously needed someone to do it.

[@KManAbout]

I worked as newspaper delivery boy in the days when everyone had the internet and would just throw their advertisments in the bin.

[@Fatima-fo4bv]

This is sad and waste

[@gezenews]

@@Fatima-fo4bv Yes, that's what advertisements are.

[@BC-yd6dl]

Is there a worse more toxic industry than Advertising?

[@spacefertilizer]

@@gezenewswether you like it or not the advertisements pay for the paper and eventually your job. Throwing it away is according to my like living by a lie. It’s not a moral which other people can live by and hence it’s egotistical.

[@gezenews]

@@spacefertilizer It is a lie. None of the papers survived off ad revenue. The ads were not valuable, and therefore nothing of value was lost. The idea behind ads themselves in the modern age is completely unproductive waste. Not productivity. And most of the ads in tv and movies are subversive attempts to manipulate, and the "journalism" lost out to corporate interest. So no, nothing truthful or honest or valuable was lost when those damn ads went in the trash.

[@ethaneveraldo]

“Managers and executives are judged by how many people they have working under them” you sir put the finger right on it.

[@programmer1356]

And they cannot measure contribution so they use sacrifice as a proxy. If your 'reports' are happy then they are clearly not making sufficient sacrifice and so cannot be making sufficient contribution. It's how the organisation has become enshitified.

[@Dan.50]

The president of my company has an office full of completely unnecessary people that do nothing but slow down the people in the field that make the money. It's insane.

[@RohintonKazak]

Nice insight into the world of 'work'.

[@SateenDuraLuxe]

@5:37 "Look at these auto workers, they're being payed 25 dollars an hour and they're getting all these benefits and vacations. and it's like, why not? They don't seem to object if some guy sitting in an office doing nothing gets payed much more doing that." I've noticed people with that sentiment usually rationalize it by saying things like, "Yeah but those people had to go to college to get that job and they have student loans to pay back."

[@MarsziParszi]

Except in Europe we don't have the student loans ;P

[@isiahs9312]

@@SateenDuraLuxe what I noticed is that everyone with a student loan is told that they should suffer and be in misery for the rest of their fucking life by the fucking bank shill economists I wish I believed in hell

[@Kj16V]

​​@@MarsziParszi We also have several weeks mandatory paid holiday. It blows me away how America doesn't even have paid holiday. And if anyone tried to introduce it, the very people it would benefit would fight tooth and nail to quash it.

[@ViceAdmiralHoratioNeIson]

@@Kj16V What are you talking about? Every working American I know gets paid holidays.

[@Bronyboy123]

@@ViceAdmiralHoratioNeIson For British people "holiday" is what we call "vacation;" he's saying American law doesn't require any paid vacation time (not including federal holidays).

[@Lordcappybara]

The true meaning of the word 'job' is 'social therapy'.

[@scottmarsh2991]

Wow, the ending really grabbed me. I never went into teaching because I never met a school administrator whom I trusted or respected.

[@marshalmcdonald7476]

@@Zack24XB Indeed. I know of some spooky stories.

[@Harrier32]

Most admin are simply task masters. Ed consultants and district level bureaucrats are box checkers. We had an absentee principal for three years, the school ran itself.

[@AnaShahTX]

I used to be a teacher and I heard an explanation that made complete sense. The people who go into school administration would never make the amount of money they make in any setting outside of education. They would actually have to produce a product instead of just looking like they are. I could not agree more.

[@DrDeadlifts]

"You need to be working harder than you want to be at something you don't like very much or else you're a bad person." This hits hard. My personal morality regarding "working hard" is the only reason I work hard. As a 66/33 Box Ticker/Task Master I know deep down that my job isn't necessary and I'm not rewarded for performing better. In fact, in all of the analysis that I do regarding efficiency I know deep down that no one will execute on any of my work because inertia is too powerful.

[@Retotion]

My first job out of college (job before the one I have now) was for a smaller sized company where people had to wear multiple hats and where it was really difficult to hide if you were freeloading and not doing real work. While I learned a lot, it was very stressful especially as a new grad who felt like he was constantly getting in the way of others. Now work for a corporation with more than a 1000 employees at my site alone. I only do maybe a few hours of actual work a week and am stress free. I don't care to admit it, I love living in a world so wealthy that it can afford to pay me thousands of dollars every two weeks to do basically nothing

[@BC-yd6dl]

I do perhaps a single hour of work per day. Been in my current position for 10 years now. Oh and I work from home. Completely stress free.

