Full Transcript for BS Jobs

ago 75 00:04:39.319 --> 00:04:41.579 that has now turned into a book, and you described 76 00:04:41.620 --> 00:04:45.040 an entire category of jobs. You call these bullshit jobs, 77 00:04:45.480 --> 00:04:48.500 and they're not necessarily menial jobs or boring jobs, but 78 00:04:48.519 --> 00:04:50.779 they're almost always pointless jobs. 79 00:04:51.240 --> 00:04:54.439 Yes. they're actually quite rarely menial. I mean, there are 80 00:04:54.480 --> 00:04:57.500 some cases where people were, say, hired as a museum garden, 81 00:04:57.899 --> 00:05:00.139 told to guard a room with nothing in it. That 82 00:05:00.160 --> 00:05:03.339 would be both menial and boring. But most often these 83 00:05:03.379 --> 00:05:07.579 jobs are, if nothing else, prestigious and well-paid. A lot 84 00:05:07.610 --> 00:05:11.730 of jobs like this are in middle management, they're clerical, managerial, 85 00:05:11.790 --> 00:05:16.529 administrative sort of positions, or they're positions in PR, marketing, 86 00:05:16.569 --> 00:05:23.389 human resources. Almost invariably, they are well-paid, with good benefits, 87 00:05:23.490 --> 00:05:25.629 and you get a lot of prestige, you know. Yet 88 00:05:25.730 --> 00:05:28.069 at the same time, the people who do them often 89 00:05:28.089 --> 00:05:32.350 report themselves genuinely miserable. You know, they feel they're living 90 00:05:32.389 --> 00:05:34.329 a lie. And not only that, they're living a lie 91 00:05:34.379 --> 00:05:36.879 against their will. They'd really rather be doing something useful 92 00:05:36.889 --> 00:05:37.439 with their lives. 93 00:05:38.300 --> 00:05:40.600 So when you wrote this essay a couple of years ago, 94 00:05:40.639 --> 00:05:42.920 I'm not quite sure you anticipated this, but the response 95 00:05:42.959 --> 00:05:45.899 to the essay was extraordinary. People wrote in from all 96 00:05:45.939 --> 00:05:48.879 over the world saying, help, I'm stuck in a BS job. 97 00:05:49.629 --> 00:05:51.670 Yeah. I mean, all over the world, people seem to 98 00:05:51.730 --> 00:05:54.920 recognize themselves in the story I told. And the story 99 00:05:54.980 --> 00:05:57.759 I told was almost a joke. You go to these 100 00:05:57.879 --> 00:06:00.019 parties and you talk to people who are married to 101 00:06:00.100 --> 00:06:03.480 academics or, you know, in the business world and say, well, 102 00:06:03.500 --> 00:06:05.480 what do you do? And often it's to say, oh, 103 00:06:05.519 --> 00:06:08.220 nothing really. And, you know, at first they thought they're 104 00:06:08.240 --> 00:06:10.699 just being modest or don't think their job is very interesting, but, 105 00:06:11.120 --> 00:06:13.040 you know, apply them with a few drinks and eventually 106 00:06:13.079 --> 00:06:15.519 they will often admit that they meant it literally. They 107 00:06:15.600 --> 00:06:19.389 literally do nothing. So, I wrote this little piece where 108 00:06:19.410 --> 00:06:22.759 I basically said, well, you know, back in the 30s, 109 00:06:22.769 --> 00:06:25.040 they thought we'd be working a 15-hour week by now. 110 00:06:25.069 --> 00:06:28.540 They thought that mechanization would mean we'd be living lives 111 00:06:28.600 --> 00:06:33.639 of leisure. But instead of just decreasing the working week, 112 00:06:33.680 --> 00:06:35.540 what they seem to have done is just made up 113 00:06:35.579 --> 00:06:38.819 these imaginary jobs to keep us all busy. It's almost 114 00:06:38.860 --> 00:06:41.980 as if there's like some fiendish