Do You Have A Bullshit Job?
- Thread starter Ponca Dan
- Start date
Don't agree with much of this article, or at least with many of the jobs they considered 'pointless'. The armed forces example is pretty short-sighted. He's clearly never seen the National Guard or Armed Forces step up following a hurricane, wildfire, or other major disaster. They do much more than just shoot other armies. And there is a difference between a BS job and a bad job, which this article seems to intertwine. Cold callers and call center operators have jobs that provide a value to the company. The jobs are terrible and suck the life and soul out of the employee (and the customer in many cases), but they aren't BS jobs. Boxtickers are annoying, but I guarantee if the company isn't the one who is asking for the box to be checked.
I agree there are lots of government BS jobs. I disagree that there are a lot of 'corporate' BS jobs. And the ones that are there only exist because of government absurdities.
I think you make a good point about the armed forces. The author's point, as I read it, was that the only reason soldiers are needed is because other countries have soldiers. If no one had an army there would be no need to invent an army. As regards the work that soldiers do following natural disasters I imagine the author would say they are used for those purposes because otherwise they wouldn't have anything to do, they would be paid for sitting around. The purpose of a soldier is to fight in battles. Natural disaster cleanup, etc . could - and probably should - be handled by others. It's a minor discrepancy at any rate.
Agreed, but I think its a stretch to call being a soldier a BS job because if the enemy didn't have soldiers, we wouldn't need them. I'm an IT director. If hackers didn't exist, I wouldn't need half my IT staff, but that doesn't make what that staff does BS. If bad people didn't exist, we wouldn't need police, security guards, etc. The article is really a false premise that only makes sense in the most utopian of societies.
Outside of governmental or tribal gold brickers; there's no such thing as a BS private sector job. If your employer finds value in someone guarding an empty room or pushing a button on an elevator or opening a door - so be it. That's their value determination to make.
Good point. I think the author was talking about how the employee felt about the job, not whether the employer found it worthwhile.
In what way is it asinine? The whole point of the article was to reflect on how people valued their jobs. I know I would consider a job that required me to guard an empty room to be pointless regardless of what the employer thought. I don’t see it as asinine at all. Different people have different perspectives, I suppose.
The only perspectives that matter in this case as those of the employee and the employer, not the author of this strange article.
Damn it. Gave Toon a like. What's the world coming to?
But that just means the employer did a crappy job of explaining why the employee's job is important. This is an important part of getting employee engagement and improves motivation. There are crappy employers out there, but I didn't take the article as trying to state that message.
