/biz/ - Business & Finance

>>17520239
I get the feeling a lot of jobs are just there to prop up the economy.

No, its definitely more than 50%

>>17520239
Yeah. Most jobs are pretty worthless, especially the office ones.

>>17520239
Have you ever called a the govt of a major city? They are all worthless.

>>17520253
This, especially government bureaucratic jobs. What else are all them black baby mommas gonna do

>>17520239
>>17520257

>>17520253
>>17520239
fake jobs exist to help goyim pay back debts for their fake college degree, which they only got in the first place to get a job and not out of true passion for learning. debts are fake money that prop up the economy. people who win the lottery are no different than people who suddenly become famous online and get free money from simps and advertising. it's all fake and gay. the true "real" niggas are the ones doing hard labor but they are also weak for becoming enslaved. there's no clear way out.

t. former marketingfag who lived with the dread that the work being done was ultimately pointless as a good product can essentially sell itself through customer word of mouth without the need for ads.

>>17520239
He's right and it's just getting worse. I've been thinking about starting a consultancy to help companies eliminate bullshit jobs. Who's with me?

>>17520239
ham mane he full of shit
over 70% ain't worth shit

>The author contends that more than half of societal work is pointless, both large parts of some jobs and, as he describes, five types of entirely pointless jobs:

>1. flunkies, who serve to make their superiors feel important, e.g., receptionists, administrative assistants, door attendants
>2. goons, who act aggressively on behalf of their employers, e.g., lobbyists, corporate lawyers, telemarketers, public relations specialists
>3. duct tapers, who ameliorate preventable problems, e.g., programmers repairing shoddy code, airline desk staff who calm passengers whose bags don't arrive
>4. box tickers, who use paperwork or gestures as a proxy for action, e.g., performance managers, in-house magazine journalists, leisure coordinators
>5. taskmasters, who manage—or create extra work for—those who don't need it, e.g., middle management, leadership professionals[2][1]

All of these jobs solve unavoidable problems, improve specialization, or otherwise provide positive elements to the commercial world. Suggesting they're "bullshit" reeks of McKinsey dorks who think employees must work 480 minutes in an 8 hour day.

>David Rolfe Graeber (/ˈɡreJbər/; born February 12, 1961) is an American anthropologist, anarchist activist and author known for his 2011 Debt: The First 5000 Years, 2015 The Utopia of Rules and 2018 Bullshit Jobs: A Theory. He is a professor of anthropology at the London School of Economics.[1]

Oh, that explains a lot, he's a useless dipshit himself. All anthropologists and anarchists could die overnight and our society would actually improve.

>>17520422
Wait, a quality reply on biz? This must be the first all day.

>>17520239
Why, what do you mean with "produce nothing"

>>17520506
that they are essentially being paid through central planning to do the equivalent of digging holes and filling them back up again; not providing anything of value to anyone, only being paid through the coercion of the violent mafias calling themselves nation states

>>17520484
Here's another one - a bit of anthropology that anthropologists haven't figured out (or publicized) because they're failures. When generating insults or attacks, people will often source them from their own insecurities. Someone calling you ugly or stupid often thinks they themselves are ugly or stupid.

So if someone calls out others for uselessness...

>>17520239
i feel like i produce nothing of value at my work yet they pay me

>>17520566
What do you do normally and what do you do during the most busy/high-stress days in a typical year?

>>17520422
>>17520549
If you read the book you'll realize that his observations are based on people actually describing their positions as useless. He didn't make this stuff up. The book is based on self-reports like this: >>17520566

>>17520575
mostly chit chat, sit in the toilet for an hour. i do computer work (word excel) slowly while my supervisor is present. goof off on my phone when he's not

>>17520302
Hell even advertising makes a lot more sense than a lot of jobs you’ve got going these days. Fake jobs based on arbitrary definitions of value to prop up an economy based on the ridiculous notion of needing continued growth to proxy for “progress”. I’ve been trading crypto for a few years now, did some work at this regional hedge fund in my country and though I suppose most of the people I know would consider me successful, the sense of pride in my work has disappeared long ago once I realised that really it’s all for nothing

>>17520422
>Oh, that explains a lot, he's a useless dipshit himself.
Hesold way more books than you though.