intelligence making up pointless 115 00:06:42.040 --> 00:06:44.420 positions for us to do. How did this happen? And 116 00:06:44.439 --> 00:06:48.189 I wrote this piece, and it just went crazy. I 117 00:06:48.829 --> 00:06:51.589 really didn't anticipate anything like it. I mean, all over 118 00:06:51.629 --> 00:06:54.329 the world, people were translating and distributing it. The server 119 00:06:54.360 --> 00:06:58.540 kept crashing. Then they put it in newspapers, would run 120 00:06:58.579 --> 00:07:01.259 it as a column, and you'd get these comment sections, 121 00:07:01.300 --> 00:07:04.079 which were just amazing. People would say things like, oh 122 00:07:04.100 --> 00:07:07.459 my God, it's true. I'm a corporate lawyer. I contribute 123 00:07:07.500 --> 00:07:12.220 nothing to humanity. I'm just miserable all the time. Confessions 124 00:07:12.240 --> 00:07:14.100 started pouring out. So I realized this was a much 125 00:07:14.160 --> 00:07:16.480 larger phenomena than I had even imagined. 126 00:07:18.949 --> 00:07:21.930 I understand that polls have been conducted asking people, do 127 00:07:21.970 --> 00:07:23.769 you think your job is meaningless? Do you think your 128 00:07:23.790 --> 00:07:25.290 job is pointless? What do they tell us? 129 00:07:26.069 --> 00:07:29.110 Well, yeah, that actually surprised me because even after the 130 00:07:29.149 --> 00:07:34.259 outpouring on the Internet, I thought, OK, you know, maybe 15, 131 00:07:34.259 --> 00:07:37.449 20 percent of jobs are like this. And remember, these 132 00:07:37.490 --> 00:07:40.870 are people who think their own jobs are pointless. I mean, 133 00:07:40.889 --> 00:07:42.769 I'm not going to go and tell somebody who feels 134 00:07:42.829 --> 00:07:44.790 his job is meaningful that they're wrong. But, you know, 135 00:07:44.850 --> 00:07:47.250 if you feel you're not doing anything all day, who 136 00:07:47.269 --> 00:07:50.079 would know better than you? All right. So after a while, 137 00:07:50.139 --> 00:07:53.480 they conducted some surveys. And one of them was YouGov. 138 00:07:53.920 --> 00:07:55.540 And then later, they did another one in Holland. And 139 00:07:55.560 --> 00:07:57.800 they both came up with pretty much exactly the same results. 140 00:07:58.180 --> 00:08:02.560 Between 37% to 40% of all people who had jobs 141 00:08:03.060 --> 00:08:05.579 were convinced that if their job didn't exist, it would 142 00:08:05.600 --> 00:08:06.579

make no difference at all. 143 00:08:06.819 --> 00:08:08.490 That is a huge number, David. 144 00:08:08.560 --> 00:08:13.050 It's insane. I had no idea. And that's the people 145 00:08:13.069 --> 00:08:15.350 who were sure of it. Only 50% of people were 146 00:08:15.389 --> 00:08:17.170 sure their jobs made a difference. Absolutely. 147 00:08:17.189 --> 00:08:17.389 Absolutely. 148 00:08:18.009 --> 00:08:19.610 And if you think about all the types of jobs, 149 00:08:19.689 --> 00:08:22.129 no one would possibly doubt that they're fulfilling a useful 150 00:08:22.189 --> 00:08:24.310 social function. I mean, you know, I'm sure the number 151 00:08:24.329 --> 00:08:28.269 of bus drivers, the number of nurses, the number of 152 00:08:28.569 --> 00:08:32.309 mechanics and repairmen, also service workers, actually. You know, I 153 00:08:32.669 --> 00:08:36.169 eventually asked people to send in testimonies and stories about 154 00:08:36.200 --> 00:08:38.149 their most pointless jobs, and almost none of them were 155 00:08:38.169 --> 00:08:41.299 in service or retail. It was almost