Bullshit Jobs

KosherBosher

What overall percentage of bullshit or useless jobs do you think exist in the job market? For example, if we removed half of all jobs today, what sort of societal impact do you think this would have? I think if you can't describe your job in three words or have a long job title then you likely have a bullshit job.

Lumeinshin

KosherBosher
If I were to guess, I'd say that maybe 5% of jobs are worthless, with maybe 10% being say managed poorly as to require more time/hands

If we removed half of all jobs, but kept the same amount of people we'd have utter chaos on our hands, mostly from idle hands. Farming and transport will be a big deal, anything else would adjust fine after a couple weeks imo

I think a lot of people do have valuable jobs, but for various reasons end up twiddling their thumbs a good bit more than maybe they should (me included sometimes)

gingermilk

KosherBosher this is probably unrelated to what you are asking. I couldn't say for sure how many jobs are considered to be bullshit, but many jobs, especially in tech, are a total waste of time where people slack off for half of the day. that's why no one wants to go back to the office after the pandemic since they can finish the work in whatever pace they like in a much more comfortable environment by wfh.

Woland

KosherBosher ? I think if you can't describe your job in three words or have a long job title then you likely have a bullshit job.

This feels silly to me, a complex society requires complex jobs. Someone who is able to say "I catch fish" isn't any better or worse than someone who can only limit their job description to, say, "I represent clients in court." Both jobs are important, but require varying levels of complexity to explain to an outsider. Unless we get super reductive and all doctors are "I heal people" regardless of specialty, which is also ridiculous. A real "bullshit job" is getting paid as a useless advisor because your dad owns the firm or whatever, or the company literally forgetting you're on the payroll.

MeathShot If your job can easily be replaced by a robot, then there's a high chance that it's probably a useless job

I'd argue the exact opposite. If a company deems your job important enough to automate, it's probably pretty damn important.

Basile

Lumeinshin I think a lot of people do have valuable jobs, but for various reasons end up twiddling their thumbs a good bit more than maybe they should (me included sometimes)

This I totally agree with, but then it's more about people than about jobs. As you say you can be useless in a useful job.

Basile

I thinks it's wrong to think of jobs as way to bring a concrete benefit to other persons. The overwhelming majority of jobs exist to bring value to a company. And whether we like it or not, companies are the best way we found to produce technological advances.

In this way I don't understand your premise that a job is "bullshit" because you cannot describe it in 3 words. Good luck designing and mass producing the phone you're using to type this message with jobs we can fully describe in 3 words.

Now, If we were to imagine a perfect society where we use technology to relieve us from working, then yeah we could drop half the job for sure. But not the "bullshit" ones, the "real" jobs ! Cause we don't need cashiers and farmers is we use technology to replace it. But you still need an integration success manager to check that your OS works in all places it's deployed.

Yes, ok, I have a bullshit job.

Remove

Basile

Basile describe it in 3 words

Describing the jobs I've had

Outsourced English Lessons
Private English Lessons
Credit Repair Salesman (actual bullshit job)
Tax Record Library

The first one was part of a call center. I called Korean students and conducted an English lesson over the phone with them between 10 and 20 minutes. After 10 minutes I had to type up and send a report about their performance. Sometimes my schedule was so packed I couldn't use the bathroom. Plus, it was me only conversing with them for 10 minutes at times. Does that really help?

The second was the same thing but I was working for a Chinese independent teacher specifically. And the classes were 20 minutes instead, over Zoom so I get more leeway for creativity. Downside: it was mostly children. Sometimes as young as 3 years old. I was an entertainer more than a teacher at times. But rarely, there were young adults! Met a cool guy 5 months older than me.

Last one was a government job; I worked at the tax department. It was okay, but I certainly didn't wish to do that forever.

Fantasy

If you've ever read about the idea of "Effective Altruism" you've probably seen the 80,000 hours thing. It's talking about how you spend 80,000 hours of your life at work and how you should make sure that job fits best. They have some criteria that you can run a job through to see if it's good.