>>17520591
no idea why you're tagging me, I couldn't agree more
I was just explaining why such positions originate to begin with

>>17520239

Entire governments are created to solve problems they themselves are causing.

>>17520626
Tagged the wrong post, sorry anon

>>17520239
>muh book with profanity in the title to pander to millennials and below

>>17520257
This

>>17520644
>t. zoomer who thinks he’s smart

>>17520641
thou art forgiven, fren

>>17520591
A soldier doesn't need to know the entire strategy of the war. So of course some cashier wagie wouldn't understand what they're doing for company insurance premiums or revenue enhancement relative to a self-checkout.

>>17520595
That makes you a bad employee (or one smarter than your supervisor), it doesn't mean your actual work is therefore useless.

>>17520620
Wow, you're right, he's another Malcolm Gladwell. Really improving the world that way. Lot of paper printed and shipped. Guy's gotta be important.

>>17520557
>Here's another one - a bit of anthropology that anthropologists haven't figured out (or publicized) because they're failures.
The guy is a pretty famous public intellectual and his books have sold pretty well.

>>17520557
>When generating insults or attacks
The book is actually based on what people who have bullshit jobs told him, just like >>17520566
>>17520595

>>17520674
>Wow, you're right, he's another Malcolm Gladwell. Really improving the world that way.
If people are buying the books it's because there's some value to them.

>>17520422
>All of these jobs solve unavoidable problems
>missing the entire point
Nice work retard

>>17520239
Low estimate. It's really subjective but you could say that if drug dealing isn't a valid job, the entire fast food industry isn't valid either. Marketing is an entire industry based on fucking up rational decisionmaking.

>>17520704
>If people are buying the books it's because there's some value to them.
No, it's because they got swindled by the attention-grabbing title and cover (religion is bullshit lol) and paid reviews.

>>17520687
All those trees and all those book sales and what? The NY Times Best Seller List drops him a month from now and the midwits who gave him money let their texts rot on the credenza. By his metrics, his work is bullshit.

>>17520704
>If people are buying the books it's because there's some value to them.
And if people are buying employee labor it's because there's some value to it.

>>17520422
This. Graeber suggests we can do away with the bureaucratic, legalistic, technical and financial white collar professions that arise from the necessity of maintaining a wealthy, complex modern economy, and this will free up a big pile of wasted money we can all use to self actualize and become musicians or whatever, while still enjoying our current level of technology and material comforts. Either take the full Kaczynski pill, or accept that there will be lawyers and programmers.

>>17520239
i havn't read the book, but as a corporate wageslave i could see about 25% of these positions cut with no significant affect to operations.

>>17520704
That’s not necessarily true at all
>>17520734
But by your logic it is.

>>17520317
ur a genius do it

>>17520317
Is this a dad joke?

>>17520317
Kek underrated

>>17520776
The value in midwit Gladwell-type books are giving strivers something to read on flights. Distraction from the environment of business (or, worse, economy) class is what it primarily delivers.

Is that bullshit? Should those normies instead just be happy with their thoughts and the pleasant company of the fat guy in 18C?

That's at the crux of the "bullshit" designation Graeber and the complaining wagies don't understand. There's often non-obvious value in things.

>>17520838
Yes all activities are valuable anon. Scrolling through shitty memes on Instagram is a valuable activity because hey it’s better than being left with my thoughts huh, reading bullshit books with no real artistic or intellectual value or depth is valuable, so is all the fast food entertainment people consume. You completely fail to see the point being made. It’s not about “non-obvious value“ so much as it is about non-obvious non-value. I haven’t read the book and it’s clear you haven’t either so I won’t attempt to defend it like I have but unless you have an unquestioning belief in the system (don’t like to use that word because it sounds decidedly “hippy-ish” but you know what I mean) and in consumerism and in a culture of just constant needless consumption to keep us constantly occupied with things of negligible value, then it should be fairly clear what he’s getting at. And if you do well, maybe you’ll grow up someday. And this is coming from someone who for most of his life considered himself to be a card carrying capitalist, hell my career is about as capitalist as it gets. Doesn’t mean I’m not honest with myself about it

