what is your bullshit job?

I'm a duct taper for sure

taskmaster, technically

write-in for "narcissist/masochist — self-employed under the illusion that anyone else should care what I think or do, and spending too much time and energy doing it"

duct taper most days, but also I guess taskmaster, but feels like that also includes those who create extra work for those who do not need it at the direction of middle management

i hope we have some goons chime in. honestly sounds like the best option in this list, or at least the most exciting.

box ticker all the way

Duct taper, I guess, in that I proofread and edit documents knowing full well that I will never get promoted to being the guy who writes the shit correctly the first time (and not wanting the promotion anyway). But I am probably also part goon, since I work for a deeply evil company (health insurance in one of the reddest — and whitest — states).

teacher, so a sampler platter of all 5

Duct taper- we do our best!

I got this book for my birthday (so 2 days ago) and just started it today, so very odd coincidence you starting this poll

I think I am possibly 5, but possibly also not bullshit, will have a think about the value of what I do

i don't believe all jobs are all bullshit all the time. even my very bullshit job is about 1.5% not bullshit.

flunky

Box ticker (if there is work to be done, I'll do it, but....)

My job doesn’t really fit these descriptors but it would be a lot less necessary if this country stopped constantly means/ability-testing 80% of its safety net.

Advertising. So goon.

somewhere around 6 which involves rotating elements of 1-5 from week to week tbh

"Professor" i.e. flunkies

flunky (art handler)

Co-sign Narcissist/masochist write in option

m bison otm

beat me to it because i was trying to figure out if #1 applied but then i realized we are constantly puffing each other up w/ toxic TEACHERS BUILD THE FUTURE bs

Very much a box ticker, corporate compliance is the definition of my job.

Social worker = very much duct taper.

One part duct tape the other part goon?

But like a goon for the people? Idk

Actually voted goon before I read the descriptions!

I chose box-ticker, unsurprisingly because I'm one (or feel like one)

Or maybe write-in for "talk-shopper - your job is to talk about your job and how much a difference it makes"

Teacher, so yeah 1-5, but 'flunky' mainly. I feel like 'babysitter' or 'carer' needs to be built into the descriptors somewhere.

perhaps "babysitter/carer" is not actually a bullshit job?

like there are jobs that aren't bullshit that have to deal with bullshit; I feel like this list is for jobs whose existence is bullshit

it's supposed to be, yet along similar lines idk if receptionist qualifies. what if someone comes into the building and wants something.

goon, but I'm deceiving my employer, so box ticker, really

Assembly line worker

I don’t think “teacher” is bullshit, or what Sara said.

Teaching would still exist even under fully automated luxury communism, but certain aspects of it that teachers have to deal with now won’t exist (ideally).

Something like 60% box ticker, 20% duct taper, 20% flunkie

I am actively looking for new work because I don't think I am able to do mine competently anymore.

Bulkshit jobs I posit don’t necessarily have to be menial. But “man who became a billionaire by inventing some sort of investment algorithm” (like that Mercer dude who used his money to fund Milo Yisnnopolous’s entire career) is and shout by all rights not exist.

I took a bulkshit this am.

I guess I'm thinking about the difference between a "goon" and a "duct taper" -- like, if your job is directly serving the powerful and you are causing harm / deceiving / seeking to prevent harm to the employer, then you are a goon, but is it intrinsic to the system, that if you are serving the powerless, the underprivileged, etc. then that type of work is essentially just duct-taping because the system is broken?

Here's why mine is a duct-taper:

For training, we had to built an entire database, GUI, reference materials, website and all, for a fake company so that we could train with fictional customer data. This has been maintained for 20+ years, and for years, there were few recurring issues with the database, only temporary things that crop up with ANY database.

then, for whatever reason, two years ago, both the website and GUI system began malfunctioning on the regular. This 'client' seems to get a lower priority because it's not a real client, even though to train people, it still has to *work*. so we usually report these issues to the systems analysts who support, but this team is a fraction of the size of one of a real client, and one of them is fundamentally useless. They usually tell me they can't replicate the issue, frequently ask me to share details about the issue that I've already shared four or five times, and then go radio silent for a week, ask me if it's still happening, as if not talking about it made it go away. When the head of our dept complains, they get ornery and defensive.

so we've had, for instance, two instances in the last 6 months where the website had a major malfunction - one where it wouldn't load via single sign-on AT ALL, the other where all of the menus were missing. One of the issues took 2+ months to fix, and it wasn't fixed by teh systems analysts - it just resolved on its own and nobody knows how. The other one is still ongoing and has been broken for 2 months.

so my job has been giving people these really mediocre workarounds that involve logging in without SSO (which is really complicated to explain to a class of noobs) or showing them how to get to information without the menus being available by using the website's virtual assistant.

and for the GUI abends, i have to constantly start tickets that resolve the issue for a day or two, only to resurface again. all because the systems analysts do not give a fuck about fixing this shit permanently. Often 2+ tickets per week.

so 50% of my day is doing things that aren't related to supporting training...at all. work that comprised 1% of my time two years ago.