all office workers, 156 00:08:41.460 --> 00:08:44.200 almost all people who had jobs where, you know, you 157 00:08:44.240 --> 00:08:45.899 kind of see them there and you kind of wonder, 158 00:08:45.940 --> 00:08:48.610 is that guy really doing anything? Well, it turns out, 159 00:08:48.620 --> 00:08:50.389 you know, they're not. 160 00:08:52.570 --> 00:08:54.750 You know, David, in your book, you describe the story 161 00:08:54.789 --> 00:08:58.450 of Kurt, who is a German military subcontractor, and he 162 00:08:58.529 --> 00:09:02.149 feels his job is utterly pointless. Why does he feel 163 00:09:02.169 --> 00:09:02.470 this way? 164 00:09:03.450 --> 00:09:06.610 Yes, this is one of the first really elaborate examples 165 00:09:06.629 --> 00:09:08.929 I got of the kind of job I was talking about, 166 00:09:08.980 --> 00:09:12.820 given to me spontaneously by someone on the web. He said, 167 00:09:12.879 --> 00:09:19.750 you know, I'm a subcontractor to a subcontractor to a subcontractor, 168 00:09:20.110 --> 00:09:23.690 all private firms who work for the German military. And 169 00:09:23.929 --> 00:09:27.929 he said, you know, because of outsourcing, if a German 170 00:09:28.029 --> 00:09:32.419 soldier wants to move his desktop computer from one office 171 00:09:32.480 --> 00:09:34.919 to another, he actually has to fill out a bunch 172 00:09:34.960 --> 00:09:38.700 of forms. He calls human resources. They call logistics. They 173 00:09:38.740 --> 00:09:39.100 call me. 174 00:09:40.590 --> 00:09:43.570 Kurt, Sie müssen diesen Computer umstellen, aber schnell. 175 00:09:44.049 --> 00:09:46.909 And I have to drive 500 kilometers sometimes if I 176 00:09:46.970 --> 00:09:49.909 rent a car, drive to wherever this military base is, 177 00:09:50.309 --> 00:09:52.590 fill out a raft of forms, put the thing in 178 00:09:52.629 --> 00:09:55.049 a box, it goes down the hall, somebody else takes 179 00:09:55.110 --> 00:09:56.889 out of the box, gives me another form to sign, 180 00:09:56.909 --> 00:10:07.389 and then I drive home. And that's his entire job. 181 00:10:07.409 --> 00:10:09.370 And one of the interesting things about these jobs is 182 00:10:09.389 --> 00:10:14.220 that people were often very confused about how much people 183 00:10:14.299 --> 00:10:17.850 knew and how much they could admit. Does my supervisor 184 00:10:17.909 --> 00:10:20.110 know that I spend most of the day actually making 185 00:10:20.149 --> 00:10:23.210 cat memes? Do they know I'm playing computer games? Am 186 00:10:23.230 --> 00:10:27.220 I allowed to say? To what degree do my coworkers know? 187 00:10:27.289 --> 00:10:30.620 Can I tell them? There's all these questions that people have. 188 00:10:31.019 --> 00:10:33.379 How much do I have to pretend to work? And 189 00:10:33.440 --> 00:10:35.340 how much am I just allowed to be seen to 190 00:10:35.379 --> 00:10:38.419 be just kicking back? And people are very nervous about this. 191 00:10:38.440 --> 00:10:42.700 There are all these gray zones. They'll hire someone, an engineer, 192 00:10:42.740 --> 00:10:47.610 in case the air conditioners break. for some reason, they 193 00:10:47.649 --> 00:10:50.590 find it impossible to just say, well, you're just here 194 00:10:50.610 --> 00:10:53.080 in case the air conditioners break. Otherwise, try to keep 195 00:10:53.120 --> 00:10:56.679 people out of people's way and let them play cards 196 00:10:56.799 --> 00:10:59.440 or surf the internet or do whatever they like all day. 197 00:10:59.940 --> 00:11:02.490 Somehow