A bullshit job is meaningless or unnecessary
wage labour
Wage labour (also wage labor in American English), usually referred to as paid work, paid employment, or paid labour, refers to the socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer in which the worker sells their labour power under ...
which the worker is obliged to pretend to have a purpose. The concept was coined by anthropologist
David Graeber
David Rolfe Graeber (; February 12, 1961 – September 2, 2020) was an American and British anthropologist, Left-wing politics, left-wing and anarchism, anarchist social and political activist. His influential work in Social anthropology, social ...
in a 2013 essay in ''
Strike Magazine'', ''On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs'', and elaborated upon in his 2018 book ''
Bullshit Jobs
''Bullshit Jobs: A Theory'' is a 2018 book by anthropologist David Graeber that postulates the existence of meaningless jobs and analyzes their societal harm. He contends that over half of societal work is pointless and becomes psychologically ...
''.
Graeber also formulated the concept of ''bullshitization'', where previously meaningful work turns into a bullshit job through
corporatization
Corporatization is the process of transforming and restructuring state assets, government agencies, public organizations, or municipal organizations into corporations. It involves the adoption and application of business management practices an ...
,
marketization
Marketisation or marketization is a restructuring process that enables state enterprises to operate as market-oriented firms by changing the legal environment in which they operate.
This is achieved through reduction of state subsidies, organiza ...
or
managerialism
Managerialism is the idea that professional managers should run organizations in line with organizational routines which produce controllable and measurable results. It applies the procedures of running a for-profit business to any organizatio ...
.
Examples
Graeber gives these examples of jobs he considers "completely pointless, unnecessary, or pernicious":
* A
doorman A doorman, also known as doorkeeper, is someone who is posted at, and often guards, a door, or by extension another entrance (specific similar terms exist, e.g. gatekeeper, hall porter). Specific uses include:
Professions
* Doorman (profession), ...
or
receptionist
A receptionist is an Employment, employee taking an office or Business administration, administrative support position. The work is usually performed in a waiting room, waiting area such as a Lobby (room), lobby or front office desk of an organ ...
who has little to do in practice, but who was hired as a
status symbol
A status symbol is a visible, external symbol of one's social position, an indicator of Wealth, economic or social status. Many luxury goods are often considered status symbols. ''Status symbol'' is also a Sociology, sociological term – as part ...
*
Public relations
Public relations (PR) is the practice of managing and disseminating information from an individual or an organization (such as a business, government agency, or a nonprofit organization) to the public in order to influence their perception. Pu ...
promoting organizations that are already well-known and well-liked
*
Customer service
Customer service is the assistance and advice provided by a company to those who buy or use its products or services, either in person or remotely. Customer service is often practiced in a way that reflects the strategies and values of a firm, and ...
people, if the main job is to apologize for problems that should not happen, and the manager uses the customer service staff as a way to avoid solving the underlying problem
* People involved in unnecessary
paperwork, such as creating a report that no one reads or relies on
*
Managers
Management (or managing) is the administration of organizations, whether businesses, nonprofit organizations, or a government bodies through business administration, nonprofit management, or the political science sub-field of public administr ...
whose employees need no managerial assistance, or who invent and assign
busy work
Busy work (also known as make-work and busywork) is an activity that is undertaken to pass time and stay busy but in and of itself has little or no actual value. Busy work occurs in business, military and other settings, in situations where peop ...
Perceived value
Polling in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, in 2015, indicated that around 40% of workers did not believe that their job made a
meaningful contribution to the world.
See also
*
Americans with No Abilities Act – Satire about low-skill workers that was once misunderstood as a real news report
*
*
*
*
Dilbert principle
The Dilbert principle is a satirical concept of management developed by Scott Adams, creator of the comic strip ''Dilbert'', which states that companies tend to promote incompetent employees to management to minimize their ability to harm product ...
– idea that less-competent workers are promoted to management
*
*
*
Interpassivity – Opposite of something that is
interactive
Across the many fields concerned with interactivity, including information science, computer science, human-computer interaction, communication, and industrial design, there is little agreement over the meaning of the term "interactivity", but mo ...
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
Vacuum activity – Instinctive behavior performed when there is nothing else to do
*
References
Further reading
* ''Your Call Is Important to Us: The Truth About Bullshit'' by Laura Penny
External links
On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs ''Strike Magazine'' (August 2013)
* Graeber, David (2018).
Bullshit Jobs', via
The Anarchist Library.
Labor
Work
American slang
{{Labor-stub