Hacker News Reader

Comment by GlibMonkeyDeath | Hacker News Reader

I've always had a problem with Graeber's definition of exactly what a "bullshit" job is. Every time one is identified, the "well, akshually..." comes out, and often for defendable reasons.

Take "social media coordinator" - we had some young person at our Fortune 500 company have this position, which led to some eye rolls. But is it really "bullshit" if she keeps an exec from posting something embarrassing, which could damage the stock price? I guarantee you that companies have reasonable justifications for every position.

AI is more a tool that allows a productivity boost per employee, like all other automation tools (e.g. SolidWorks almost completely automated mechanical drawings, so drafting is not a thing any more - something I was told in high school, BTW, that would always be in demand...)

View on HN

I do not see how you are disagreeing with his definition. What do you think his definition is?

You seem to be using the definition: “A job that people think is worthless”.

The actual definition he uses is: “A job where the person doing it thinks it is worthless”.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_Jobs

>Graeber classifies a job as bullshit if society would be no worse off (or even >notice) if such job(s) disappeared, and names five classes of meaningless jobs: >flunkies, goons, duct tapers, box tickers, and taskmasters.

That's how Graeber defines it - but as I said above, every time someone points to a specific job and says "that's bullshit" it usually turns out that there is a reason for it.

Really, it should be "bullshit industries", rather than picking on individuals with jobs. Entire companies are doing harm (e.g. tobacco, soft drinks, most of the social media ecosystem, etc.) If AI starts closing truly harmful industries, then we can declare bullshit jobs are being reduced. I am not hopeful in the short term.

This is why you should not use low-resolution summarys as exhaustive and authoritative.

"Bullshit jobs are jobs which even the person doing the job can’t really justify the existence of, but they have to pretend that there’s some reason for it to exist. That’s the bullshit element."[1]

He talks about it a lot and the book is 368 pages. Of course you will get some variations on the general theme with some embellishments to get it to hit home. But the key aspect, which he mentions repeatedly, is the part about "even the person doing it thinks it is worthless".

[1] https://www.vox.com/2018/5/8/17308744/bullshit-jobs-book-dav...

From the link you just posted:

"A lot of bullshit jobs are just manufactured middle-management positions with no real utility in the world, but they exist anyway in order to justify the careers of the people performing them. But if they went away tomorrow, it would make no difference at all.

And that’s how you know a job is bullshit: If we suddenly eliminated teachers or garbage collectors or construction workers or law enforcement or whatever, it would really matter. We’d notice the absence. But if bullshit jobs go away, we’re no worse off."

Yes, he claims that also many people know that their job is "bullshit", but clearly that is not a necessary and sufficient condition. Believing your job is bullshit might be a necessary piece of his definition of a bullshit job, but that makes my objection to his definition even stronger.

My problem is, he is focusing on the individual job - not the industries. Graeber seemed to think there are some vast class of jobs that can disappear in any given company, e.g. in middle management, but it is simply not the case that companies are that overstaffed. Even if the person believes their job is "bullshit", it doesn't mean that it isn't bringing value. Trust me, if you really could cut 50% of all middle manager positions and the company would still go along fine, it would happen.

The fact is these companies are aware that there are jobs which can be cut and not impact overall productivity, that is part of the motive behind the industry layoffs.

However, in too many cases they involve middle management in the process of identifying where those cuts should happen and well, even when those same middle managers know they are the ones most suited to go, the permanent human ability to be self serving, self delusional, and dishonest really does stack up against much of those 'bullshit' jobs being removed from the balance sheet.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com