that's not allowed. So they have to make up 198 00:11:02.519 --> 00:11:05.009 these rituals or at the very least, you have to 199 00:11:05.049 --> 00:11:08.570 pretend to be working because it's considered somehow insulting not to. 200 00:11:09.230 --> 00:11:13.200 And often people really suffered from that. The fact that A, 201 00:11:13.279 --> 00:11:16.139 they had to pretend to some degree. They couldn't just 202 00:11:16.340 --> 00:11:20.279 pursue their own projects. And B, they're never quite sure 203 00:11:20.350 --> 00:11:22.230 how much they were allowed to pretend. 204 00:11:23.570 --> 00:11:26.230 This actually leads us to a story that you describe 205 00:11:26.289 --> 00:11:29.169 about your own life. You and some friends signed up 206 00:11:29.210 --> 00:11:32.309 to be dishwashers. And something happened on the job. 207 00:11:32.409 --> 00:11:32.590 Right. 208 00:11:32.629 --> 00:11:34.909 Something happened on the job that made you think about 209 00:11:34.929 --> 00:11:38.269 the role of time in how work is constructed. Tell 210 00:11:38.289 --> 00:11:38.809 me that story. 211 00:11:38.830 --> 00:11:39.590 Okay. 212 00:11:39.610 --> 00:11:39.789 Okay. 213 00:11:40.450 --> 00:11:42.129 This is the very first job I had. I think 214 00:11:42.169 --> 00:11:45.389 I was 14 years old, maybe 15. And it was 215

00:11:45.450 --> 00:11:49.350 at a beach resort. And I got a job working 216 00:11:49.710 --> 00:11:52.190 as a dishwasher in the kitchen. And there was a 217 00:11:52.190 --> 00:11:54.629 whole bunch of us. We were hired at the same time. 218 00:11:54.669 --> 00:11:57.509 We were all about 15 years old. And being 15-year-old boys, 219 00:11:57.570 --> 00:12:00.169 you know, when the big rush came, we took it 220 00:12:00.230 --> 00:12:02.549 on as a challenge. We were like, okay, we are 221 00:12:02.590 --> 00:12:04.830 going to be the very best dishwashers of all time. 222 00:12:05.029 --> 00:12:06.690 We're going to be so fast. We're going to be 223 00:12:06.710 --> 00:12:08.399 so efficient. The boss is going to be really impressed. So, 224 00:12:08.389 --> 00:12:10.659 you know, we went at it and we, like, Finished 225 00:12:10.700 --> 00:12:13.179 it in record time. Had this huge sparkling pile of 226 00:12:13.240 --> 00:12:19.399 dishes and kind of kicked back. Boss came in. We 227 00:12:19.960 --> 00:12:24.330 were showing off our handiwork. And he was like, what 228 00:12:24.350 --> 00:12:26.470 the hell are you guys just sitting around for? I said, well, 229 00:12:26.509 --> 00:12:28.830 we just finished all the dishes. And he said, yeah, well, 230 00:12:29.190 --> 00:12:31.889 keep working. You're on my time. You can lounge around 231 00:12:31.929 --> 00:12:33.629 on your own time. And we were like, what do 232 00:12:33.649 --> 00:12:35.450 you mean? I mean, you know, there's nothing to do. 233 00:12:35.509 --> 00:12:37.309 And he said, well, clean the baseboards. And I said, well, 234 00:12:37.330 --> 00:12:39.350 we already cleaned the baseboards. I said, clean them again. 235 00:12:40.289 --> 00:12:43.429 So we realize that there's this kind of weird idea 236 00:12:43.509 --> 00:12:46.200 that there's like my time and your time. If I 237 00:12:46.240 --> 00:12:48.980 have paid you money, I own your time and you're 238 00:12:49.019 --> 00:12:51.879 not allowed to just kick back. You're not allowed to. 239 00:12:52.220 --> 00:12:54.919 There's no point in working fast. That's what we basically learned. 