Comment by ilamont | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ilamont | Hacker News Reader

Reading this, I was reminded of the "B Ark" from Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy: (1)

The B Ark is technically named "Golgafrincham Ark Fleet, Ship B". The Golgafrincham civilization hatched a plan to eliminate its society of its most useless workers, namely its service sector and its paper shufflers. The Golgafrinchans created a legend that their world was about to be destroyed and they needed to build three arks. In Ark A they would put all the high achievers, the scientists, thinkers, artists, and important leaders. In Ark C they would put all the blue-collar workers, the people that build and make things. In Ark B they would put everyone else: hairdressers, TV producers, insurance salesmen, personnel officers, security guards, public relations executives, and management consultants.

The B Ark was constructed, loaded up, and launched first. However, it was automatically set for a collision course with Earth's sun, to finally rid Golgafrincham of these twits. And naturally, no A or C ark was ever made.

The presence of useless B Ark people in company settings has generated a lot of thought, including this person (2) who suggests dealing with them by "hiring another “B” Ark person to have meetings with them. Demand that accurate minutes are kept and that they should meet at least twice day until the problem is resolved" and engaging them in a useless, circular project.

1. http://everything2.com/title/B+Ark

2. http://infinite-shades.com/2011/02/14/golgafrincham-b-ark-wh...

I think a lot of the point of the "B Ark" joke is lost if you forget what comes next: the rest of the Golgafrincham people were wiped out shortly after the departure of the B Ark by a virulent disease contracted from an unsanitized telephone. (The first B-Arker you meet in the story is a telephone sanitizer.)

I hate that particular joke because of how it so casually blames the victim. Awful jobs exist in the system and people are crammed into them by economic force.

They are vindicated by the fact that all of the smug high achievers and those they let live are wiped out by a virulent disease contracted from a dirty telephone, since they killed off the telephone sanitizers.

B Ark jobs aren't awful jobs, though.

A chinese woman once started talking to me in a bakery, saying she wanted to practice her english. She'd spent time in Australia and recently come back to China to look for a job.

"What kind of job are you looking for?" I ask.

"I want to get a job in an office."

When "working in an office" is the height of your ambition, a B Ark job is as good as things get. If you're looking for awful jobs people get crammed into by economic force, look at obviously-productive C Ark jobs, like being a miner or a peasant.

No, they are still awful. Just awful on different levels of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. If your job leaves you insecure for basic survival and safety, then merely having your esteem and self actualization trashed looks like heaven.

Are you sure it was the "height of her ambition"? Sounds like she was primarily focused on practising her English and didn't mind too much about the work.

From personal conversation (in Chinese) with another person:

> What do your parents do?

> They're normal people.

Or, from a Chinese girl's online dating profile:

> 爸爸是农民。妈妈是工人。 [My father's a farmer; my mother is an employee.]

The elevation of the concept "job in an office" isn't a problem with insufficient english; it's something Chinese people in China do while they're speaking Chinese. I've also seen a banner at 复旦大学 (generally considered the third best university in China) advertising a lecture on... becoming an "office gentleman" or "office lady" (those terms were in english, but the rest of the banner wasn't).

Ah, I disagree. I think that if you are in one of those jobs and continue to justify your existence and the existence of the job, you are just reinforcing it.

For example, I know I am in one of those jobs so I tendered my resignation a few months ago and will be gone in December. Hopefully no one else fills it.

Easy to do if you don't have kids who need food, insurance that might lapse, rent that might go unpaid, etc etc.

Except I am married with three kids (all under 5) and a mortgage, so it can be done. I think it's an easy cop-out to say you can't do things because of your family. Yes it's hard, and there is a lot of pressure, but if you are worth something you will make it work.

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