Do You Have a BS Job?

[Snerk]

It's not complete nonsense. In the US we have millions of people who are working and homeless. Three guesses as to what the ideological justification for this is. Don't worry, I'll save you the time. For those with some education in economics, the justification is 'marginal productivity theory,' ie the neoclassical dogma that people's wages reflect the worth of their contribution to a process of production. But the far more common - and electorally, politically relevant - argument is just that it's obvious that flipping a burger contributes less to society than working on a car assembly line. By contrast with the noble skilled industrial workers of yore, today's burger-flippers are just entitled millennials who want a handout and don't understand the value of hard work and blah blah blah.

The working poor exists in Europe too. By the millions. However there are plenty of us who show no interest in trying to justify this in any way shape or form, productivity theory or no. But strategizing over how to combat it is still a tricky affair. I think your post is good but misdirected.

I wasn't implying that it was at the root of your curiosity. Let me rephrase...the root of your interest is obviously curiosity. Your curiosity about things various and far ranging is one quality I admire about you. The guy who wrote the book was most likely prompted not by noirish dystopianism, but by the idea that in the current market this book would sell, and I don't actually have a problem with that either. Being a writer is a hard way to get by, not just a BS job. But what brought it to your attention as something to be curious about, and what created the current market in which such a book would sell, is the rising to the top of the cultural stew of a gas bubble stinking of "I work in a bomb factory so I'm a better citizen than that lowly burger flipper" (various substitutions available) sentiment in the US and many European countries. I personally find that more interesting than the various derived specifics.

So, take that as an apology for trying perhaps to hijack your thread onto a deeper but darker path, which I see was the only logical outcome so must have been my intention, as well as for any perceived slighting of your motives regarding your interests in the lighter hearted aspects of the subject. Carry on, my good Snerk!

Oh you always know just what to say.

 

[Lexicus]

The working poor exists in Europe too.

I don't think the problem exists there nearly to the extent that it does here, though I suppose I may be wrong about that. But here we have almost no safety net.

I think your post is good but misdirected.

I don't mean to imply that you adhere to any of the ideas I mentioned. But considering that these ideas are hugely prevalent in wider society it seems a bit odd that you would dismiss the relevance of this line of discussion entirely.

 

[brennan]

At least that's something we don't have to put up with in the UK, but yes, that's a brilliant example.

 

[Snerk]

I don't think the problem exists there nearly to the extent that it does here, though I suppose I may be wrong about that. But here we have almost no safety net.

You are correct. But the safety nets of Europe varies a lot and even with one in place a lot of people are struggling to get by.

I don't mean to imply that you adhere to any of the ideas I mentioned. But considering that these ideas are hugely prevalent in wider society it seems a bit odd that you would dismiss the relevance of this line of discussion entirely.

There might be some relevance I'm sure. I just didn't feel it related much to my own take or the few pieces I've read on the matter or the small discussions I've had.

I guess I really gotta read the damn book now.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Now, now: I view the industry as parasitic (one of many), not the workers as vermin.

Would you take a job in a "parasitic" industry?

 

[AmazonQueen]

I think it's somewhat more complicated than that. The "Protestant Work Ethic" is responsible to some degree, but IIRC an important part of Graeber's argument from his essay on BS jobs was that many jobs are made "necessary" by our crappy system of social organization. An example of that would be health insurance company people whose job is to find reasons to deny claims.

Another example would be the duplication of products.
I used to work for an insurance company. Tesco, Sainsburys, various banks all sold insurance ostensibly competing with each other.
We were the underwriters for dozens of products, all basically the same. I remember one time a customer complaining about our service and saying they were going to change to somebody else. I resisted the temptation to say thats us too.

 

[Snerk]

As someone from a place where the fish farming industry is huge let me tell you there are a lot of jobs and money in the parasite industry. Specially the salmon louse parasite.

 

[Arakhor]

Moderator Action: (More or less) acceptable terms at CFC for the full version of BS include BS and bullfeathers. Evading the auto-censor is not acceptable, particularly in the title of the thread. Bull**** is not appropriate either, as it violates the rule to either use an bowdlerism or to fully censor your swearwords.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[brennan]

Would you take a job in a "parasitic" industry?