Engaging
Helpful
Something you're good at
Supportive colleagues
No major negatives
Can be done long term
In my opinion every job that doesn't fit these criteria has some form of "bullshit" to them. And that's a lot of jobs. Fast food workers, almost every form of video content creators, uber drivers, document scanners, career politicians, etc.
What % of jobs as a whole would be considered "bullshit" though I don't know. But I'd imagine it's really high, something like 50% or more. Most people in my family have these fluff jobs.

KosherBosher

Fantasy This is what I was trying to get at. Most of these jobs are artificially created or completely unnecessary. One of my family members works as a traffic controller, he probably does an hour worth of actual work in a week and stands or sits around for the rest of his shifts playing on his phone. He brings a phone battery with him just for that sole purpose. I couldn't imagine working a bullshit job without a smartphone or the modern internet to keep me occupied. I imagine at least 40-50% of jobs are in a similar boat, especially in the public sector where you basically can't get fired.

PTaylor

KosherBosher
My 3 words are "support worker, autism" and yeah in another world my job would be bullshit because special needs people wouldn't be treated nicely. I'd have nobody to look after or keep safe.

I spend a lot of time on my phone or reading books because there's a lot of down time. For instance now, there's a dangerous man on the sofa next to me, but he's fast asleep so I'm writing this instead of being bored. When he's awake it's best to pay more attention heheh. I work 12 hour shifts and only have to do say 3 hours of actual work. I'm not complaining -- I'm helping people and living an easy life for the pleasure.

I'd recommend getting a "bullshit job" for a while. I'm going to be studying soon, and while i am, the 3 hours of work getting paid for 12 is going to save my energies for my education.

MeathShot

If your job can easily be replaced by a robot, then there's a high chance that it's probably a useless job

Sandro

I don't know if it's a good thing to think of a job as inherently "Bullshit", as some jobs just dont age well compared to others. When they find a way to make serving automated and the majority of people are satisfied with it, theres a 95% guarantee that it will become the norm going forward. But there will always be a market for people wanting personal service. AIs will not be able to reproduce that for a very long time. It's harder to say for logistics, as some of the automation actually removes some of the risk factor in doing it yourself. But I think keeping a mindset of knowing how to do it yourself will make you way more useful if you plan to market yourself for a new job.

KosherBosher

Woland I think it's a pretty good rule of thumb. "I practice law" or "represent people in court" could be one for a lawyer. Another for a graphic designer could be "I design logos". But the more complex your title or description, the higher chance of it being a bullshit job. Also if your job is being automated, all it proves is that you have unskilled labour that is easily replaced.

MeathShot

Talking from experience, i honestly feel like a majority of janitorial work is pretty useless. I worked as a janny at my school as a part time job and i always felt a part of my soul die when i came back in the next day and saw it was the same mess i spent hours cleaning up before hand. Machinery taking over cleaning jobs is something that im perfectly fine with, provided it doesn't make more messes for the other wagies to clean up like a certain other robot that drives around the grocery store.

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I hate modern jobs. Office work especially is dreadful. I wish I could've been an artisan before the industrial takeover.

MeathShot a majority of janitorial work is pretty useless

It's all right considering it's unpaid.

Jmcw2023

Thx Marty the Robot, now i have to pick up the trash -.-

gingermilk

++ reminds me of this

userlame

I don't think it's really jobs that are bullshit, but how long people spend working. 100 years ago people thought that we'd have a 3 day work week. It would be possible to have a 3/4 day work week now but obviously our handlers can't let us have that, so I doubt we'll ever have one despite the evidence showing that a 3/4 day work week has no effect on efficiency.

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userlame seriously, work today feels more like a way to keep the boot on your neck than an actual contribution to anything.

Nick and his names

I've sorta ran around with jobs, the only really useless one was an internship with an IT firm. It was paid (only reason I stuck around there for as long as I did) but if I wasn't sitting on my ass doing nothing I did little more than lift printers and image computers when I was promised a lot more. But before that I was a librarian and after that I started work as a mechanic after I got certified. Both of those being pretty killer jobs.

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