[@moop_fogo]

@@BC-yd6dl interesting. what is your position, & what does the 1 hour of work involve doing?

[@tommymurphy459]

You studied millinery in college? 🎩👒🧢

[@ACTHdan]

@@BC-yd6dlI do perhaps one minute of work per week

[@SoFloCo-ne4rk]

@missingsig I think his point is that there is so much wealth in America that employers can afford to pay lots of people lots of money to do very little.

[@averyintelligence]

This finally explains why there’s always a security guard in the Co-op (UK).

[@PeppermintPatties]

Your wisdom is deeply missed, David. Rest in power. ❤️‍🩹

[@AlexanderGrauKardan]

I have all 5 jobs combined. Yes, I am a project manager in IT, how did you know that?

[@dan_taninecz_geopol]

He conveniently excludes the massive amount of academics who have bullshit jobs. "15 years and none of my programs have been adopted" is a pretty good description of many academic's careers.

[@Rockyzach88]

Are you talking about science or something else? If the former, that's just the reality of science in current times. It's a collective effort over time. The "great man theory of history" has its flaws. I do think the speaker in the video is sort of ignoring that as humans there are just some "overheads" that exist because of the current understanding of our behaviors and "nature". Hopefully the newer generations can bring more imagination of ingenuity to these institutions.

[@dan_taninecz_geopol]

@@Rockyzach88 I was thinking more about the inherent bullshit of training people to become professors even though you know most of them can never attain that. Then sitting back and judging them for having to work outside academia. It's all extremely unsavory, especially when you consider the impact of most research programs is nonexistent.

[@juriuslegenda]

academia, especially humanities is the definition of bullshit job that society doesnt need.

[@galek75]

​@@dan_taninecz_geopolThe fact that you expect research/inquiry to have an immediate impact is the problem here.

[@dan_taninecz_geopol]

@@galek75 Where did I say immediate? Be specific.

[@Giantcrabz]

i feel like a duct taper box ticker as a pharmacist 85% of the time

[@zakesoya5565]

Yeah because the job can be done by a kid

[@agg4000]

Not 100% ?

[@hollowgonzalo4329]

@Giantcrabz I have a feeling that out of all the healthcare related jobs that ai is going to put on the chopping block pharmacy related stuff will be first up.

[@someone2021]

That's because you are. That's what most of us are.

[@newagain9964]

The joys of bureaucracy

[@hetedeleambacht6608]

the analogy with the producing versus the washing of a cup.....brilliant.

[@lucindabreeding]

I'm an education reporter in North Texas. You could argue that there is administrative bloat in public schools. But there are two chief realities feeding that: the administrative track offers a living wage, and legislative mandates that increasingly complicate public education. In Texas, a lot of mandates from the state aren't funded by the state. People shrug at the intentional hostility ginned up against teachers, but it ultimately hurts students because teachers are jumping ship.

[@BadMouse101]

So I was a Charity mugger. Does that mean I was Number 3? Duct Taper?

[@laughinggiraffe9176]

What’s a charity mugger?

[@KrupyFren]

@@laughinggiraffe9176 Someone who has a cash box and some pamphlets and bothers people on the street asking them for donations. If you just call to the space, you are a beggar. If you pinpoint a weak person and then not let them go until they put something like 1..5 quid to a box, that is a charity mugger.

[@etienne2315]

Probably number 2 a goon

[@coprographia]

Goon

[@CraftyOldGit]

I used to have a particularly ambitious manager who liked insist on me & other colleagues accompany her to high level meetings. I realised I was only there to make her look good by having the most flunkies. Sometimes meetings took a whole day + hours of travel. A huge waste of time & resources.

[@electrodynamicorb6548]

Getting paid to space out at meetings is not a bad gig

[@isiahs9312]

@@CraftyOldGit I usually make an intern or two join me for a sales meeting. It isn't about importance it is about being able to control the conversation. Did they dismiss my concern about x? Ok let me "explain" to the intern why I am worried about x.