I have had a job in a parasitic industry. Several times in fact. The rent doesn't pay itself, even in Merrie England.

 

[aelf]

Yes. And their "vast array of processes" is exemplified by a quality control bulletin that came out of a GM plant advising dealers that if they received a vehicle that had only three lug nuts on the wheels they needed to remove the gas tank and get the other lug nuts out as they could interfere with the sending unit for the fuel gauge. Apparently the "highly skilled process follower" who had the horrifically rote, mind numbingly repetitious task of impacting the lug nuts onto the wheels (which another worker had put into place) recognized that if he ended up with spare nuts he would have a problem, so when he took a quick smoke he made up the time by dropping 40% of his job into the gas tank.

As the populists, led by Trump, wail about the loss of these "good" jobs and crow about their possible return, someone should be reminding them that EVERY worker in those factories was routinely quoted as saying they did what they did so that their kids wouldn't have to.

This reminds me of the narrative boomers like to sell that they were way harder workers than the generations after them. I'd always suspected that in reality many of them liked to take coffee breaks and long lunches and were working at little more than half the speed we do now.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

This reminds me of the narrative boomers like to sell that they were way harder workers than the generations after them. I'd always suspected that in reality many of them liked to take coffee breaks and long lunches and were working at little more than half the speed we do now.

Nothing says "knock off that better than BS" more effectively than "it's obvious that WE are the ones who are actually better." Well done.

 

[Lexicus]

Nothing says "knock off that better than BS" more effectively than "it's obvious that WE are the ones who are actually better." Well done.

It's not exactly that. I think it's arguable that he's right; but the reason isn't that millennials have a better work ethic, it's that the collapse of labor's bargaining power means that bosses can freely impose work regimes that previous generations would just have laughed off.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I think it's arguable that he's right

I don't. I think if the current generation were confronted with "yeah, put these nuts on those bolts as they go by for the next two hours, take ten, do another two hours, see you at lunch...by the way, this is your life from now to the end" with none of the modern "make miserable time go by more painlessly" technology that we have now the nuts in the gas tank wouldn't be the ones we would have to worry about, it would be the ones in the break room with AK-47s.

The misery isn't quantifiable, and doesn't make either side "better than."

 

[Lexicus]

The misery isn't quantifiable, and doesn't make either side "better than."

It kinda seems like you didn't read the rest of my post

 

[Cutlass]

My job provides a necessary service. Now it may go obsolete in coming decades. But it has been necessary in the past and still is in the present.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

It kinda seems like you didn't read the rest of my post

I did. It was built up the first sentence, and appeared to be primarily justification. Basically "I don't agree (thus there is a 'better than' in play) and here's how that is an outcome of reversing the labor movement." Since I disagreed with the core element, I edited out your structure of justification for that core element to avoid digging into whether I thought the components of that structure are individually valid, since I think they are. The roll back of the labor movement has changed some things, predominantly for the worse. Advances in technology have changed, in my opinion, a whole lot more things; split between for better and for worse in a more even fashion. But the end result, in my opinion, is not quantifiable. The millennials who play their "woe is us you boomers had it so much easier" game at every turn leave me cold. Every generation or other grouping believes they have it the toughest ever, but only the stupidest and most self absorbed don't recognize that the position is false.

 

[caketastydelish]

Don't know if this is the appropriate place to share. I'm a recent college grad and I have to live at home until I have a car + some money saved up. Lack of car means I have to work I can do at home, like something remote.

Bachelors in Computer Information Systems with a minor in English. If the pay is decent I would do it regardless of whether it's "BS" or not, I'm open to suggestions.

 

[Lexicus]

Basically "I don't agree (thus there is a 'better than' in play) and here's how that is an outcome of reversing the labor movement."

I'm not attaching any value judgments to this at all.

 

[Lemon Merchant]

Hmmm. Well, basically, I spend all day listening to people's tales of woe. Does that mean I have a BS job?

You tell me.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I'm not attaching any value judgments to this at all.

Sequence of events...I disagree with a "us milleniels have it so tough that break taking boomers would just curl up and die in our shoes"...you disagree with me, in effect supporting the initial position. While you may not have attached the value judgement it is there and supported. It's hard not to have it creep in. It was about all I could manage not to fling the reverse @aelf .