Do you think your job is pointless? Would the world be different (maybe even better) if your job didn’t exist?
I’ve recently been reading the 2018 book Bullshit Jobs by the anthropologist David Graeber, which popularised the term bullshit jobs.
A bullshit job is a job that is so pointless or unnecessary that even the person doing it believes that it shouldn’t exist. This could be a job preparing reports or documents that nobody actually reads. Or doing something that does not really need to be done. The jobs might be considered successful, but if they disappeared tomorrow, absolutely nothing would change.
Often, everyone involved knows that the work is pointless, but people still have to pretend that it is meaningful.
I’d to explore this topic of bullshit jobs today. I’d recommend reading Graeber’s book as well! And, by the end, I’m going to ask you an uncomfortable question: Do you have a bullshit job?
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