Bullshit job
 | The topic of this article may not meet Wikipedia's general notability guideline. (June 2025) |
A bullshit job is meaningless or unnecessary wage labour which the worker is obliged to pretend to have a purpose.[1] The concept was coined by anthropologist David Graeber in a 2013 essay in Strike Magazine, On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs, and elaborated upon in his 2018 book Bullshit Jobs.[2]
Graeber also formulated the concept of bullshitization, where previously meaningful work turns into a bullshit job through corporatization, marketization or managerialism.[3]
Examples
[edit]Graeber gives these examples of jobs he considers "completely pointless, unnecessary, or pernicious":
- A doorman or receptionist who has little to do in practice, but who was hired as a status symbol[2]
- Public relations promoting organizations that are already well-known and well-liked[2]
- Customer service people, if the main job is to apologize for problems that should not happen, and the manager uses the customer service staff as a way to avoid solving the underlying problem[2]
- People involved in unnecessary paperwork, such as creating a report that no one reads or relies on[2]
- Managers whose employees need no managerial assistance, or who invent and assign busy work[2]
Perceived value
[edit]Polling in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, in 2015, indicated that around 40% of workers did not believe that their job made a meaningful contribution to the world.[2]
See also
[edit]- Americans with No Abilities Act – Satire about low-skill workers that was once misunderstood as a real news report
- Boondoggle – Project that continues despite its wastefulness
- Busywork – Work that creates only an illusion of value
- Critique of work – Criticism of work as such
- Dilbert principle – idea that less-competent workers are promoted to management
- Emotional labour – Work managing feelings and expressions
- Enshittification – Systematic decline in online platform quality
- Interpassivity – Opposite of something that is interactive
- Make-work job – Non-market jobs used to reduce unemployment
- McJob – Pejorative work-related slang
- Parkinson's law – Adage that work expands to fill its available time
- Presenteeism – Pressure to work while sick
- Quaternary sector of the economy – Sector of an economy based on knowledge and skill
- Refusal of work – Behavior in which a person refuses regular employment
- Sinecure – Office or job with a salary but which requires little to no actual responsibility
- Underemployment – Underutilization of workers' talents or skills in employment
- Vacuum activity – Instinctive behavior performed when there is nothing else to do
- Workhouse – Institution for those unable to support themselves
References
[edit]- ^ Graeber, David (2018). Bullshit Jobs. Simon & Schuster. p. 10. ISBN 978-1-5011-4331-1.
- ^ a b c d e f g Heller, Nathan (2018-07-06). "The Bullshit-Job Boom". The New Yorker.
- ^ Graeber, David (2018-05-06). "Are You in a BS Job? In Academe, You're Hardly Alone". The Chronicle of Higher Education.
Further reading
[edit]- Your Call Is Important to Us: The Truth About Bullshit by Laura Penny
External links
[edit]- On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs, Strike Magazine (August 2013)
- Graeber, David (2018). Bullshit Jobs, via The Anarchist Library.
 | This economic theory related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
 | This job-, occupation-, or vocation-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
 | This labor-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |