Boss: How come you're not working? Worker: There's nothing to do. Boss: Well, you're supposed to pretend like you're working. Worker: Hey, I got a better idea. Why don't you pretend like I'm working? You get paid more than me.
Bill Hicks comedy routine
I thought this book might be relevant for the current mass firings going on with the US government. Some of the jobs being exposed are quite similar to real people in the book who wrote in to describe their situation. A lot of these stories are quite amusing. Some had nothing to do all day, some were trapped into not revealing the pointlessness of their work as it would negatively affect the manager or boss. Office politics, box tickers, writing reports that are thrown out, dressing up investigations with lots of jargon, hiring people who COULDN'T do the job etc.
Graeber does a good job exploring a lot of the fundamental issues of why we might choose our job or career. He argues that most people want to find some sort of meaning in their work. Meaningless jobs often lead to depression and despair. I know I've found this to be pretty spot on. Most of the work I enjoyed the most were jobs that I got my hands dirty and could see that I had made or created something.
We keep inventing jobs because of this false idea that everyone has to be employed at some sort of drudgery because, according to Malthusian Darwinian theory, he must justify his right to exist.
Buckminster Fuller
I remember being in my last bullshit job where we were doing monotonous work replacing the glue (PSA) that binds 2 parts of the Iphone together. For a while I was using the time to listen to Bitcoin podcasts to learn a few things while I worked. After some time the management enforced the no listening rule. Their reasoning was that other people doing different jobs couldn't listen to music, so it wouldn't be fair to everyone else. I didn't stay long.
I believe that this instinct to perpetuate useless work is, at bottom, simply fear of the mob. The mob (the thought runs) are such low animals that they would be dangerous if they had leisure; it is safer to keep them too busy to think.
George Orwell, Down and Out in Paris and London
This is one thing I'm starting to fear heading into a hyperbitcoinized world where only those providing value are the ones working. It's hard to know exactly how this will play out (currency or currencies). Having a mass unemployable mob with no job and a lot of time on their hands could be dangerous.
One thing I was a little disappointed in Graebers' final chapter was that he thinks UBI is a possible solution to less BS work and a more harmonious society. I thought he had examined pretty thoroughly the field up until this point. He does point out that money and taxes are not as they are made out to be. What I think he misses about UBI is that some things are in fact scarce like the cobalt in our phones or property in a particular area. Giving everyone an equal amount of money might get rid of a lot of BS jobs, but it would likely lead to some kind of communist second class.
I think it's worth a read if you have ever had or are currently working a BS job.