This column will change your life: how to tell whether you have a bullshit job
'Is the job you're doing, or applying for, one the world would be fine without? As life strategies go, this seems a decent one'
'It's hard to deny that plenty of jobs involve some bullshit.' Illustration: Adam Howling for the Guardian
It has often been observed that the future didn't turn out as predicted. By now, thanks to technology's advance, we were supposed to be working 15-hour weeks, spending the rest of our time on great literature, conversation, and leisurely jetpack trips to the dome-covered shopping mall, to check out the latest range of 1950s horn-rimmed spectacles. Instead, we're busier than ever. But it's worse than that, according to David Graeber, the anthropology professor credited with helping to launch the Occupy movement: much of that busyness is completely pointless. Entire professions, he argued in a recent essay in Strike magazine, consist of "bullshit jobs" that the world just doesn't need. If nurses and rubbish collectors disappeared overnight, we'd be in trouble; but "it's not entirely clear how humanity would suffer were all private equity CEOs, lobbyists, PR researchers, actuaries, telemarketers, bailiffs or legal consultants to similarly vanish". What explains this proliferation of pointlessness? Graeber concludes, true to his anarchist beliefs, that it's all about social control. A population kept busy with bullshit has no time to start a revolution.
Who's Graeber to say what jobs are "needed" anyway? Some would say anarchist anthropologists aren't exactly essential. Anticipating this response, he poses a different question: what about people who consider their own jobs meaningless? "I'm not sure I've ever met a corporate lawyer who didn't think their job was bullshit," he writes. "There is a profound psychological violence here. How can one even begin to speak of dignity in labour when one secretly feels one's job should not exist?"
Whether or not you agree with Graeber about the prevalence of bullshit jobs, it's hard to deny that plenty of jobs involve some bullshit. One reason we rarely complain about that, I suspect, is that we're chronically prone to confusing the feeling of putting in effort with actually getting useful things done.
That's why lifts have "placebo buttons", which make us feel like we're achieving something when we're not. It's also why an exhausting day at the office leaves you feeling virtuous – a "hard worker" – even if you only did busywork. Two good hours on the important things, followed by an afternoon of TV and eating Monster Munch, might have been more constructive. But you'd feel like a skiver, and possibly get fired.
You can easily go too far with all this talk of meaningfulness: that way lies acres of self-help nonsense about Finding Your Life Purpose and "doing great work". But Graeber's analysis suggests a more down-to-earth question for navigating the world of careers: is the job you're doing, or applying for, one that the world would be perfectly fine without? As life strategies go, this seems a decent one: where possible, move in the direction of non-pointless activities, and away from those that reek of bullshit. Do stuff that people would miss – however slightly – if it never got done at all.
Is this an 'expletive'?
bullshit exclamationnoun - definition in the British English Dictionary & Thesaurus - Cambridge Dictionaries Online
Bullshit - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
And what about the opposing arguments?
Labour markets: On "bullshit jobs" | The Economist
# How useful is your job?
If we were to categorize jobs according to their
utility to society, I think the spectrum would look like this:
## Constructive jobs
These are jobs that create, produce, or maintain
something (material or not) that end-consumers demand.
[Butcher, Baker, Brewer](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wealth_of_Nations#The_invisible_hand),
Blacksmith, Construction worker, Farmer, Miner,
Software developer;
Auto mechanic, Cleaning services, Electrician, Pilot,
Plumber. This also includes a part
of services: Delivery person, Medical and Education
professions, Driver,
Judge, Public safety (Firefighter, Paramedic, Police
occupations); and
also research, which is not always directly demanded
but is
nevertheless crucial to the economy.
## The gray area
Entertainment jobs are a more muddy category. Although
clearly not critical, entertainment has a major contribution to quality of
life. Lawyer are useful when protecting one's rights, but often serve just to
clarify the muddiness of the law itself.
Entertainment jobs are a more muddy category. Although
clearly not critical, entertainment has a major contribution to quality of
life. Lawyers are useful when protecting one's rights, but often serve just to
clarify the muddiness of the law itself.
## "Filler" jobs
These jobs are NOT needed by the final consumer, but
still exist and tend to regulate or annoy people: most jobs in Finance,
Marketing, and Advertising; Salesman, Tax collector, Insurance agent and the
ultra-vague "Program/Project Manager". These jobs exist for two main reasons:
These jobs are NOT needed by the final consumer, but
still exist and tend to regulate or annoy people: most jobs in Finance,
Marketing, and Advertising; Salesman, Tax collector, Insurance agent,
Telemarketer. These jobs exist for two main reasons:
* due to intermediate layers in the economy that
separate the producer from the consumer, e.g. advertising and sales
* because they're a necessary evil to cope with the
shortcomings of the current situation in fields like law or public services (in
many countries you still can't pay your bills online so cashiers are necessary)
My opinion is that after graduating, most people who
don't really know
how to do something TRULY USEFUL, pick a "filler
job". Such a job also acts as a filler for their very life, covering the
post-graduation void: *Now what?*
I further believe that the future will squash many of
these useless jobs:
* With the ever-increasing growth of
[product](http://amazon.com) and [reseller rating](http://resellerratings.com)
[databases](http://rateitall.com), advertising will gradually lose its
effectiveness. For example, I don't watch TV and I use [ad blocking
software](http://adblockplus.org/en/) so I'm almost never even hit by ads, let
alone influenced by those that do reach me. When I want to make a purchase, I
head to a specialized reviews/ratings site, and see what other consumers'
opinions are of the candidate products.
Advertising is a necessary evil at the moment for the
survival of non-profit organizations that provide useful services (for example,
[National Public Radio](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Public_Radio), or
for funding non-profit services (think of Google applications).
* Marketing will also be minimized to placing your
product or service in a directory, and letting the competition decide. There is
still the problem of achieving a critical mass of consumers to show high enough
in search results, so until information technology solves that somehow,
marketing won't disappear altogether.
* Bank tellers are being replaced by online banking.
[Banks themselves become
online-only](http://www.bankrate.com/funnel/checking-account/checking-account-results.aspx?local=false&prods=31)
in order to cut costs and offer their customers better rates. Only the very
complex financial operations need personal interaction.
* Many brokers and financial analysts are being
[eliminated](http://www.amazon.com/Fire-Your-Stock-Analyst-Analyzing/dp/0130353329/)
by electronic trading.
* With the advent of web sites comparing insurance
agencies, many (esp. car) Insurance agents lost their jobs.
* Travel agents have been partially replaced by a host
of travel web sites, although it still takes [a certain
amount](http://www.mahalo.com/how-to-book-a-cheap-flight) of
[voodoo](http://brianx.com/travel-guide/discount-airline-tickets.html) to find
the actual cheapest flight to somewhere.
* The logistics of paying taxes in the US are
horrendous (read my essay How much does it cost to pay taxes - Dan Dascalescu's Wiki [[/essays/how_much_does_it_cost_to_pay_taxes|The
brutal cost of paying taxes]]). In Europe, the population can pay taxes online
for free.
## Conclusion
What the industrial revolution did in the 19th
century, the information revolution is doing now: jobs that don't really
justify their existence are being replaced by technology.
Is there such a thing as a truly useful job? Depends
on your idea of the future. If robots will ever be able to take on the most
specialized human tasks, then perhaps not. The question then makes sense only
in the "current" timeframe of the next 10-20 years. But there are
certainly jobs that are being eliminated nowadays, and for good reason. Is
yours one of them? Ask yourself this question: if you got hit by a bus, to what
extent would other people (and/or goods) be impacted?
.
.
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