A bullshit job is meaningless or unnecessary work which the worker is forced to pretend has a purpose. Millions of people, often HR consultants, communications coordinators and even corporate lawyers have bullshit jobs, though we all, at some point in our careers as heart surgeons or street cleaners, think we have a bullshit job.
I’m not talking so much about them, but about the people whose uselessness at work is compounded by their acute understanding of their fate. As one reviewer of David Graeber’s 2018 book on the subject noted:
“This review was written at the desk of a salaried office job, where I am paid $65,000/yr to do virtually nothing important, so I mostly sit in my chair and listen to podcasts and audiobooks all day. I do this until enough executives and managers above me are gone that I can feel comfortable sneaking out. With my income from this, I then outsource all my chores to a slew of below living wage 21st Century gig economy employees–Uber drivers, food delivery, meal kits, laundry.”
The pandemic has shifted which jobs are bullshit jobs and which are essential and front-line. But last week, I discovered a job that, while never really popular with the public, was never defined as a bullshit job until now.
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