A bullshit job

In 1930, John Maynard Keynes predicted that technological advances would enable us to work a 15-hour week. And yet, we still work 40 hours a week even though the productivity value nowadays is way higher than in the 1930s.

What happened?

First, we need to know what is “bullshit job” and what are types of jobs are considered bullshit? The following definition and categorization come from the book–Bullshit Job: A Theory

Bullshit jobs are jobs that even the person doing the job can’t justify the existence of, but they have to pretend that there’s some reason for it to exist.

There are 5 types of them:

1/ Flunkies

Flunky jobs primarily exist to make someone else look or feel important. For example, the security guards around Elizabeth Holmes when she was in her peak fraud career. (if you don’t know who she is, go check out the dropout)

2/ Goons

Goons are referring to jobs that offer some kind of protection, they only exist because other people employ them. For example, the legal team of a company. They hired lawyers for protection, not aggression.

3/ Duct Tapers

Duct tapers are people to solve a problem that shouldn’t exist in the first place. For example, when an organization is fundamentally dysfunctional (i.e employee is underpaid, and the whole company is understaffed), the management team hired a well-being professional to educate the importance of sleep hygiene.

4/ Box tickers

A box ticker is an employee who exists to let the company claim they are doing something. For example, the weekly survey you filled in, the exit survey/interview you perform, and the performance review that you need to experience every quarter. If there is no actual action being done based on the data you provide, then yes, whoever is in charge of collecting those data is just a box ticker, and both of you are performing a bullshit task.

5/ Taskmasters

Taskmasters are ones whose sole purpose is to assign work to other people. For example, a manager would be a total taskmaster if they disappear tomorrow and all the work still gets done.

From the understanding above, according to a UK poll, around 40% of people identify that they are having a bullshit job and there will be no difference if their job doesn’t exist.

As Obama pointed out. “Everybody who supports single-payer health care says, ‘Look at all this money we would be saving from insurance and paperwork,’ ” the former President noted. “That represents one million, two million, three million jobs.”

In terms of market efficiency, bullshit jobs shouldn’t exist. And as we can see, 2023 is experiencing a huge economic downturn. While corporation starts downsizing, a massive layoff is speeding up, who are the people that are being let go?

The recent layoff is targeting middle management, and as Mark Zuckerberg said: “2023 is the year of efficiency”. This doesn’t mean the productivity will bump up, but instead, companies are trying to pay less abstraction penalty to stay lean and mean.

Okay, if you feel you have a bullshit job, and you are lucky enough to stay employed, don’t just sit and let the pointless job eat up your moral and spiritual soul. Look for ways to improve yourself and find an area that you are good at and make an impact. Otherwise, when the next wave of layoffs comes, you’d better start praying.

_{Please note that many reasons are contributing to layoff, people who got layoff don’t equally have a bullshit job. However, if you identify yourself as having a bullshit job, chances are your employer might also think it that way.}

Here is a brief story of mine.

I had a bullshit job when I was a clinician. I sat in the clinics for a whole morning and only two patients came in. (Usually we would expect 10 to 20 people coming in, in Taiwan) Hence I sat there, reading my books, and feel if I quit tomorrow there won’t be any differences. So after a year of reading and contemplating, I decided to quit and pursue a career that is not total bullshit. After exploring, I took a pivot into product design, and into the tech industry, bringing my knowledge and background, and experiencing this fast-growing sector first-hand.

Here I am, I formed a deep understanding and unique point of view between traditional and innovation fields. I spread my everyday learning to you, my friend, and hopefully, you find this content insightful, then I know I am doing a meaningful job here. ❤️

Until then, take good care!