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by twobitshifter 1253 days ago
The world is full of bullshit jobs and bullshit tasks that are unproductive. The next button sending that email for you will balloon the growing pile of bullshit, but look like productivity to passive analysis. So yes our lifestyles have improved, but our work on bullshit is not responsible for those improvements.
2 comments
xyzelement 1253 days ago
I keep hearing this but I never had a bs job, don't know anyone who's hired for one (also it doesn't make sense.)

What is your job that you do?

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JoelMcCracken 1253 days ago
I recently worked for a company that I ultimately realized by the time I was leaving that the whole thing was a BS job. I was doing real, good work, but the entire org was so dysfunctional that the project was doomed to failure. And I'm not entirely sure that ultimately this wasn't known somehow from the top; idk, I really feel like the CIO who was running it had some significant problems, she did a lot of magical thinking/was delusional.
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rnk 1253 days ago
Wow, this exactly describes my work in a dysfunctional startup. We set impossible time goals and don't make them. We are making progress on our software project. The goal of this is a faster something, but our only demonstrated and tested scenarios were extremely optimized by us. I don't see us actually being useful in general cases. In such a situation, I am just trying to hang on until my options vest and then move on.
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JoelMcCracken 1253 days ago
Ah. Well, if its that dysfunctional, will the options be worth anything?
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rnk 1253 days ago
I have thought about that. It's hard to estimate the value of unlikely to succeed company options. The answer of course is do your own startup, so you can be the one making foolish decisions and causing chaotic development, instead of someone else.
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twobitshifter 1253 days ago
You should read the book on this if you’re really interested but here’s a review. https://www.mudamasters.com/en/personal-growth/bullshit-jobs...

I work in consulting so a large part of my job is acting as a box ticker or task master to use Graeber’s definition.

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jrwoodruff 1253 days ago
Now I'm just picturing AI generating and sending emails so another AI can craft and send a response back.
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