Comment by hn_throwaway_99
4 years ago
The thing I really like about this article is that, at least in my mind, it really helped me clarify what I think of as "Bullshit Jobs". It's not so much "do you consider your job useless", but it's more along the lines of "Is your job set up to fulfill tasks that were, generally, arbitrarily designed by some gatekeeper?"
A great example of this is tax departments at large companies that look for tax avoidance strategies. On one hand, these strategies can save companies many millions of dollars, but on the other, they really produce nothing of value and are just a product of the complexities of a (human designed) tax system. Lots of regulatory compliance work also goes into this bucket. I wouldn't say all of it, because there are definitely regulations that do actually make companies safer/more transparent/etc., but anyone who has had to fill out a page after page after page "security questionnaire" knows at least half of it is bullshit that nobody is going to read in the first place. Sometimes I've been tempted to just add "Mickey Mouse" answers just to check if anyone sees it. Writing something that nobody ever reads seems like it's hard to believe that's anything else except bullshit.
> On one hand, these strategies can save companies many millions of dollars, but on the other, they really produce nothing of value and are just a product of the complexities of a (human designed) tax system
Businesses that spend less money on taxes can spend more money on expenses, such as payroll and higher quality materials and land, or it can allow them to sell products/services at a lower price, providing a competitive advantage.
But they are a product of a human designed tax system, which may or may not be bullshit. There is no single clear, correct way to implement taxes.
> Businesses that spend less money on taxes can spend more money on expenses...
Does that actually happen? Small businesses, sure. My cousin's restaurant directly ploughs that money back into the business.
But it seems large corporations mostly do executive bonuses and stock buybacks.
I guess my pendant comes down to my objection over treating all "business" as the same, morally and economically. As though megacorps are same as my cousin's restaurant, my uncle's farm.
Whereas I favor excessive generosity for small and young businesses (and farmers), anything less than levying repeated radical cashectomies against large firms is a moral disaster and economic selfown.
Tax avoidance just moves the tax burden around, it doesn't create value.
Tax collection and tax compliance does create value, but spending time specifically figuring out how to pay as little taxes as possible creates no value. It see likely that some level of bullshit jobs are an unavoidable side-effects of value producing activities. The interesting part of the idea comes from thinking about how we can structure those value producing activities to minimize the bullshit side-effects and thus increase economic efficiency.
Taxes are an area with a lot of low hanging fruit, unfortunately Intuit and other tax prep companies spend a lot of money lobbying to maximizing the bullshit jobs side effects of taxation because it makes them more money.
I disagree here. Instead of calling it “tax avoidance” let’s just talk about reducing your tax burden as much as possible. This is the prudent move for any individual or tax paying entity.
Taking advantage of your roth, 401k, homestead exemption, writing off losses, etc… absolutely provides value to the tax payer. The value is literally more money for the tax payer who can now further participate in the economy.
The accounting industry employs loads of people. Is that not “value?”
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> Tax avoidance just moves the tax burden around, it doesn't create value.
only if you believe that taxes paid is automatic value added to society.
> pay as little taxes as possible creates no value
it doesn't create value, it retains value for those who created it.
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The most boring tax system is a landvalue tax and nothing else.
I just had to produce 10 separate “deliverables” for a single-server internal use web site that is already archived and read-only.
Test plans, migration plans, operations guides, etc…
Most will never be read by another human being. They exist only because they “have to”.
It’s soul-crushing “work”.
> "Is your job set up to fulfill tasks that were, generally, arbitrarily designed by some gatekeeper?"
But isn’t this basically every job that doesn’t directly support a human need (like food, clothing, shelter)? Just arbitrarily working to meet some other human’s desires?
Meeting a desire is not a bullshit job, depending on the desire. One example in the book is a receptionist. Some places need receptionists to answer phones or receive packages, but one receptionist was hired at a firm that didn't need her to do any work - but a competing firm in the same building had one, so they wanted one too. Meeting your desire for nice hair, even a desire for a butler to pick up your laundry or whatever, is still meeting a need, but it's less superfluous than "I need you to sit there because someone else has someone who does something similar)
I'm not arguing that it's about meetings some other human's desires. Indeed, jobs that give real pleasure or sense of accomplishment to other people (actors, massage therapists, yoga teachers, personal trainers, artists, language coaches, yada yada) I find incredibly valuable.
I'm talking about when someone, specifically a gatekeeper, creates what is basically a little tedious maze for you to run, not for their own pleasure, not even for someone else's pleasure, but often just to justify their own job, usually in a "CYA" fashion.
I don't know of any arbitrary tasks set up by gatekeepers. I mean, people don't just sit around and think up stupid tasks for fun. These jobs usually arise something like this:
In order to process request X, we need pieces of information A, B, C, D. Users frequently send in incomplete information. So we have to hire someone to check that all the required information is provided and accurate.
Yeah, it's kind of bullshit because it wouldn't be needed if people just did the right thing, but people are people, and they don't. In some cases it can be replaced with a web form with proper validation, but sometimes the information is something you can't verify with Javascript (like checking for a valid driver's license or something), so you need a human. So it goes.
I'm not a communist, but I recognize that one of the economic arguments for the State owning the means of production is that there's no longer any need for such jobs on a per-organization level. Why engage in tax-avoidance when the sum total of corporate profits belongs to the State anyway? Why answer per-client security questionnaires when the State audits and polices your security before certifying the company, so that it can continue to play a part in the State-managed economy? Why employ marketers and salespeople when the State guarantees demand? Etcetera.
Of course, in the real world, we understand that theoretical economic efficiency isn't quite as attainable as the real efficiency that is made possible with price signalling. Demand is a fickle and complex beast that eludes the best intentions of the best central planners. But, as contrasted to that theoretical efficiency, a price-signalled economy involves some waste and costs. This is fine / acceptable as long as we appreciate that it permits a larger system that is better than the alternative.