240 00:12:58.620 --> 00:13:01.799 Don't be too efficient because then they'll just make up work. 241 00:13:02.220 --> 00:13:05.389 And that that. experience of doing work that you know 242 00:13:05.470 --> 00:13:08.870 isn't necessary just because the boss doesn't want to see 243 00:13:08.889 --> 00:13:12.210 you being idle is really degrading. And it got me 244 00:13:12.250 --> 00:13:16.360 to thinking this concept of my time. How can your 245 00:13:16.409 --> 00:13:20.000 time belong to someone else? How can you rent time? 246 00:13:20.649 --> 00:13:23.220 And I started doing a little research and I realized, 247 00:13:23.700 --> 00:13:27.200 not at the time, but since, that this is a 248 00:13:27.240 --> 00:13:30.100 really weird concept that just never would have occurred to 249 00:13:30.159 --> 00:13:33.879 most people who've ever

lived. In the ancient world, If 250 00:13:33.919 --> 00:13:36.580 you see a potter, if you're an ancient Roman or 251 00:13:36.600 --> 00:13:38.899 an ancient Greek, you could see a potter and you 252 00:13:39.000 --> 00:13:41.980 could imagine buying the pots. That's easy, right? You can 253 00:13:42.000 --> 00:13:45.110 imagine buying the potter. They had slavery. But the idea 254 00:13:45.120 --> 00:13:48.289 that you could rent this potter's time was just bizarre. 255 00:13:48.370 --> 00:13:50.389 It just never would have occurred to anybody. It takes 256 00:13:50.450 --> 00:13:55.370 a whole series of very complicated philosophical and also technological 257 00:13:55.889 --> 00:13:58.860 changes that make it possible to take time, make it 258 00:13:58.889 --> 00:14:01.759 into uniform units that can then therefore be bought and sold. 259 00:14:03.700 --> 00:14:06.080 You teach at the London School of Economics, but before 260 00:14:06.120 --> 00:14:09.330 that you worked at Yale University. In your book, David, 261 00:14:09.350 --> 00:14:12.669 you point out that the cost of education has skyrocketed 262 00:14:12.730 --> 00:14:15.269 in many parts of the world. The reason isn't that 263 00:14:15.350 --> 00:14:18.490 teachers are being paid more than they were before. Instead, 264 00:14:18.529 --> 00:14:22.230 you say, universities have gone out and hired an army 265 00:14:22.289 --> 00:14:24.909 of workers who are doing BS jobs. 266 00:14:25.629 --> 00:14:28.470 Yeah, this is actually really marked in America, and in 267 00:14:28.490 --> 00:14:31.590 America I have the statistics. The number of administrators has 268 00:14:31.629 --> 00:14:36.960 gone up quite sharply. much more so than teachers. But 269 00:14:37.419 --> 00:14:40.360 even more important than that, the number of administrative staff 270 00:14:40.720 --> 00:14:45.059 has just skyrocketed. It's like 240% increase over the last 271 00:14:45.059 --> 00:14:49.620 30 years. So administrative staff basically mean all those guys 272 00:14:49.639 --> 00:14:54.120 who work for the deans, for the vice provost, all 273 00:14:54.159 --> 00:14:58.279 these endless positions they're constantly making up. And what seems 274 00:14:58.360 --> 00:15:01.899 to be going on is that these people are being 275 00:15:01.960 --> 00:15:06.899 hired essentially for little reason other than making the people 276 00:15:06.980 --> 00:15:09.679 now running the universities, who are no longer the teachers, 277 00:15:09.740 --> 00:15:13.639 no longer the professors, but rather top administrators, basically feel 278 00:15:13.679 --> 00:15:16.620 good about themselves, feel important. They hire these guys who 279 00:15:16.659 --> 00:15:20.350 are basically there almost like feudal retainers. You know, I 280 00:15:20.389 --> 00:15:23.590 get hired as a vice provost, so obviously I need 281 00:15:23.629 --> 00:15:26.309 four or five assistants. You know, they decide what the 282 00:15:26.330 --> 00:15:29.070 assistants will actually do later. Assistant's trying to figure out 283 00:15:29.110 --> 00:15:33.570 something to do, so the assistant says, I know, I'll 284 00:15:33.629 --> 00:15:36.889 fill out you know, I'll do a time allocation study. 