Let’s Rid the World of ‘Made-up Silly Jobs!
In his book Bullshit Jobs, the late David Graeber wrote how society is set up to create jobs that ‘don’t exist’. You know the ones: telemarketers and ‘team meetings’ with people drawing things on whiteboards, creating ‘mission statements’.
We don’t need jobs like this, which are usually created to manipulate job figures for the government stats. We need more ‘real jobs’. carers and wildlife rescuers, dog walkers, carpenters, green builders, teachers, hospice workers, community chefs.
Many people in England are working on jobs they hate, simply to earn money. But money is not everything, it’s important to do work that you love and that makes a difference to your community.
What Are ‘silly jobs that don’t exist?’
Graeber grouped bullshit jobs into five types:
- Flunkies: roles that make someone else look or feel important. Think receptionists hired for empty foyers, or assistants whose main task is to signal status.
- Goons: roles that exist only because others have them. Think PR hit-squads trading press hits, or aggressive sales teams battling for the same pie.
- Duct tapers: roles created to fix problems that should not exist. Think staff paid to patch broken systems rather than fix the system itself.
- Box tickers: roles that produce reports and metrics to prove work is happening, even when it is not.
- Taskmasters: managers who create work for others, or oversee teams that do not need oversight.
You have likely experience of this. Ever gone into a Lush or Next shop? You’re bombarded the minute you arrive, with people ‘greeting you”. They look bored out of their brain, and the first thing you do is leave the shop. It would be far better if Next spent money on improving their ethics score at Good on You.
The NHS budget is bursting. But we have managers and middle managers, who waste money and energy on lit-up appointment boards. That money could be used to fund nursing assistants, to take the load off nurses and doctors. Proper jobs!
In a YouGov survey, 37% of British workers said their job did not make a meaningful contribution to the world. That is a lot of wasted potential.
Ask three simple questions, to determine if you’re in a silly job:
- What would break if I stopped doing this for a month?
- Who would notice, and why?
- Does my job help anyone or the community?
How Economic Systems Keep Useless Jobs Alive
GDP and market systems means we need more ‘economic growth’. But this results in ‘full employment goals, which encourages people to pad out jobs, to produce political gains.
Alternatives exist. Ideas like shorter work weeks or universal basic income shift value from money to wellbeing. Iceland has shorter workweeks, and a 4-day week pilot in the UK found lower burnout and better job retention.
Who Was David Graeber?
David Graeber (the anthropologist who coined the term ‘bullshit jobs’) died suddenly from narcotic pancreatitis a few years back (just 59, it was thought to be COVID-related, he did not even drink alcohol). His early death has nevertheless left a legacy, on how we need to rid the world of useless jobs that do more harm than good.
He was a fan of Universal Income, rather than a society where the blue-collar workers got ill from exhaustion, and white-collar workers did ‘invented jobs’ going round with clipboards, to check how others were doing:
Shit jobs tend to be blue collar and pay by the hour. Whereas bullshit jobs tend to be white collar, and salaried.
For some reason, we as a society have collectively decided to have millions of human beings spending years of their lives, pretending to type into spreadsheets or preparing mind maps for PR meetings. Rather than freeing them to knit sweaters, play with their dogs, start a garage band, experiment with new recipes or sit in cafés arguing about politics.
Lobbyists and PR specialists have a largely negative impact on society. I think almost anyone would concur that, were all telemarketers to disappear, the world would be a better place.
It’s as if someone where out there, making up pointless jobs, just for the sake of keeping us all working.
Politics and the ‘get on your bike’ philosophy
Most people want to work and not claim benefits. But today we have not so much physical problems of our ancestors, but more ethical ones.
The right wing politicians often have this ‘get on your bike and find work’ philosophy, and Reform UK’s slogan is ‘if you can work, you will work’ or lose your benefits. Which sounds fair at first glance.
But as David Graeber says, we have to also look at the types of jobs offered.
Years ago, the jobs our parents and grandparents did were hard graft: working in the fields, packing in factories etc. But they were useful ones: selling food in corner shops, and being carers and nurses.
If you work (especially full-time), then that’s an entire chunk of your life being taken up work. But stats show that most people absolutely hate their jobs. Not because they are hard work, but because they are ‘bullshit’ jobs that kill your soul, and aren’t really needed (apart from for income).
Most people’s sense of dignity and self-worth is caught up in working for a living, yet most people hate their jobs. David Graeber
As an example, Reform UK policy is for zero hour contracts to come back. That means that people would be doing jobs they hate on minimum pay, then they would not be able to get a rental contract or mortgage (because you can’t, without a proper work contract).
So we would have a load of suicidal people going around doing awful jobs that didn’t really need to exist, in order to earn enough money to pay the rent on a place the worker did not really want to live. For decades and decades, until retirement. It’s soul-destroying.
But with basic incomes, we could have people doing what they wanted (caring for others, learning something new etc) and still be safe financially, and it would make it pay for most people to work part-time if they wanted to.
We would have collective better physical and mental health, which would save the NHS a fortune, and our towns and villages would be full of local shops, public parks etc.
It would be a life!
Enrique’s Take on Bullshit Jobs
Enrique Peñalosa used to be the mayor of Bogotá in Columbia, where he famously ripped up the road-building budget to build more parks and schools, and created car-free Sundays. When asked his profession, he says a politician, but ‘not a very good one’, as he keeps losing elections!
He is a strong advocate of having quality of life, meaning more than endless money. Many car drivers and road builders were angry when he put walkers and parks over wheels, but he says that green space is for everyone, not just those who can afford to go to the mountains at weekends.
I like to say when shopping malls replace public space as a meeting place for people, it’s a symptom that the city is ill. Enrique Peñalosa
Shop Greeters (a prime example of a bullshit job)
If you’ve ever wandered into a Next or LUSH store, you would have been approached by a ‘greeter’ (this is not their fault, they are doing it to pay the rent and likely bored out of their brains).
This is a prime example of what is wrong with our country today. Critics say everything from ‘I came here to buy something, not to make friends’ to ‘I have social anxiety, just leave me alone.’
One hidden reason why greeters are employed, is to also deter shoplifting. So add to that, the person ‘greeting you’ is also saying ‘I’m also here to make sure you don’t steal anything’, which is never a good way to start off.
Sometimes bookshops on two floors ask you to leave your bag with them, before you go off browsing. What would the owners say if they were asked if you could rifle through their belongings? If someone owning an indie shop immediately things that most browsers are going to go off with all the goods, they should not be in this profession in the first place.