BUT....because I'm relatively good at duct-taping, it's made me essentially the de facto senior member of the department, which (knock on wood) helps with job security and means I'll never fail an annual review ever.

I'm sort of joking when I say only someone who hadn't taught would say teaching isn't a bullshit job, inasmuch as mostly/often feels like babysitting, merely holding the fort until my charges can become full members of the workforce. If they learn something on the way, then all the better.

(Also, I appreciate under Graeber's schema teaching doesn't fit but I felt left out).

Okay 3 (duct tapers) is not bullshit. Calming upset people about lost luggage is definitely something that should be compensated for (and they probably deserve a raise, while we're at it).

My own technical writing job is probably 4 (box tickers, along with "in-house magazine journalist"), but I actually do occasionally see real-world value to it.

idk, maybe to a box ticker or a flunky or a taskmaster, being a duct taper isn't bullshit ... and some of the work isn't bullshit, like when you actually make a difference/significantly improve someone's life ... or the temporary repair actually turns out to lead to other, bigger improvements ... but, I am sure that other self-described duct tapers feel the same way I do, that you end up accepting so much bullshit as reality and there is so much "one step forward, two steps back" kinda shit going on that it feels pointless ... and when you step back you really think about how in an ideal world your job wouldn't exist or at least would be much less stressful/much more productive ...

Teaching would still exist even under fully automated luxury communism, but certain aspects of it that teachers have to deal with now won’t exist (ideally).

― Moritz von Oswald von Wolkenstein (Boring, Maryland), Thursday, July 27, 2023 9:16 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

this is it. my direct work with students is 100% bullshit-free, but all the other things are bullshit (box-checking for my admin, handing down taskmaster shit from central office, duct-taping my classroom enough to get through the year, gooning for industries to create compliant and productive workers, flunkies for the district/campus at various functions)

to illustrate the duct-taping nature of my job, I've been praised for my work the last 3 business days on two training classes, and 85% of the time I've been doing things not at all related to my job description. I've listened to maybe 45 minutes of class.

so basically, they think I'm a god for not doing my job.

I am literally a corporate lawyer, so GOON

GOON with ya bad self

i think "flunky" is the word that describes me best, just in general. i really do.

but i prefer to mean 'one whose vocation is failure' or something to that effect.

Malcom McLaren has spoken of "failing gloriously, as a noble pursuit". He's an idiot.

Spent a lot of time in the GOON space but somehow found a way out and now have a job I consider non-bullshit

Can report that mental health burden greatly reduced thanks to this development

Write-in for "Bagman."

Just reading this as my bathrooom book after having had it sit around for the last couple of months. Finding it pretty god. The box ticker thing reminded me of what the last Arts officer at the local university had said about having to deal with bureaucracy in that it had become much mire weighted towards ticking boxes which was the antithesis of creativity. The old qualitative vs quantitative dilemma. & it just seems like a model with the wrong direction of fit. Shaping things to a certain model and so on, With boxes being ticked easier to show evidence of rather than nuance and so on.

Enjoying the book and want to read the rest of his work.

Started it sta=raight after reading Arlie Russell Hochschild's The Managed Heart which also deals with the deleterious effects of employment

I don’t have one, I actually do stuff & my job should exist imo — I do have to fend off some bs obv

haven’t read bullshit jobs but I can recommend graeber’s utopia of rules, stevo

within my last employer’s walled garden my job was . . . well, not really *necessary*, but it had a purpose and produced certain tangible things (along with the inevitable box ticking)

but that employer’s entire reason for existing is to make a few dozen obscenely rich entities even richer. it in no way makes the world a better place. as a side effect it allowed me to pay for food and rent for 13 years and provides entertainment for a sizable but shrinking number of people, but ultimately the entire edifice is flunkery/goonery

i’m an administrative assistant so yeah, flunky

duct tape

I do comms for a not-for-profit - I'd break it down as 90% box-ticking, 5% goon, 5% not bullshit.

my last job, which I was apprentice trained and qualified in. Well, not boasting but it's definitely in the top 10 of non-bullshit jobs. Yet still I had to deal with more than enough of bullshit people!

box tickers, who create the appearance that something useful is being done when it is not, e.g., survey administrators, in-house magazine journalists, corporate compliance officers;

yup, that's me

i hope we have some goons chime in. honestly sounds like the best option in this list, or at least the most exciting.

I'm working a goon job right now and it's pretty miserable imo. Knowing that the world would improve if your job ceased to exist wears on you quite a lot

Thing I noted a few years ago is that the existence of boxtickers means that things are shaped for the assessment of how well boxes are ticked. So losing the nuance etc that are vital parts of the original process.
Reason it came up recently was that a gallery in the local university had been reused for the first time in a few years. I'd had a conversation with the arts officer from the university in there where she was despairing about the effect taht direction of focus was having on her ability to function. & would think this was going to be true of anything that had originally been about originality and creativity and spontaneity that it was inherently not designed to fit boxes being ticked but the box-tickers seem to have better leverage over such things as control of finances etc.