[@Dan.50]

@@isiahs9312 Great idea!

[@averyintelligence]

@@isiahs9312does this take a whole day and hours of travelling for your interns? Cos you can ask those 2 questions on face call in under a few mins. People who have meetings for basic questioning should really cut out the meeting, get straight to the point and ask the question

[@isiahs9312]

@ your advice means nothing to me

[@JohnMcGlothlin-l7j]

I saw the phenomenon of somebody whose only job was to "supervise" a bunch of people who didn't need such when I worked for a large government agency. Now, those people did, in fact, get paid more just because of the number of people they supervised. The reality, though, is that when reorganizations and budgetary constraints reduced the number of supervisors then you have a small number of highly-paid people who supposedly supervise way more people than they could possibly supervise and also supervise people who do lots of very different jobs. The supervisors can't possibly know the details of all the jobs their employees are doing. So, they get paid to sign time sheets and overtime requests, approve vacation time, and play a game of a year-end job evaluation. But they can't actually fire anybody as that would require enormous mounds of paperwork and a year of their time and also make them look bad (as they were supposed to be supervising). So the evaluations were really just a game. Meanwhile, those really doing actual work got paid three pay scales below the supervisors. BS indeed.

[@newjawn9004]

I was a career flunkie. I worked for government. Most of my days were spent doing absolutely nothing. My position was unnecessary and I was unnecessary. But I received a decent salary with health care, I had a nice office with a window, and everyday for 30 years I would come into the building and see it filled with other people just like me -- flunkies doing nothing but collecting a paycheck. I think that my job existed because my supervisors, who were also flunkies, totally didn't care about the cost of keeping me on the payroll --- it was taxpayers' money, so, really, no one cared. The legislators pretended to care because it makes the deplorables stirred up and happy, but in truth, they didn't care since they, too, were just mindlessly cashing paychecks, too.

[@ricardoh87]

What was the name of your job title?

[@dc-wp8oc]

What you describe fits 95% of the corrupt American government today at every level.

[@Stevie-J]

@@ricardoh87 It's an obviously fake story. It has zero specifics whatsoever and the charade really falls apart at the end when he reveals his motivation for writing it

[@newagain9964]

@@Stevie-Jyou never worked in govt clearly. I did and maybe did 10 hours of necessary and useful work a week. The rest was bs tasks, made up work by other ppl to justify their bs job.

[@THX11458]

I worked at a major biotech firm that had a water leak in one of its laboratories. Their solution was exactly like Graeber's Duck Taper example -- instead of permanently fixing the problem, management had someone put a bucket under the leaky pipe to catch the water then had a guy dump it out daily. At first I thought this was just a temporary solution, but I worked there for over a year and it was never fixed.

[@jacktocker5753]

This is a common engineering solution, that is de rate the equipment rather that scraping it; or have a few patches here and there to keep a high capital cost machine/building/infrastructure productive.

[@tyler0506]

@@jacktocker5753I have about 8 buckets now at the Powerplant I work at

[@jessstuart7495]

And big institutions just pass the costs of all that inefficiency onto their customers or taxpayers.

[@isiahs9312]

@@jessstuart7495 I see you also know of Jacobs engineering

[@ricardoh87]

And we vote for it with a smile on our face

[@flabbybum9562]

In one job, there was a senior officer. She would set needlessly tough deadlines for draft reports to reach her. Then she'd spend ages, 'editing' minor corrections no one would have made had they had time. She was on a big salary too.

[@jamesanthony5681]

What was her job title? What did she actually DO in her job besides editing reports? Most bosses set tough deadlines, and many actually edit the soft copy reports they receive to *highlight* or *tweak* the revised/updated reports they send up the line to their bosses.

[@flabbybum9562]

@@jamesanthony5681 These documents would be tabled as reports. So, we got to see the finished product. The edits were generally tiny. Silly mistakes people made through being needlessly rushed. I'm sure she knew exactly what she was doing. I got on okay with her, but I didn't have much professional respect for her. Rumour was, she was a close relation to the CEO, and that's why she got away with it. But either way, the organisation lost some very good talent who got fed up and left.

[@averyintelligence]

@@jamesanthony5681her job title was ‘minor editing corrections officer’

[@ConanDuke]

"What do you do for a living?" I click the like-button on David Graeber videos 24-7.