>>17520674
yeah i guess. the 30 minutes a day of actual work i do is valuable enough to make up for the other 7 hour 30 min im there. otherwise they would let me go

>>17520838
To add on to what I was saying, it is this arbitrary system which requires constant “growth” and uses a very shaky definition of “progress” which has made mankind’s activities increasingly unsustainable and has pushed so many people to become wholly dependent on a system that doesn’t necessarily take care of them at the expense of being self-reliant and adaptable. Just look at the most developed nations currently which are at the more advanced stages of this system/process, look at how people have become in these countries especially the younger generations who’ve only ever seen this system at the height of its hegemony. I can’t be bothered to go too in depth about this because I’m tired and this is only 4chan but just because something provides “value” according to some arbitrary half-baked commercial ideals doesn’t mean it actually provides real value to humanity, unless you think all we are are guinea pigs continuously running on that wheel, whose only purpose and capacity is to satisfy our dopamine addictions and just always look for the next thing.

50% of all people are worthless and produce nothing

>>17520838
>There's often non-obvious value in things.
The book is based on people describing how they produce nothing in their jobs. Graeber didn't make this stuff up. Those people reached out to him to vent about their frustrations and feeling of worthlessness. If a worker tells you his job is useless, you have to take him seriously.

>>17520557
Yeah so when that hot ethot calls you a fat ugly incel it’s because she’s really a fat ugly incel.

>>17520239
We have 50% of the working age population that isn't capable of producing anything of value, and no low skilled labor jobs for them to fill. They have to be employeed somehow to be taxed and so they can buy things (propping up the consumer economy). Thus, bullshit jobs.

Fat niggers, fat women, very fat men, very weak skinny men, partially disabled or minor mental illness, all nigger women. These people for the most part dont contribute to society, and for the most part if they are employed they have bullshit jobs.

>>17520758
This Graeber fella sounds like he might be a linkmarine.

I have one of the listed bullshit jobs. It is bullshit and if my job didn’t exist I don’t think the world would be worse off. But does anyone else not really give a shit? I’ve never taken pride in my work—I’m there to get a paycheck and invest. Is this the black pill?

>>17520257
This. If it doesn't fulfill the base of maslow's hierarchy (safety and physiology), it's unnecessary. Prostitution is more important than a movie theater, for example.

>>17521067
Working a corporate desk job can indeed feel pointless and soul crushing, because you are a small cog in a vast enterprise whose function is to generate profits. Interviewing one of the cogs venting his frustrations can give useful insights, but doesn't constitute an analysis. If my company pays me a salary, I am adding at least that much $ value to the enterprise. It doesn't matter if I only do 2 hours of generative work in a 40 hr work week. It doesn't matter how stupid and mundane my job "feels" to me personally. If my position were to cease to exist, it would damage the company's profit generating ability because the removal of that one cog causes downstream complications in the complex network sustaining the life of the corporation. I sympathize with the low level corporate lawyers who told Graeber their jobs feel useless. I still don't know how we take an axe to the entire profession of corporate law without triggering huge disruptions in the global economy.

>>17520302
>t. former marketingfag who lived with the dread that the work being done was ultimately pointless as a good product can essentially sell itself through customer word of mouth without the need for ads.
thats literally me but I make so much money and have fun doing it so I will keep scam- I mean giving value to boomers kek

Graeber is pretty good and if you pair his book debt with micheal hudsons work on the same subject it makes a pretty compelling argument.

>>17520239

Fake jobs:
All government especially teachers (we could save endless tax money by firing all teachers and paying a couple firms to produce educational videos we can watch from home)

Real jobs:
Sales and anything else where pay is directly affected by performance

>Become engineer
>Design the air conditioning system for buildings
>Seems useful, seems like something society really needs because without proper air conditioning, buildings turn into a moldy mess
>All the buildings I work on are casinos and Disney theme parks where bugmen go to consoom
>All of my coworkers are those same bugmen who can't help jizzing themselves over the latest Disney ride

>>17520239

Its true, modern technology has made it so we all could collectively work <10/week. And many economist predicted this in the early 1900s when work hours were going down from 6-7 days a week, 10+ hours a day, to the modern 40 hour work week. Problem is once we hit 40 hours for some reason people couldn't accept that working less than that would be ok so we just kept showing up at work to put in 40 hours. While most of that time is spend zoned out, browsing the internet, trying not to fall asleep from 1-3pm, long lunch hours, etc. The average office worker probably only does 10 hours of work a week and spends the rest of the time trying to look busy or inventing useless bullshit to make them look like better workers.

