bullshit jobs

doctor?

is this your list or graeber's list

this poll is bullshit

i have held 6 of these

most bullshit: doctor
least bullshit: ska musician

DOCTOR

HOW THE FUCK

doc don't save me your job is bullshit

*dies*

never had to doc on wood, but I know someone who has

Doctor Ska Musician

xpost and i'm sure it isn't good

I mean I was gonna go with sci-fi writer for real (world needs more good ones!) until I got to doctor and then I was just wtf

poll combines bullshit and non-bullshit jobs mentioned by graeber, if you feel like flipping the script then be my guest

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSid-p0Xlk0

wow graeber's sense of economics here are terribly bad plus his insane white-collar-centeredness plus writing this in the middle of a protracted dearth of jobs in general _and_ giving no credit to sweezy and baran for prior borking up this tree (which he _must_ be well aware of) either.

or even douglas adams for prior art. http://www.geoffwilkins.net/fragments/Adams.htm

"Oh yes," said the Captain, "Millions of them. Hairdressers, tired TV producers, insurance salesmen, personnel officers, security guards, public relations executives, management consultants, you name them. We're going to colonize another planet."

normally wd go for something in PR but "motivational seminar organizer" is just tautological for "bullshit"

no "SEO blogger"?

ok i'm still hung up on just how much 'they're giving us boring jobs to keep us from rebelling maaaan' is some seventh grade mallpunk shit.

I wonder if the failed indie rocker-turned-corporate lawyer mentioned in the article was John S. Hall of King Missile.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-j5XWo1fPI

http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2013/08/labour-markets

Er this one rather

http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2013/08/labour-markets-0

I went with 'facebook updater' because I assume it covers people who provide a general social media marketing service to companies.

I know someone whose side-business is exactly this, and the whole thing feeds on taking advantage of, e.g., second hand car dealerships, cafes, and beauty salons whose managers, for reasons of age or other, don't get social media and think it's really difficult.

It's not about them not having the time; these people have plenty of time in between standard work duties to update twitter, facebook and maybe instagram or whatever else about once every couple of days.

So the bullshit element is a) the marketer bullshits the client, b) the 'work' is just clicking and typing

I can only think that one day someone's going to find out just what it is they've been forking out for and then heads will roll.

Not read list put me down for anything in fashion, pr or music writing

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

i would like a bullshit job cutting & pasting from spreadsheets please.

these people have plenty of time in between standard work duties to update twitter, facebook and maybe instagram or whatever else about once every couple of days.

yeah but they don't want to, the whole prospect of this fills them with dread

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

http://images.onset.freedom.com/ocregister/article/kupnii-b78583056z.120091215122713000g8mldm0r.1.jpg

It fills me with dread too but not as much as the idea of paying money for other people to do something for me I could do

ummmm this article is otmfm

when I clicked on this article just now I seriously thought it started out with "In the year 1930, Maynard James Keenan predicted that..."

also most doctor jobs are probably bullshit just in very complicated ways none of us can possibly understand

graeber at this point is the dave barry of lefty columnists.

David Graeber and the Lefty Columnists would be a good name for a rock band.

he's right about capitalism creating a surplus of bullshit jobs but it's not bc of a finance class conspiracy i think - or not just that. it's capitalism trying to handle technology before its inevitable collapse; bullshit jobs are the detritus byproduct of inefficiencies requiring everyone to work in a world that doesn't need that much work done anymore.

I hate it when far left ppl either don't get or pretend not to get that capitalism does not require smoke-filled rooms with plotting overlords.

But capitalism does require bankers, who cannot bear to see all that money passing through their hands without plotting how to leave the maximum amount of it stuck to their fingers.

calling bullshit on jobs makes graeber like the inverted version of the corporate consultant axe-man. 'you're an obstacle to market efficiency. we can do _your_ job with a computer. this division isn't profitable! everyone goes!' etc.

https://thebaffler.com/latest/its-all-bullshit-tan

my best friend got offered a job as a part-time rural carrier associate for the post-office.

despite the job being part-time, you have to be on call on unscheduled days. the schedule isn't provided far in advance, sometimes like a day or two. the hours fluctuate - they say it could be 20 hours one week, 60 the next, hours not guaranteed. so hey you might get 5 hours this week but you can't work other jobs because you might get paged to work.

they require you to supply your own vehicle, no mail truck given. you have to be able to deliver mail from the right side of the vehicle. no "sliding over in the car" allowed. this basically means you have to slide over in your vehicle every time you deliver mail unless you happen to have a vehicle manufactured in Europe.

the job is extremely physically demanding, and they must work in all elements. benefits *may* be included, but not guaranteed. might lead to full-time job later, not guaranteed.

pay is $20 an hour.

are we fucking serious.....end stage fucking capitalism

(friend is not taking that job lol)

My mom was a rural mail carrier for years when I was a kid. She loved it. She started part-time as essentially a substitute carrier, then someone quit and she got their full-time job. She had a 1970 VW station wagon … worked great for the right side delivery.