[@kgbinfo]

RIP David. You were a bright light in the dark fog of modern capitalism.

[@CR055FIRE]

a fake job is the ideal life, because then your income isn't tied to your productivity basically it's an acting job, your just not being filmed

[@lifelover69]

this works short-term for income, but long-term it will eat your soul

[@CR055FIRE]

@@lifelover69 offset misery of fake society with BBQ chicken

[@conradleonard]

This is a nicely distilled example of why I find Graeber both thrilling and infuriating. An insightful and innovative thinker but prone to smugly reductive generalizations, and not overly keen on providing data for let alone trying to disprove his own hypotheses.

[@Fuzzfooger]

Agreed, the story he sells is inticing but he suffers from the classic academic palsy of having no actual world experience of the things he is talking about and has probably avoided examining real world output of many jobs for fear his house of cards would tumble. His 'research experiments' like most social scientists lack any real rigour, randomisation or control.

[@OscarCortesV]

His job belongs to the bullshit expansionists category

[@KRistos20x6]

​@@Fuzzfooger on what basis can you claim that "most social scientists lack real rigor?" That sounds to me like the same generalization OP accused Grabber of. This is an academic who is theorizing. There are plenty of folks doing fieldwork or data analysis in social sciences.

[@ragemachinist]

"There are millions of jobs like this" - sample size of 250 with a clear choice bias. I mean it's interesting stuff but we're doing some major extrapolating here.

[@donparkvideos]

Well...like defining what "pron" is. As one judge said: I can't define it, but I know it when I see it. Difficult to justify it as rigorous science, but I feel most people middle-aged and older would see a lot of truth there. In my own life, I saw it most starkly in my 11 years in the Service. Not just the soldiers, but really in the contractors and Federal employees around us. I saw LOTS of b.s. jobs there.

[@burnindownthehouse]

I am 50 years old and I have always had jobs in which I had to work extremely hard and I was always micromanaged. I wish I could have had a BS job.

[@mustang8206]

I'm a nursing assistant and even my job is largely a waste. I literally spend half or more of my shift waiting for something to happen and it's not medical emergencies. It's things like bringing water or changing someone's diaper. The hospital could just hire 1 extra RN on every unit instead of having 4 CNAs and it would make CNAs unnecessary and would ease the burden of actual medical duties on the other nurses

[@wakeoftheflood2]

I worked a temp job in like 2000 at this big warehouse place that printed up the credit card statements and bills, then people (a big table of Vietnamese ladies, and me occasionally) would fold and put them in envelopes for mailing. Many days my job was to just throw palates of paper away. Huge piles of perfectly good paper.

[@Anyone-c5i]

I've been in all of these kinds of jobs when I worked corporate. I've now left that scene and do something with actual tasks that need to done everyday and they matter. My sense of achievement is much higher working a job that is quantifiable, measurable and necessary. During my time in corporate I probably spent more time buying crap on eBay than anything useful because looking busy was more important than being busy. I had my work done 1.5hrs after arriving and had to fill in the rest of the day. The real function of a job these days isn't getting much accomplished, automation does most of it, it's keeping a large population occupied so society can stay largely stable.

[@discman15]

HR reps am I right folks?

[@danielabbey7726]

A large part of Business is busyness - in other words, appear to be busy when management checks in.

[@averyintelligence]

3 rules of looking busy when you’re not really busy: 1, walk fast 2, bite a pen and squint eyes 4, put hands on back of neck and massage If u do these 3 things throughout the day you will appear very busy to others

[@TsukiNoInu93]

Corpo is having to deal with all 5 while another person does the actual job and get paid te least amount, grt shat on the most and get no internal praise for their labour.

[@vince8520]

I just quit last week a Bullshit job in a large corporation. My Manager was basically managing a shadow operation. Most of our job consisted of explaining that we couldn't produce what we were technically suppose to do because other people in the corporation didn't do their job. And they were probably doing the same thing with us. I couldn't deal with the madness so I walked away

[@BR-gz3cv]

90% of the ppl who watch this will fool themselves into thinking “this doesn’t apply to me- my job is important.” The remaining 10% are the only hope of humanity. It’s hard, but once you admit your career is bullshit- you’ve freed a portion of your soul. I pray another David Graeber comes along to help wake up humanity.

