Dan Pandre: The thing is, it is true in a weak form, and very false in strong form. There is inevitably going to be inefficiency due to departmental divisions and budget issues, and there is inevitably going to be work that is categorized as mediocre.

I need a labeler just for people who cite bullshit jobs unironically.

I don’t understand why people believe rapacious corporations which only care about making money at the expense of everything else would also blow money on a shitload of meaningless layers of jobs?

Genuinely if Bullshit Jobs is true then every corporation is managing a piece of a welfare state that would make the New Deal look like a nickel kicked to a panhandler.

The thing is, it is true in a weak form, and very false in strong form. There is inevitably going to be inefficiency due to departmental divisions and budget issues, and there is inevitably going to be work that is categorized as mediocre.

Why is there this stupid job? Because no one wants to pay to do it better. Why is this unbearable bullshit allowed to endure? Because it hasn't caused anyone important financial problems yet and it makes the machine go.

I would also venture that "10x engineers" and "A’s hire A's and B's hire C's" are reacting to the same thing, but from a rightward perspective.

One of the premises of BSJ is that people hire staff to puff up their egos and make themselves feel important… and I guess it feels like that is true for some jobs? Like, they are sort of supports for other people’s personal narratives?

I mean people thought this what may people thought secretaries/admins were. They were wrong.

That’s fair! They may actually do a big chunk of the work that the “boss” is assigned. I guess it feels like these “superfluous” jobs may be more common in academia, where deans seem to proliferate

there are lots of jobs that have little to do with making the machine go, as they basically track and record what the machine is doing for future reference. this is deemed socially necessary, and may perhaps be, but it is divorced from the functional operation of the firm.

I think this is positing an idealized firm that has never existed at scale, full of well-meaning individuals aligned on a goal.

What this comes down to is Procurement in fact has to exist, sorry.

If Procurement doesn't exist you have your widget makers and widget sellers doing procurement and they suck at it! Even if they didn't, it's a bad use of their time.

Turns out that as a widget seller (an author) I really hate being responsible for marketing and selling my widgets (stories)

and procurement is at least clearly linked to revenue-generating output. compliance? benefits management? HR training?

true! but also billing, compliance, IT, and dozens of other functions.

funny, I was thinking it's a realistic rather than idealized depiction. the sheer number of people whose job, or large part of the job, involves keeping track of activities rather than performing them is staggering. I have the receipts!

I'm not sure why you think those aren't "real" activities that are part of a functioning firm.

Says someone who has never gone through a serious audit. Many of these things are critical corporate memory. And often the problems of today are rooted in these records.

what makes you think I haven't? not only have I, but I was in fact the point person for dealing with tax officials.

Then I don’t see how you don’t see record keeping as a core company process.

pretty simply. paying taxes is socially necessary but wholly irrelevant to firm functions. firms do that work *for* the government (as they should), but it's not what they're for.

This is my feeling as well

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