It’s not that physically demanding tbh … but the thing that’s the real dealbreaker for some people is having to get up at 5am

the dealbreaker for friend (and I suspect others) = from the description, it'd be next to impossible to keep her other jobs and give the availability they want here, and the hours aren't guaranteed so if she gets like 5 hours one week...by the time she realizes she's not working, too late to pick up a shift at other gig.

if it was "you'll get 15-20 hours a week, you'll work between these hours when you do work, and you're not on call on days you're off", I suppose that'd be more favorable

The carriers that have to walk through snow and pouring rain have it worse… also the USPS vehicles are likely less well maintained than one’s personal car and have fewer comfort features…

job posting does actually state they have to work in all elements, snow, sleet, rain ....lol. think it was the penultimate bullet.

should have probably just posted the listing rather than summarized it

if it was "you'll get 15-20 hours a week, you'll work between these hours when you do work, and you're not on call on days you're off", I suppose that'd be more favorable

if it was "you'll get 15-20 hours a week, you'll work between these hours when you do work, and you're not on call on days you're off", I suppose that'd be more favorable

It’s not that physically demanding tbh

It is according to my carrier, esp w/ USPS doing "last mile" delivery for shippers of larger heavier merch. He was telling me Monday, "20 more shifts before I retire and get my life back."

I got a bunch of my family that works for the post office. They make pretty good cash. It’s like anything, you got to put in your grunt time to get on the regular payroll etc. Once you get established though, it’s a pretty good job for the kind of work it is.

Big difference in full time postal positions and PTF (flex schedule) and RCA (can’t remember what that stands for from when I looked into this a few years ago). PTF get two guaranteed route runs a week (16 hours) and getting more hours involved working for other post offices up to an hour away.

job posting does actually state they have to work in all elements, snow, sleet, rain ....lol. think it was the penultimate bullet.

should have probably just posted the listing rather than summarized it

It talks about having to neutralize werewolves who try to steal mail

Big difference in full time postal positions and PTF (flex schedule) and RCA (can’t remember what that stands for from when I looked into this a few years ago). PTF get two guaranteed route runs a week (16 hours) and getting more hours involved working for other post offices up to an hour away.

It sucks that the exact terms of the mail carrier job have gotten worse, because historically the USPS has been a huge driver of families moving from working or working-poor to middle class and starting to have generational wealth. From what I understand from people, this has been particularly true for a lot of Black families, whose moms or grandmas got good benefits and worker protections and pensions for maybe the first time.

I had an Uber driver once whose other job was teaching people to drive mail trucks! There's a whole internal "driver ed" course administered by the USPS for that, apparently! Also I think they might not...be heated?? Brrr. Driving your own car is actually an improvement there.

And being in a powerful union, which is what got them those good benefits, I suspect one of the few(er?) that was open to women when a lot of other powerful unions were in male-dominated manufacturing fields

In orbit otm … also the hours that made it convenient to actually work + parent. … as opposed to having to deal with after school care

Full disclosure my sister works for the USPS. I think at first she drove a rural route, then moved to working in the office, and now she might actually be the post mistress of our small-town post office, which is just adorable. Thanks to her, my vague understanding is that working your way up to better roles within the hiring system is dependable but slow going. This is why people might potentially become an RCA just to be on the shortlist when there was a full-time opening, for instance. For instance, I think she heard through the grapevine that someone was thinking of retiring, so she put her name in for a future opening that would be caused by the retirement + someone leaving another role + someone leaving to fill THAT role, etc etc 5D chess kind of thing. It took 2-3 years to manifest but she just finally got the job, the hours, and the location that she wanted all along (and will probably keep forever).

My great grandfather was a small town postmaster… first generation to not be a farmer … his kids were the first to go to college… the upward mobility thing is a thing.

Yeah one of my gg grandparents from Tennessee made the move from farmer to post master, possibly in the same town where another ilxor's family is from!