[@crnacpanker]

Everyone is replaceable

[@PeppermintPatties]

I'm currently listening to the audiobook of 'Less' by Patrick Grant. This is what he advocates. A return to useful work through making things we actually need, and going to less/local/better. BS jobs are killing the planet.

[@brocklandersx87]

From India, that could be the resentment of brahmin caste against lower caste who do hand works, artisan work. And relegated to second and third rate citizens. While they themselves done sycophancy of various rulers and ensured they are the one on top of caste hierarchy.

[@nUmBskulLL]

Find a job that helps people on a personal level. That way when you go home you feel like you improved someone's day

[@jmc597]

“Managers and executives are judged based on how many people they have working under them.” Absolutely true. One manager was griping about a do-nothing employee and when I asked why they were still employed he said ‘She has to work somewhere.” A manager would rather have a staff of 6, who do the work of 3, than a staff of 3 who do the work of 6.

[@NeverToBeSeenAgain]

I used to have an extremely BS job as a "NOC technician" for a small ISP. I had no responsibilities when everything was working. I estimate that I was doing nothing about 80% of the time. The saving grace of a NOC is that monitoring and responding to incidents takes vigilance and good decision making, so really you are being paid for having those skills and being constantly ready to apply them, but like 90% of that job could have been fixed with some basic scripting and automated emails.

[@rmo9808]

I'm in a similar position now. I hangout most of the day but if I prevent just 10 minutes of downtime I cover my salary for the year.

[@happyuk06]

This is why I hate it when those holding bullshit jobs, male or female, begrudge paying tradesmen their due.

[@Mark-qg8hm]

Seems like this guy gets paid to sit around and pontificate. Which category is his BS job?

[@cliffpinchon2832]

according to the description he's an Anarchist, Activist, and Academic... that means he's definitely a "Useful Idiot".

[@TomECroft]

Intellectual

[@HeadsFullOfEyeballs]

Well, he got paid to do research and then report it in various formats, such as by sitting around and describing it to people who were interested. Whether that's a bullshit job depends on whether the findings are useful and on how much we value the enjoyment of the people who find them interesting, I guess.

[@camgere]

Is there a website to find these jobs?

[@adam-xl9ft]

Somewhere between a box ticker and a goon is what I am. It’s pretty gross.

[@howwitty]

1 critical skill of taskmasters in not doing the job is anticipating a new job responsibility. That looks like real management but it doesn't have to be if it turns out to be another bullshit job. Well why do I have to do this if it doesn't do anything? Oh, because it's the standard or everyone else is doing it.

[@barcooter8248]

I saved my company a fortune by doing all 5 roles at once.

[@freedomtrail8255]

Work as a nurse…yep much box ticking to be done….drives me nuts but CQC expects this nowadays

[@peterwiles1299]

Is the end game, the zero day week?

[@unclebob8419]

Some employees love BS jobs. Once they've tasted a life of doing very little work or being in a role where the outcome is not checked, they don't want to go back to actually doing work.

[@TheKillaCake]

It's not a benefit of a job to never have anything to do. Of course they would be envious of people who do meaningful things. Most people are in the job because they have to have a job, not because they are happy with their situation.

[@martiallife4136]

Well. They hire people to do things that either takes too much time to do or they don't want to do themselves. So you pay someone to do it.

[@johnglynhughes4239]

... or they can't.

[@z0uLess]

I think work, at least in my country, is there to signal to other people that you are busy doing something that people know what is instead of doing something nefarious

[@z0uLess]

Meaning that, in the social sphere, you are guilty untill proven innocent ... and the only way to prove your innocence is to continually show up to something meaningless in order to demonstrate that you are one of the good ones.

[@davidfox7983]

Most office staff don't do wack

[@vungoctan2008]

I worked for an organization where the chief accountant knew a lot of dirt of the Director. So the Director has to keep the accountant even though the Chief accountant did a shitty job. The Director then had to keep another one to deal with the shitty job that the Chief accountant kept leaving behind

[@johnniemiera3528]

I'm a landscaper. I guess I'm one of the resented? Is that real work?

[@blueodum]

Yes, if you are producing something that you and/or others value.