285 00:15:37.429 --> 00:15:40.100 And then suddenly people like me have to spend like 286 00:15:40.139 --> 00:15:43.500 hours every week filling out time allocation studies, breaking down 287 00:15:43.539 --> 00:15:45.419 exactly what I do at every hour of the day. 288 00:15:45.820 --> 00:15:47.399 So I can't actually do stuff because I'm filling out 289 00:15:47.419 --> 00:15:50.490 the forms. And this is how it works. Like the 290 00:15:50.529 --> 00:15:52.750 more of these guys there are in these bullshit jobs, 291 00:15:53.070 --> 00:15:55.090 the less time the people with real jobs have to 292 00:15:55.190 --> 00:15:57.889 actually do their work. And this isn't just universities. I mean, 293 00:15:57.909 --> 00:16:01.509 the same thing's happening in hospitals. More and more hospital 294 00:16:01.769 --> 00:16:05.039 administrators are means nurses have to spend more and more 295 00:16:05.120 --> 00:16:08.830 time doing paperwork and less time nursing. Primary schools, same thing. 296 00:16:08.889 --> 00:16:11.289 Teachers just have to spend all their time in meetings 297 00:16:11.350 --> 00:16:11.950 and reports. 298 00:16:17.529 --> 00:16:19.490 Okay, by this point you might be looking around at 299 00:16:19.549 --> 00:16:24.429 fellow commuters, at co-workers, at friends, and asking yourself, which 300 00:16:24.490 --> 00:16:28.789 people find their work boring and pointless? It turns out, 301 00:16:29.370 --> 00:16:41.610 there are TELs, to identify people doing bullshit jobs. Stay 302 00:16:41.629 --> 00:16:48.580 with us. It's better than a sale. 303 00:16:49.440 --> 00:16:54.590 It's our biggest kitchen event of the year. 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David Graeber has brought an anthropologist's eye to 324 00:18:03.289 --> 00:18:06.029 the life of the bored office worker, and he's come 325 00:18:06.069 --> 00:18:09.630 up with a classification system for different kinds of BS jobs. 326 00:18:10.690 --> 00:18:14.150 The first category is something he calls a duct taper. 327 00:18:14.990 --> 00:18:18.819 Rather than fix serious headaches, Many organizations take the easy route. 328 00:18:19.599 --> 00:18:22.980 They paper over the problem. David has a revealing story 329 00:18:23.220 --> 00:18:23.849 from his own life. 330 00:18:24.349 --> 00:18:27.750 This was quite early on in my time in the 331 00:18:27.849 --> 00:18:33.349 UK university system. And they had this shelf in my office. 332 00:18:33.410 --> 00:18:35.109 I was always a little worried about it. It seemed 333 00:18:35.130 --> 00:18:37.579 kind of precarious. And one day it just completely ripped 334 00:18:37.619 --> 00:18:39.500 out of the wall. There was this huge gaping hole 335 00:18:39.579 --> 00:18:44.460 in the wall. There was this mangled metal hanging over 336 00:18:44.519 --> 00:18:47.069 my desk. There's obviously no way I could fix it myself. 337 00:18:47.609 --> 00:18:51.829 And so I called, you know, buildings and grounds. And, 338 00:18:51.849 --> 00:18:55.230 you know, they said, OK, we'll send a carpenter. And 339 00:18:55.349 --> 00:18:57.990 it took about a week and a half for the 340 00:18:58.029 --> 00:19:00.759 carpenter to show up. And people in the office were calling. 