I think she was complaining at other times about her job being diminished gradually and now her role is gone. Which seems to be really counterproductive. Would think an arts officer in a University was a valid job and helped keep the place running. I don't get the idea that one can excise art. Things like how it helps create the narrative that keeps things together and how art should be a means of communication that everybody has some access to and ability to engage with.

I have spent a lot of years working in the arts, and there is a lot of bullshit required for getting/maintaining funding. … it was demoralizing. Meanwhile I woke up stupid early this morning because I am behind on duct taping. I feel like duct tapers have the most anxiety of the bullshit categories

Sympathies to sarahell (and to everyone really).

Box-ticking is often suspiciously easy - which causes a different kind of anxiety because AI will almost surely be replacing my job in the near future.

Also the last few years have been rough on some of us (by which I mean me) so I am less able to make the case that I'm better than a robot.

I'm currently working for the in-house IT support department of a large organisation that refuses to spend money on IT until things are literally breaking beyond repair (shouting until you're Azure in the face about how Microsoft will be removing Audit mode from their implementation of the Kerberos protocol in October 2023). So I'm a duct taper.

Knowing that the world would improve if your job ceased to exist wears on you quite a lot

qft. i feel like every profession has a few 'sacred sayings' that you have to buy into if you're going to face work every day. generally i think most if not all people don't actually believe them at the most fundamental level. the people who need to believe them most / spend the most energy on believing them are often near the top of the field.

i'm a records manager for the government (actually a records management consultant), and not only do i fundamentally not believe in the value of records management, i don't really believe in the value of government. it's one of those functions that justifies its existence by simply existing imo. it only has value in the context of organizational risk and the larger dialectic of what good government is. since the primary function of 'good government' is to protect capital and make people feel like that isn't its primary function, i just don't have any attachment to it, other than i need to keep it for now in order to survive.

i could definitely see myself finding another 'bullshit job' where i could buy the bullshit easier - it helps if your work tasks are aligned with things you like to do anyway. for me, that's being creative or writing something. i could see myself enjoying being a technical writer for, say, a home gym manufacturing company. while of course the primary purpose of my job would be to make the company money, my role in that bigger picture - writing instructions in a clear and helpful way for home gym enthusiasts - would feel somewhat ok to me. i could tell myself that i'm doing something useful every day. records management, on the other hand - most people hate it, find it painful and nit-picky and inhumane, and so do i.

box tickers, who create the appearance that something useful is being done when it is not, e.g., survey administrators, in-house magazine journalists, corporate compliance officers;

yup, that's me

― jaymc

hey, another one whose actual work is called out in the description! (i'm in compliance)

respect to the duct-tapers out there - providing temporary solutions to permanent problems is fucking grueling.

box ticker and a duct taper, feels like a classic buddy comedy pairing

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Duct taper, for sure. The business is practically a house of cards. Just this morning the fucking email account wasn’t working - so neither were all the google docs/spreadsheets we rely on - and it was because the bill hadn’t been paid. The same thing happened not long ago and it was a clusterfuck because literally no one knew how to access the admin account to even pay the bill.

and it was because the bill hadn’t been paid.

WTF

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

happy labor day, not least to my fellow box tickers

i had my quarterly review today to discuss whether or not i have in fact been ticking all the boxes

"Yeahhhhhhh, map. I need you to have all those boxes ticked by Tuuuuesday, mmkay?"

https://imagez.tmz.com/image/8a/4by3/2021/10/26/8ab6e2d14dbc4a5e94c7e6320fd56f9a_xl.jpg

lmao

they didn't make you do that bullshit where you "self-assess" did they

thank god no

they didn't make you do that bullshit where you "self-assess" did they

I had to do that in a Zoom meeting this morning; we had to speak in turn about what our challenges were. I said, "I've only been here six months; everything is a challenge."

milk that "i'm new here" honeymoon phase for all it's worth imho

They have made a big deal to close out 5 tickets every day and keep track of whatever you do. So some of these guys I work with literally are creating tickets for sending out an email or going to take a crap and literally I have tickets or ordering and setting up an entire office full of equipment for like 10-12 people.

i'm definitely leaning into being the lazy / bad guy at the office over the past year or two. i kind of relish it now, though it's useful to have someone who is lazier / badder than yourself to keep the focus off of you.

haven't had a review since well before covid, I kinda prefer it that way

We have to submit self-assessments in our bi-annual reviews and I hate it. Why should I do my manager's job for them?

ugh yeah, self-assessments are the worst, along with "your goals for the year".

every year I think "same ones as last year".