[@jamespn]

We had a web communication specialist, her job was to send out hundreds of junk emails each week. We had a team lead who was an excellent box ticker, he did nothing else. Fiefdom builders, forming work groups that don’t do anything of much value.

[@bojcio]

how would one go about obtaining such a job ... 😅

[@Youtubings335]

The entertainment surveyor as an example of box ticking could just as easily generate revenue (or avoid loss) in amounts greater than they take in pay by not wasting money on television no one wants to see. They'd also do it for less than the amount in "doing the thing", being actually removing the shows no one wants to see.

[@surflasal]

I miss this guy.

[@robert9016]

Me too friend ❤

[@brianjacob8728]

I just discovered him. When did he pass away?

[@russ254]

good riddance - all that to finally get to a defence of teachers unions

[@spencercharltonHomelyFellows]

As a maintenance worker, he really inflated my ego at the end haha

[@martindbp]

The reason there's a tendency for "you love your job, you want benefits too" is basic supply and demand. There are more people who want to work a fun job, that will create a downward pressure on salary and benefits, it's that simple. There's a great example for programmers who are otherwise very well paid, but if you work in video games, suddenly your salary is half that compared to if you work on bank software. The reason is making video games is the childhood dream of most nerds.

[@hetedeleambacht6608]

so a job that nobody likes to do should be paid extraordinary well? I agree. Let toilet cleaners, factory workers and the lot get the highest salary, so they only have to put up with their jobs for a couple of hours per week. Even better wpuld be if we distribute all the shitty and fun jobs fairly. So everybody does fun and shitty (useful) jobs at the same time. And all get paid the same. How about that.

[@turolretar]

If you work for a bank you’re part of the problem

[@isiahs9312]

@@hetedeleambacht6608 factory work, at least in the west, is mostly fake anyway. It's all automated, not worth automating, or at a very high level that you can hardly call it a factory anymore. I clocked one factory "worker" once (uncle was the shop stewart) and he worked 20 minutes on an 8 hour shift. Rest of his time was on his phone looking at porn. Machine was automated. This was a typical day for him.

[@bees7604]

Exactly what the other person said. If supply and demand economics was a real dominating force in the market as you describe, janitors would be paid 35/hour.

[@alexc225]

Word association occurred immediately in my mind when BS jobs was mentioned in the title: Diversity officer.

[@mellowenigma8862]

I came here to say the same. 😅😂

[@Humanophage]

It isn't bs, just evil, like a politkomissar. They have a very perceptible malign effect which they want and intend.

[@HeadsFullOfEyeballs]

"There has to be _some_ way I can bring this discussion of a pervasive socioeconomic problem back around to my pet culture war issue!"

[@Stevie-J]

@@HeadsFullOfEyeballs You think socioeconomic problems are disconnected from culture? I want to live in the magical utopia that you apparently exist in

[@jsequine927]

What about academia? I was astounded when I did a research masters how cobbled together and superfluous a lot of research is and how little it applies to the real world in a pragmatic way. There are only 20% employed research positions available compared to the number of people completing PhDs (not to mention those who don't finish their PhDs) that tells you about all you need to know.

[@spacefertilizer]

Like this guy. And most superfluous work is not done in the corporate world, it’s done in state sanctioned work places.

[@HeadsFullOfEyeballs]

Well, if we knew in advance which research was going to yield something useful, we probably wouldn't need to do that research. Because we'd know the outcome already. So it's absolutely expected that most research won't yield anything useful, certainly not in the short term. And of course the main benefit of getting an education is that you become an educated person. Education isn't job training.

[@ralphbernhard1757]

Yup. These are your typical government job. At least half are superfluous.

[@mineralt]

90% of marketing people work like an hour a day

[@eniggma9353]

I clicked on this video because you seemed to look like Linus Torvalds.

[@ben-fe3zy]

Funny and depressing at the same time!

[@mablebeel1619]

I miss this guy 😞

[@johnberry1107]

Yes. Watch the herd but be careful when you get the urge to follow it. Thank you. stay safe. Water Wins!

[@jasongist3791]

I gotta really boring job if that counts. I actually make cars but it’s incredibly boring.

[@SportsManVegetal]

What about run-of-the-mill academic?