And yes, she starts ungodly early but she'll always be able to pick her kids up from school, go to parent conferences, band concerts, and so on. And this is in a small town where a lot of people work in the same (only) manufacturing plant and have to take 2nd or even 3rd shift, or work retail. And you don't need a college degree to get into the USPS.

From what I understand it is pretty Byzantine in how it works and you need a bit of the right personality to do the job as it is often mind numbing repetitive and many jobs have to deal direct with the public at all levels.

My sister says the inside joke is that why people go post is that the mail JUST DOES NOT STOP.

Go postal…

As far as bullshit jobs go, it’s not that bullshit…apart from the volume of junk mail.

Meanwhile I continue experiencing the absurdity and demoralizing episodes of being a duct taper

still ticking boxes

When did “role” replace “job”? I always thought role referred to the nature of the job (a public-facing role, an administrative or leadership role etc) but people seem to use it as another way to refer to a job. Is this bc “job” feels like a bullshit job and a role is more quasi-serious seeming?

any language the business/hr complex can push to make work appear to subsume all of life is going to be favored

Yes … role sounds more “elevated” and less transactional … obfuscating the material conditions of capitalism. Obviously I loathe it lol

linkedin keeps offering me choice "roles" like "remote honeymoon planner" and "catalog copy editor"

What about “Henchman #2” and “weird woman at bar”?

why would they pay when so many do the latter for free or even pay for the privilege?!

also back to postal workers, a guy i know who skipped college and worked in food service, a gas station, and truck driving is now a postal carrier and he absolutely loves it.

Sorry, might have been me that introduced "role" into the discussion here. I guess I like it? I never thought of it as having an obscuring function but of course sarahell and LL are probably correct.

No need to apologize — I have a nose for it (obfuscation)

Was the last bullet point “such occasional gloom of night as may arise”

― keep kamala and khive on (wins), Thursday, August 29, 2024 10:03 AM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

It talks about having to neutralize werewolves who try to steal mail

― if this site were a food it would have NO nutritional value!!!!!!! (Neanderthal)

call that a silver bullet point

'Facebook updater' huh

Insane stat from the Wall Street Journal that there are like 12 million full-time influencers in the US right now. That’s 7% of the American workforce

No way a bubble like that is at all sustainable pic.twitter.com/zIZ0QpWtJd

— Tom Cecil (@scopgieb) October 23, 2024

Can't believe those 12 million are earning a living from that

'content creator' and 'influencer' aren't exactly synonymous, I don't think?

Super-tax them

The US labor force is 168.7M so whatever a "paid content creator" is, you cross one on the street every time you pass 6.25 people.

I agree that these people's way of making a living is precarious, but I'm not mad at them. A lot of other jobs have disappeared and living is harder than other generations have experienced for a while. Someone (corporations I assume) finds this kind of labor valuable and is paying people, why shouldn't people do work that pays?

i'm guessing this stat isn't true

Or it doesn’t mean “influencers” as in people who’ve built up huge audiences on youtube, Instagram, TikTok etc

Or it could mean the entire labor force involved in content creation - producers, writers, editors etc. YouTubers like Rhett & Link or the Try Guys have whole small businesses dedicated to their content - I’d imagine a lot of other reasonably popular tiktok/YouTube channels are similar?

Or literally anyone on the editorial side of digital content, which is like, all content

in orbit otm. it turns out that earning your living online is sucky in brave new ways but i don't blame people for shooting for it when office jobs are just as bad as ever and harder to get. people get to be stars, in a way, but like everything else you either have to be born with capital and connections or have an absolutely psychopathic work ethic + a lot of talent and luck to get there. not like i could do it, but living my life online sounds like the 9th circle tbh. my bullshit government office job is only the 8th.

the 12 mil stat doesn't surprise me, there are a lot of content niches out there

Yeah, anyone can make content. You could record yourself making your bed and putting some flowers in a vase, that's like 1/4 of my FYP lol

i think part of the reason why "there are 12 million influencers today" doesn't surprise me is that in gay land it feels like a requirement of existence. if you're gay or queer and have any money you're automatically granted influencer status afaict. social media is just a new way for already rich people to stay rich.

if you have looks, a big dick or an ungodly amount of body hair then congrats, you can eke out a precarious existence by trading a 9 to 5 for being glued to your phone 24/7 and pouring yourself into a bite for public consumption at the top of every hour.