341 00:19:00.819 --> 00:19:03.960 I was calling. Everybody was calling. And it became this 342 00:19:04.000 --> 00:19:06.960 daily ritual. And I gradually realized there's one guy. We 343 00:19:06.980 --> 00:19:10.519 always got the same guy whose entire job seemed to 344 00:19:10.559 --> 00:19:13.690 consist of apologizing for the fact that the carpenter is 345 00:19:13.730 --> 00:19:17.480 very busy and couldn't come. And one day it occurred 346 00:19:17.500 --> 00:19:20.990 to me, like, well, why don't they just fire that 347 00:19:21.029 --> 00:19:24.230 guy and hire a second carpenter? Because then they won't 348 00:19:24.269 --> 00:19:29.410 need him, right? And I mentioned this to various people 349 00:19:29.470 --> 00:19:31.349 and they looked at me like, yeah, right, that would 350 00:19:31.390 --> 00:19:33.960 ever happen. And I realized that this is a perfect 351 00:19:34.019 --> 00:19:39.000 example of a bullshit job. His job is only necessitated 352 00:19:39.440 --> 00:19:42.730 because the system is stupidly constructed. So he's there to, 353 00:19:43.259 --> 00:19:46.180 it's the equivalent of if you had a, a leak 354 00:19:46.200 --> 00:19:48.250 in the roof. Instead of fixing the roof, you hire 355 00:19:48.289 --> 00:19:51.059 some guy to empty a bucket every hour. You know, 356 00:19:51.420 --> 00:19:55.349 it's a totally pointless position. And gradually I realized that 357 00:19:55.400 --> 00:19:58.049 in the software industry, at least, this is called duct taping. 358 00:20:07.579 --> 00:20:10.539 I want to talk about a second category of bullshit jobs, David. 359 00:20:10.940 --> 00:20:14.000 This one involves managers who come up with meaningless assignments 360 00:20:14.019 --> 00:20:16.839 for their subordinates. You call them taskmasters? 361 00:20:17.579 --> 00:20:21.269 That's right. Now, a taskmaster is a type of bullshit 362 00:20:21.349 --> 00:20:25.569 job which involves, well, there's two different types, actually. One 363 00:20:25.609 --> 00:20:27.910 of them is simply a supervisor of people who don't 364 00:20:27.950 --> 00:20:30.450 need supervision. And a lot of middle managers wrote to 365 00:20:30.509 --> 00:20:32.289 me and said that they had that kind of job. 366 00:20:33.380 --> 00:20:36.079 Often they'd done a certain job, they got promoted to 367 00:20:36.140 --> 00:20:38.519 management jobs, So they knew what was entailed doing the 368 00:20:38.559 --> 00:20:41.480 job and they knew that basically they didn't need supervision 369 00:20:41.539 --> 00:20:43.880 at all, but they had to pretend they were supervising 370 00:20:43.920 --> 00:20:46.859 them anyway. But another type is exactly what I was 371 00:20:46.900 --> 00:20:51.670 describing in the case of universities, people whose job seems 372 00:20:51.750 --> 00:20:55.509 to end up being creating paperwork and unnecessary tasks for 373 00:20:55.549 --> 00:20:58.009 other people to do. So again, to go back to 374 00:20:58.029 --> 00:21:01.250 the middle management example, say you did have a job 375 00:21:01.289 --> 00:21:03.839 and you got promoted to supervising that job and you 376 00:21:03.859 --> 00:21:07.900 knew that they didn't need supervision. gradually you would realize 377 00:21:07.940 --> 00:21:10.700 that rather than just sit here all day, probably the 378 00:21:10.720 --> 00:21:12.920 best thing you could do to look good to your 379 00:21:12.980 --> 00:21:16.859 boss is to create some kind of target system. Give 380 00:21:16.900 --> 00:21:19.930 them paperwork to do to make sure they're hitting their targets, 381 00:21:20.049 --> 00:21:22.630 and then there'll be something to file and process, and 382 00:21:23.009 --> 00:21:24.849 you'll have something that you can do. 383 00:21:25.710 --> 00:21:28.170 The classic example comes from the story of a woman 384