>>17520557
Isn’t that called projection?

>>17521440
>we could save endless tax money by firing all teachers
Imagine posting that while namefagging as "Warren Buffet" hahahahaha

>>17521353
marketing/advertising is sort of valuable because you are essentially providing communication to the public and informing them of why they would benefit from the product/service you are marketing. the problem is that most products/services aren't very necessary. many of my past clients were women's fashion/jewelry products for example. completely unnecessary. women belong at home raising kids, not in careers during the day and then shopping on the weekend so they can flaunt their wealth with jewelry and shit. it was extremely demoralizing for me to deal with those types of clients and products. thus i quit and have been poor ever since.

>>17521460
AC isn't really necessary if the building was designed by architects who studied the classics. how did past civilizations like the romans and greeks go without AC for hundreds of years. clearly something is flawed in modern buildings if they get moldy and fucking hot. i'm not shitting on your job, i'm just saying the whole system is fucked and thus creates more problems and demand for solutions.

for example, just the inefficiency of Google led to the creation of a whole new industry called SEO in the early 2000's.

>>17521636
imagine: retarded "PoC" diversity hires get cushy job at architect firm. they design some shit-tier building that looks like a stack of straw mixed with glass. no natural air circulation, no use of breathable materials, etc. thus this building will need complicated HVAC systems.

>>17520268
Used to work in government. Wven outside government most don't seem all that helpful.

>apply for job
>email from gov wagie received
>if you have issues with the exam process please contact me
>issue crops up
>contact gov wagie after tech support said it's handled by the gov wage
>majority of the time no response

Yet when I worked in government i noticed something very peculiar. The higher up the ladder you are, the more you can avoid your responsibility. Except when you are at the lowest rung, which is where i was. Absolutely horrible, i had to finish the actual work that came in from outside with deadline. I couldnt just ignore an email. Id quickly get blamed by management even when the email wasn't directed at me. The worst part was I had to teach those who got paid approx. 1.5 to 2 times as much as me on how to do basic things. One of them was for a job I wasn't considered for even though I knew the majority of the job aspects and instead someone who had no idea was hired. I had to teach her stuff. Or my former supervisor who would forget how to do things and ask me on a daily to weekly basis how to do things. This was something she'd do on a daily basis for a few years before I even started working there and even I worked there she somehow needed my help!

At this point I've realised that if I want a cushy gov job it needs to be higher level where I can do what all those gov workers do, ignore their work responsibilities with no repercussions.

>>17520239
Anyone who has wageslaved long enough knows this is true. There are a massive number of people with worthless jobs. These people barely do anything all day and what little they do they tend to drag out to make it seem like they're busy

>>17521680
>imagine thinking this is a thing that started with the bullshit diversity culture
You do realise this is a relatively recent cultural development mainly in the US and UK meanwhile this type of shitty architecture exists everywhere and goes back decades or are you just that retarded

>>17521636
>how did past civilizations like the romans and greeks go without AC for hundreds of years

By not being pussies who cry gallons of tears when the temperature reaches 76 degrees, not making entire walls out of glass, and by living at roughly the same latitude as Chicago.

Build a hotel out of glass in Florida or LA for the bugmen that I mentioned in my previous post, and you'll see why they consider air conditioning to be important.

>>17520422
>3. duct tapers, who ameliorate preventable problems, e.g., programmers repairing shoddy code
Total bullshit! Even if you're self publishing a novel that doesn't have the same need to be stringent as code, it is always good to have someone else to read it to find typos etc.

>>17521323
Based

>>17521922
>By not being pussies who cry gallons of tears when the temperature reaches 76 degrees
Anon, they had and still have quite advanced and impressive AC.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windcatcher

A job is simply an extension of labor to an individual or machine that others don't want or can't do. By that definition every job can be deemed worthless. Everything thing in this life will ultimately be met with the same conclusion of nihilism and worthlessness so find purpose and meaning in hobbies and just go along with the current system until the inevitable post scarcity society takes place.

