What Your Job Actually Contributes to Society 💼
So I was just chilling the other day, thinking about what I actually do at my job and what I contribute to society, when it hit me — most of us are probably not 100% sure what our purpose is. 💭💡We have fancy job titles like “Regional Operations Manager” or “Customer Experience Consultant” but what does that even mean? Do we actually do anything worthwhile or are we just pretending to look busy? 🤔
I realized this question might not be so easy for folks working corporate office jobs pushing papers around and going to meetings all day. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure your daily grind is important for that bigwig CEO making bank, but for the rest of the world? 😬 Yeah I’m not so sure.
It got me thinking about the rise of bullsh*t jobs over the last 50–60 years. Used to be most people made or grew stuff — farmers, builders, manufacturers and so on. Pretty clear what they contributed right? But nowadays over 80% of us work service sector jobs. ☕️👔💼
The Growth of Pointless Paper Pushers
When we hear “service jobs” we think of bartenders, retail workers, bell boys at hotels. No doubt they provide value in little luxuries like a perfect cappuccino or helping schlep bags up to your room. 🛎️☕️✨
But here’s the kicker — the definition of “service jobs” also includes bankers, consultants, insurance brokers and even CEOs! Wild right? It’s really hard nowadays to find work outside of this category unless you have fancy specialized degrees.🎓👩🏫
In the 50s in Soviet Russia, there was huge pressure and pride around having a job, so factory managers would hire way more workers than necessary. Just to feel important overseeing more “comrades”! 👷👷👷 This “worker hoarding” led to make-work jobs like counting nuts and bolts all day. 🔩🔩
Crazy as this sounds, are we really so different nowadays?
5 Types of Bullsh*tters
After studying this phenomenon, anthropologist David Graeber outlined 5 types of pointless jobs that have exploded over recent decades: 📊
1. Flunkies 💂💂♀️
These are roles that mostly exist to make other people feel important — doormen, receptionists, personal assistants etc. With tech, many could easily be replaced or are totally unnecessary.
2. Duct Tapers 🧲
This group works bandaging over problems vs solving root issues. Think an inventory manager manually fixing stock count errors that should automatically update. Often duct tapers fight to fix screw ups from incompetent colleagues rather than remove the inept person causing problems.
3. Box Tickers ☑️
The drones that create bureaucracy and paperwork to make companies appear large and legitimate to others. Like internal newsletters no one reads. If a company didn’t have these or HR or culture coordinators though, it might look like small fry!
4. Goons 💪
Goons actively cause harm in society while making themselves indispensable. Like corporate lawyers focused on loopholes and lawsuits rather than creating anything. Or lobbyists manipulating laws to benefit themselves over the greater good.
5. Taskmasters 🧔♂️
The middle managers of middle managers overseeing teams that don’t require oversight. At best cheerleaders, at worst interrupting real work to attend useless meetings or write mission statements. Justifying their existence through bureaucracy.
Now most useless employees combine aspects of all five flavors in a layered cake of wasting time while trying to look essential. “Senior Executive Directors of Cross-Vertical Synergy” or similar. 🙄
Why Capitalism Rewards Waste
In Soviet Russia the goal was full employment at any cost. But capitalism is meant to be efficient right? Wrong.
Just like Soviet factories stockpiled labor, modern companies equate workers with status. More direct reports = bigger shot on the org chart. LinkedIn filled with people claiming to transform mundane work into something epic sounding.
And being obsessed with 40 hour work weeks means managers invent crud to fill time even if there’s nothing valuable left to do. Just like Soviets pretending menial jobs were noble.
Beyond ego and culture of busyness, capitalism has bred layers of bureaucracy requiring specialists to navigate. Want to start a business? Endless permits, legal hurdles and paperwork. So companies indirectly sustain pointless jobs via red tape and legislation they influence.
Perhaps worst of all are perverse incentives that reward creating bloat over efficiency. The middle manager surplus means less chance of getting fired for being useless yourself! Also why downsize and focus when you can forever expand, hiring more subordinates to feel important?
🎉🥳👏So in conclusion team, our jobs may in fact contribute nothing to humanity! But at least we look darn busy 😂
Escaping Bullsh*t
The answer societally? Accept people don’t need 40 hour weeks and let employees leave when work is done without judgement. Then useless roles would become obvious!
Individually it’s trickier if your job already sucks. Maybe fly under radar doing bare minimum while working on side hustles or passion projects?
Or lean into it! Vast majority of us work mostly pointless jobs after all. Might as well enjoy the pretentious meetings and kumbaya mission statement workshops. At least the steady paycheck and false sense of achievement beats stressing over contributing nothing…? 💸😌💭
I hope you liked my cheeky little article on the proliferation of bullsh*t jobs these days!