there are so many normal, low stakes youtube channels. people who talk about genre fiction or astronomy and have like 40k followers. people are on their screens all the time, watching and clicking. the advertisers are paying the streaming sites and people are making the content that is in demand. i don't necessarily think it's some kind of precarious bubble à la crypto. as always, the kids are doing their crazy thing and i'd guess that most of the adults at WSJ are clueless

nor do i think it's some kind of icky, egotistical "influencer" thing all the time. just little communities centered around people's interests. so many people who just make shorts about tricks for tiling a bathroom floor

otm

Plus lots of OnlyFans

Yes, totally. I typed out a thing about how much content is out there and deleted it as not relevant enough, but it's true: I'm extremely online on TT and I heavily curate my FYP but there are huge things that blow up **in my interest areas** and I never even see them, I just see a tiny bit of fringe discourse. And like what map said: I actually follow a lot of queer creators but the vibe is pretty much opposite what you described, map--obviously both spaces are very different and both very much out there even in an overlapping community.

I tend more toward people just sitting in their houses talking about stuff or making bobbin lace or, yeah, showing a trick for cutting shoe molding or talking about what happened at their waitressing job today. It's not big and glam and obviously monetized. If they get something from the creator fund or whatever the platform is doing to generate content, good for them.

the recent Mr Beast exposes really bring home what an industry he is running- the supposed members of the public in those videos are all either employees or locals working the same seam.

Just noticed that the scornful tweeter in xyzzzz's revive has a pinned tweet of himself doing an (unfunny) routine in a comedy club

Perhaps, for him, the bubble has already burst

I doubt most of the people doing this are making a living at it. Like you can probably use the same statistic around being an “artist” … probably plenty of overlap at this point.

My instinct is that while the majority is receiving money for this, it’s like the equivalent of putting out records that sell 100 copies or dj-ing at a dive bar.

The more I think about it, assuming my above assessment is true (that this includes more than just on-camera talent) the more I buy it, though. People can hustle in the content business and build multimillion dollar brands that then employ dozens or more of production staff. And it’s not like just your neighborhood comes to see your content, your niche stuff gets broadcast worldwide to be seen by anybody with access to a network connection (except with local censorship, RIP Uncle Roger’s PRC viewership numbers). In that case I’m all for these jobs, it’s exportable!

Tom - otoh there is also a lot of imported content … maybe it’s just me that watches a lot of cat videos but a lot of them aren’t American.

That was my point, not knocking anybody's hustle or aspirations but I bet the 12 million isn't a reflection on how many people can live off this

actually on reflection there's loads of hustles i'm knocking all the time, but not "kids on the Youtubes" en masse

what’s an FYP

For You Page

For You Page -- the main feed on TT that you scroll through. What the algorithm shows you.

I think my biggest issue with these “bullshit jobs” is that they all seem to be non-union.

Yessssss tom that's it exactly.

They are made up of a highly atomized and divided and unaligned workforce. I've been reading a bit about warehouses & distribution centers and what they mean for workers, and I think this recent NYT article (gift link) makes some pertinent points.

It isn’t just that they aren’t union, but they are most likely not employees of any entity, thus no safety net in terms of unemployment, health, retirement… basically as disposable as what they produce

Recently i became reacquainted with the regulations re compensation for actors equity … it’s very much the opposite of what these people are likely getting

Oh yeah totally. Apparently a popular TTer made a statement that if TT got banned in the US she would simply go on unemployment, and I didn't see HER content but I did see a very concerned/skeptical response from someone that unless she got a package from HR and an invitation to the company picnic, she did not in fact work for Tiktok. That does seem like a serious miscalculation on her part (also quite stupid).

Sounds cool that the post-msg board generation got to make even a bit of cash off posting? I'd certainly rather post for a living but its too late for me.

talking about what happened at their waitressing job today.

sorry, i can make money doing this?!!? not a shift goes by when i don't have something ridiculous to share. i tend to keep quiet (except among coworkers) because i don't like to dish about people publicly but i had no idea there was an appetite for this?!

LL honestly - all you would need to do is be yourself and tell the story to your phone and people would absolutely gobble it up. GOBBLE it.

and by "people" i mean me, but also people.

i am not on TT and have never told a story to my phone but hey there is a first time for everything! it's attached to music venue as well so there is bonus content to be had.

i guess maybe i am not mean spirited enough for this type of work

(being a content creator i mean; being a server is second nature for me which is why i went back into it after 20 years)

LL I can download a couple of videos of the wait person I like and send to you later tonight if if you want?