>>17522131
>just go along with the current system
Cuck mentality

>>17522162

1 man can't change a system but he can ride along with the wave.

>>17522004
I plan on utilizing something like this when I make it and build my own house in a plot of land for away from big cities. Apparently it's only effective if your climate has diurnal temperature variation.

>>17522170
Just because you can’t change something doesn’t mean you have to just go along with what everyone else is doing like an absolute NPC which is what you sound like

>>17522211

So what's your solution? I just be a neet and not have a life because I'm living like a bum because most jobs are deemed bullshit?

>>17522195

The air will move, no matter where you are. The tendency of warm air to go up that tower is called "stack effect." But, you see how the warm air coming in is cooled by evaporating water into it? That's called a swamp cooler and it is effective only if the air coming in is dry (like in the desert where these were used). If the humidity of outside air is high, you only cool the air a little bit while making it way more humid, which is how you turn your house into a moldy piece of shit.

Find a plot of land in a place with low humidity. Just so happens, low humidity tends to magnify diurnal temperature variation.

>>17520422
Graeber is a faggot, there was a good article about him on Quillete, about the fraud he pulled to commandeer a journal publication. Terrible male feminist cocksucking jew.

>>17521600
>women belong at home raising kids
this attitude makes me sad but everything else is basically correct. Pill room fags pls go. You don't have to be happy to work towards building something worth having.

>>17520239
only real jobs are the ones that keep us alive. everything else is bullshit

>>17520422
>box tickers, who use paperwork or gestures as a proxy for action, e.g., performance managers, in-house magazine journalists, leisure coordinators

I don't even understand wtf this is. Like an "in-house magazine journalist"? Someone who writes articles for magazines? How is that worthless?

>>17520422
I don't see him mentioning bankers and traders

I feel this way at work. I work in IT where If something is wrong I need to be there to fix it, but if nothing is wrong I just sit there and read tech articles and check my email constantly. I make 65k a year to do this. I wish the company would do 4 day work weeks or something but I have to be there all week in case something happens.

>>17522624
That's like the premise of insurance. It's a waste of money and useless until it's not. Your value comes from the times something actually does go wrong and you can quickly fix it

>>17522634
Youre right it just feels silly sometimes. A couple weeks ago I didnt do anything of note from Tuesday afternoon until the weekend while other people in the office were worried about some bullshit or another all week.

>>17520239
>This heckin' bookerino claims 50% of all jobs are worthless and produce nothing.
Is it accurate?
Yes, the labor force is about 50% female

>>17522649
The problem is you can't predict when something will go wrong. Another week might be just the opposite, stuff might be going wrong constantly and you have more work than everybody else.

>>17522624
any skilled job, even plumbers don't do anything all day, but get paid $100 an hour when they actually go and clean pubes from the pipes

>>17522665
Based and redpilled

>>17520239
First tier of worthless jobs are those which could be completely automated and run without any human supervision.

Second tier would be the jobs which are created purely for the sake of creating job position (often for political reasons) and small numbers of jobs given by friends/relatives to their friends/relatives - to 'keep it in the family' sort of thing, which is common but marginal.

Everything else is simply supplying demands. Older people don't like to deal with all this technology malarkey, so Costco or Tesco needs cashiers. VAT's, purchase orders or invoices comes in as printed paper, someone has to put in on company's system.

>>17521440
>paying a couple firms to produce educational videos we can watch from home


You're an actual idiot. Do you realize that a teacher's function is to baby sit as much as it is teach? If we fire every teacher, you're suddenly gonna find yourself paying $15,000/yr to watch your kids for eight hours while you're at work.

>>17520239
I don't know.
Most of our economy fulfills subjective whims.
We don't need 4chan, videogames, soda pop, hair gel, etc. We could probably on a diet of gruel, in cramped dormitories, wearing nothing but sweats, only working a few weeks or days a year, it at all. But that's the same standard of living as prison.

>>17521323
What if it helps someone else fulfill those needs more efficiently?

