Bullshit Jobs

Over the course of the last several thousand years there have been untold thousands of human groups that might be referred to as “societies,” and the overwhelming majority of them managed to figure out ways to distribute those tasks that needed to be done to keep them alive in the style to which they were accustomed in such a fashion that most everyone had some way to contribute, and no one had to spend the majority of their waking hours performing tasks they would rather not be doing, in the way that people

Over the course of the last several thousand years there have been untold thousands of human groups that might be referred to as “societies,” and the overwhelming majority of them managed to figure out ways to distribute those tasks that needed to be done to keep them alive in the style to which they were accustomed in such a fashion that most everyone had some way to contribute, and no one had to spend the majority of their waking hours performing tasks they would rather not be doing, in the way that people

All these are examples of what I like to call “compensatory consumerism.” They are the sorts of things you can do to make up for the fact that you don’t have a life, or not very much of one.

the case of bullshit jobs, this means we can ask three questions:

On the individual level, why do people agree to do and put up with their own bullshit jobs?
On social and economic levels, what are the larger forces that have led to the proliferation of bullshit jobs?
On the cultural and political levels, why is the bullshitization of the economy not seen as a social problem, and why has no one done anything about it?6

how to operate under others’ direct supervision;
how to pretend to work even when nothing needs to done;
that one is not paid money to do things, however useful or important, that one actually enjoys;
that one is paid money to do things that are in no way useful or important and that one does not enjoy; and
that at least in jobs requiring interaction with the public, even when one is being paid to carry out tasks one does not enjoy, one also has to pretend to be enjoying it.

how to operate under others’ direct supervision;
how to pretend to work even when nothing needs to done;
that one is not paid money to do things, however useful or important, that one actually enjoys;
that one is paid money to do things that are in no way useful or important and that one does not enjoy; and
that at least in jobs requiring interaction with the public, even when one is being paid to carry out tasks one does not enjoy, one also has to pretend to be enjoying it.

Flunky jobs are those that exist only or primarily to make someone else look or feel important.

Flunky jobs are those that exist only or primarily to make someone else look or feel important.

Flunky jobs are those that exist only or primarily to make someone else look or feel important.

Power is not an evil. Power is strategic games