I actually don’t know what it takes to make money. I heard thru other videos that TT just reduced the amount they pay out and I think to even qualify for that yoi needed 10k followers or something. But you can def tell your stories and be however you want on there

not necessary -- i'm over here living the service industry dream lol. i don't expect i will overcome my reticence to make fun of people publicly even if there's $$ on the line.

i don't think you have to be mean! in fact i think it's better if you're not mean! just u bein u would be the best way

i have never done tiktok but I suspect it's similar to radio in that it probably works best if you can be yourself and imagine you're talking to a specific close friend, or someone else in your life who you really like

a thin veneer of fiction and you can monetize without fear!

https://www.amazon.com/Love-Me-Back-Merritt-Tierce/dp/0345807138

(this is pretty good IIRC, looks like she hasn't written another novel)

She’s not mean and she doesn’t only tell waitressing stories but being a career service industry person is her background perspective, yes. The account is @housecatchronicles

sigh. y'all. a friend of mine is a _paid content creator_ as a full-time job. she's a few years younger than me. her writing is legitimately some of the best writing i've ever read. she's worked really hard at it. she has an incredibly strong work ethic. she's figured out a work process to write, edit, and publish stories to a professional standard. part of being a creator these days is trying to figure out how to make a living as a creator. it's not like she can just submit her stories to the Saturday Evening Post.

she doesn't make a lot of money. i don't know the details, but she just kinda scrapes by. the income her wife brings in helps a lot. i make more money than her at my bullshit job where i haven't done shit but put up with my boss's abuse for the past two years. i've paid a lot of attention to what she does and how she does it. i'm on disability leave. when my short-term disability is up, if i don't have a new job, i'm out of work. i'll still make more money on unemployment than she does working her ass off full-time as, yes, an "online content creator". i could not possibly do what she's doing. i don't have the work ethic, the self-confidence, or, frankly, the skill.

you almost certainly have not heard of her or read her writing. she operates in a genre that isn't necessarily taken seriously by the public at large or, as far as i can tell, by academia. the work she's done has changed hundreds of lives for the better. including mine. the work she's done just this year so far, i'd argue, has had more _positive impact_ than all of the work i have done in my entire fucking life.

_super-tax_ her? SUPER-TAX her?

Bob Six in grandpa-yells-at-clouds shockah

i think part of the reason why "there are 12 million influencers today" doesn't surprise me is that in gay land it feels like a requirement of existence. if you're gay or queer and have any money you're automatically granted influencer status afaict. social media is just a new way for already rich people to stay rich.

― he/him hoo-hah (map)

ok now that i got my rant out of the way lol... i think your take is a little cynical, map

i think the reason why there are so many queer "influencers" is because it can be pretty hard for us to work, uh... straight jobs.

the lady i follow on yt who makes a living making videos about denpa eroge visual novels (things which i know basically _nothing_ about other than through her videos)... i get the feeling that even if she _could_ make a living doing it, she's not exactly cut out to work the checkout at home depot. queer people, particularly _visibly queer people_, face challenges that people who aren't visibly queer often don't.

to me... hmmm. to me, i think the significance of this is that it's an indication of the reality of a "post-scarcity world". like, content creators... what're the options for content creators? unionize? go on strike? "we demand health benefits or there will be no more livestreaming of UFO 50"?

i mean "capitalism has fundamentally failed as an economic system" is hardly a novel observation. sometimes i feel like i need to state the obvious though.

It’s not that physically demanding tbh

missed this, have to say it's very physically demanding in all the expected ways, and many other surprise ways imo

Bob Six in grandpa-yells-at-clouds shockah

Yes probably.

I do think there are downsides of certain types of social media influencers that it is worth society trying to discourage, eg particularly those promoting unrealistic standards of beautify and lifestyles that can cause wide-spread low self-esteem and poor mental health. And I would have no qualms about trying to discourage celebrity influencers by shaking them down for more tax.

I'm a little embarrassed that it took this thread for me to realise that in the US (or at least some of the US) you have to be unemployed from a specific job. Like, if you're unemployed, the jobs you aren't doing is - all of them!

You mean in order to get benefits?

Yeah

And the benefits are for a limited time, even if you don’t find work. Do you want to know about the US healthcare system too?

No, that I know about (partly because you have to get insurance against it when you travel there, but also because it's a more famous shitshow)