>>17522220
Embrace the spiritual

>>17521323
I'm old enough to remember when sex was listed under the physiological needs.

>>17520239

yes

my cousin is a tattoo artist. makes 100s of dollars a day doing nothing of value

>>17520257
This

>>17520239
99.99999% of jobs are worthless. We should strive to automate the human race out of existence.

>>17522607

Some large organizations have people in-house to create internal publications such as newsletters and even magazines.

Once every 2 months our PR guy makes a shiny magazine about shit nobody cares about

>>17522624

Yet it's still cheaper to pay you a full-time salary than hire outside help whenever the need arises.

>>17520422

>>5. taskmasters, who manage—or create extra work for—those who don't need it, e.g., middle management, leadership professionals[2][1]

Stalin thought this too. Didn't work out that well for him

>>17520758
wannabe CPA here

the bureaucratic and technical aspects of corporations/society are a necessary way to prevent fraud in the business world, and saves us a lot of money in the long run

There are 3 types of transactions in the business world: recording, authorizing, and custody.

If one employee has control over 2 of these 3 transactions, they can commit fraud. The solution is to split up these transactions between multiple employees.

So if you feel useless and like you add nothing, it's probably because you're part of this change that, by its structure is completely necessary and provides value, but at the individual level feels tedious.

Food for thought. Structures like this are very common in the business world and necessary.

>>17525172
A tattoo is artist is actually a valuable job because he actually provides a service that people want. A useless job is something like an administrative assistant who does nothing but sit at a desk all day forwarding emails that nobody reads.

There actual cases of people being hired to just give the impression of someone being important.

>>17520422
Damn this anon goes hard

>>17521169
It's not entirely to prop up the consumer economy, it's also to grow and continue the current functioning government. This is why the government doesn't really care about current circumstances. Unless you start to hurt the bottom line, things may not change.

>>17522520
How is being a woman working at home sad. You can do so much. Sell stuff online, garden, dude there's literally sooo much. Why do some people continually flow with discontentedness. It's crazy.

>>17524503
Depends if it creates difficulty in other areas or for others in the process

i get paid 100k to copy and paste stuff in excel and powerpoint.

>>17526344
This is true. Also aspiring accountant. Particularly with the advent and ever pervasive integration of technology into the business environment, separation of duties has become one of the kings in standard practice of mitigating internal liability (aka fraud and misappropriation).

Particularly when organizations get big enough, potential vectors for illegality become very numerous. After all, who goes hunting for minnows in an ocean? Likewise, available assets to install safeguards and controlling features become available, so this is where bloated bureaucracy seems to come from and illuminates why certain (many) jobs feel pointless. It is precisely because of these controls and procedures designed to virtually eliminate fraud and misappropriation from within against all those but the most dedicated and/or senior.

>>17524544
Reproduction will be the next one to go.

>>17520239

Sure, if you're fucking and look at human being as exploitable resources we aren't very efficient.

But if you aren't retarded and understand that human beings are the reason the whole economy exists and the thing the economy exists to benefit, you understand that they don't exist to be 100% efficient, most do the bare minimum to maintain their quality of life and this means a lot of overlap is required to maintain form and functionality.

>>17520302
>there's no clear way out
actually there is
arm yourselves, train yourselves, and slaughter jewish children en masse with fire and post the footage everywhere

>>17520422
actually he's dead right, these jobs do nothing but maintain a power structure of elites that have nothing in common with any other life on earth. Jews are a demonic cancer.

>>17526707
>WHAT MAKES PEOPLE HAPPY IS IMPORTANT
>THE MEANING OF LIFE IS TO BE HAPPY
>EVERYONE IS EQUAL
>ANYTHING THAT MAKES ANYONE HAPPY IS GOOD
>LA LALA LA LA LA
these are leftists
they have no purpose for living, they were conjured into existence by the central bank and its social engineering programs.

take out the jews, take out their central bank, and these things will all kill themselves because they have no source of sustainance

I have a necessary job that is the result of other unnecessary jobs.

>>17520644
thats a funny joke did you get that from family guy?

>>17520257
Yep

>>17520239
Bullshit jobs are created by central bank stimulous of the economy.