[@matthewcoombs3282]

80% of jobs in the service industries are BS jobs, as the US and UK have off shored manufacturing to Asia Pacific, that means most of us, me and possibly you, are doing BS jobs.

[@shawnrynearson6114]

Love this!

[@ShawnCantwellKnives]

Not really also this is not financial advice I’d rather hold paper that pays me monthly or quarterly for doing nothing.

[@cs5982-n7j]

What kind of job is talking about BS jobs?

[@phaethon3124]

is it weird graeber disappeared when furloughUBI came in

[@porqpine53]

Out to music WAY too loud

[@DudeWatIsThis]

Maaaan those jobs are getting _A$$-HUMP'T_ right now.

[@paulthomson2288]

I have basically made a career of being a box ticker or being a flunky for task master. it's nonsense but it has paid off a mortgage and ultimately I don't care because I have worked purely to be able to live. Prefer now to expand upon my passive income sources.

[@blueodum]

I don't begrudge your success, but what benefits certain individuals does not necessarily make for a better society.

[@Actias1974]

I’m a box ticker duct taper. :(

[@jameslammers9826]

Ah the days of being a goon…so chill

[@oxymoron1329]

Instead of doing the meaningful worthwhile job I am paid a fair salary to do, I waste the day watching videos about BS jobs.

[@Anymonous246]

tfw your job has a bit of all 5 👊👊

[@z0uLess]

I only find meaning in doing sports and it has become my coping mechanism

[@Danleesixoneonetwofive]

What is the solution to this broken work system?

[@z0uLess]

@@Danleesixoneonetwofive I dont know, but somehow we have to get away from this worship of individualism because the individual has major blind spots and biases (and wont accept it if informed about it, since it will be interpreted as manipulation by another individual).

[@teeconsigliano7631]

Real goons are the board and executives

[@david80johnson]

Wow, that’s great

[@lynngalibois1937]

Motivational speakers

[@hyperreal]

Its a good job if people value the product/service.

[@gabrielwalters7084]

And then you have internet pundits and "influencers"

[@HowardARoark]

Interesting.

[@clarkpalace]

Alot of people with real jobs would love one of these stupid jobs. Real , difficult jobs do exist. Those of us who have experienced ownership , entrepreneurship , know work exists. This speaker doesnt strike me as someone who has done much real work. Production , as he says , is rare work. I am so glad I dont need this guys opinion as I have toughed out production and chain work

[@redfather5342]

Define real work

[@clarkpalace]

@@redfather5342 why? U dont know what real work is? I guess real work is hard , difficult , and requires your attention? Surely some real work is more interesting then others. Like doing a skilled task versus a repetitive tedious task. Surely real work changes over a lifetime , where the doer just cant hack it like they did in their younger yrs. Why do you ask a definition? Whats your point?

[@crustman5982]

He’s talking about how bloated huge companies and a lot of government jobs are with useless middle managers who’s only job is to enforce the people doing the hard work to be paid less.

[@spacefertilizer]

@@crustman5982middle management is probably the most under appreciated work you can do. A place doesn’t just run by itself and everyone who has worked as one knows this. This is the tragedy that anarchists have to live with. They somehow believe that the middle management are the ones that are superfluous but in the end those are the ones that burn out the fastest. Most people wouldn’t care to sign up for the job because it’s too much work for just a little higher salary.

[@Actias1974]

Ah yes the white knight entrepreneur. We get it. You work at your business. The whole human experience does dance around you.

[@tvfun4516]

RIP David Graeber

[@DrBilly90210]

He forgot "professor." 😅

[@idontcare2508]

stop talking nonsense and start to work buddy

[@electrodynamicorb6548]

Task masters are everywhere

[@gordonsulc8319]

LMAO! Graeber's career is exclusively in BS jobs.

[@ronjones1414]

All of this from interviewing 500 people? Maybe increase your sample size before your comfortable declaring your entering assumptions were correct.

[@jacksquat4140]

If all the BS jobs disappeared overnight, 90% of women would be out of work.

[@mustang8206]

#6 Philosophers

[@khan_marx]

you left one out that is a professional yapper like yourself

[@00PlPu00]

He was more appreciated for his work than you will ever be :)

[@3yahweh3]

Methodology of his “study” could be a little … flawed