00:21:28.210 --> 00:21:28.750 named Chloe. 385 00:21:29.369 --> 00:21:31.730 She was one of the few people who was in 386 00:21:31.829 --> 00:21:35.839 academic administration in the higher echelons. who is willing to 387 00:21:35.880 --> 00:21:38.960 come forward and admit this to me. She said, well, 388 00:21:39.259 --> 00:21:43.400 you know, I took on this job as a non-executive dean. 389 00:21:43.420 --> 00:21:46.569 She says non-executive basically means you have no power, you 390 00:21:46.589 --> 00:21:50.450 don't control money, so you're strategic. You're supposed to come 391 00:21:50.509 --> 00:21:53.410 up with ideas, but you have no real ability to 392 00:21:53.430 --> 00:21:56.009 make anybody do that. So essentially she had a pointless 393 00:21:56.049 --> 00:21:58.150 job because she would come up with a plan and 394 00:21:58.190 --> 00:22:01.250 then nobody would pay any attention. However, she was given 395 00:22:01.470 --> 00:22:04.410 three assistants. Again, that's what happens. As soon as you 396 00:22:04.430 --> 00:22:07.329 get a prestigious position, they immediately give you assistance, and 397 00:22:07.690 --> 00:22:09.670 then you have to figure out something for them to do. 398 00:22:10.190 --> 00:22:12.710 In her case, none of them had any obvious function, 399 00:22:13.079 --> 00:22:15.619 so she had to spend her time making up things 400 00:22:15.680 --> 00:22:17.720 for them to do so they wouldn't get in trouble 401 00:22:17.759 --> 00:22:18.640 for just sitting around. 402 00:22:19.339 --> 00:22:21.359 So you can have BS jobs to help the boss 403 00:22:21.420 --> 00:22:24.900 feel like he's actually necessary when he isn't. You can 404 00:22:24.920 --> 00:22:27.539 have BS jobs that are designed to paper over problems 405 00:22:27.579 --> 00:22:30.890 that an organization cannot solve or does not want to fix. 406 00:22:31.890 --> 00:22:34.619 David also describes a third type of BS job. On 407 00:22:34.650 --> 00:22:38.000 the surface, these jobs are not pointless, but the only 408 00:22:38.039 --> 00:22:42.759 reason an organization has them is because other organizations have them. 409 00:22:43.819 --> 00:22:47.859 David calls the people who work these jobs goons. I 410 00:22:47.920 --> 00:22:49.039 asked him what he meant by the term. 411 00:22:49.440 --> 00:22:51.400 I had to make that up because so many people 412 00:22:51.480 --> 00:22:54.339 wrote to me with jobs that I hadn't really anticipated. 413 00:22:54.799 --> 00:22:59.569 Jobs which involved a certain element of aggression, which might 414 00:22:59.609 --> 00:23:04.109 have seemed necessary or helpful to the corporation, they weren't 415 00:23:04.150 --> 00:23:08.349 completely useless, but that the people doing them felt shouldn't 416 00:23:08.410 --> 00:23:13.480 exist anyway, largely because they felt the entire industry or 417 00:23:13.519 --> 00:23:17.740 profession was unnecessary. So telemarketers were a great example. 418 00:23:17.759 --> 00:23:20.119 Telemarketers felt strongly that, I mean, 95% of telemarketers, I'm sure, 419 00:23:20.140 --> 00:23:20.599 feel strongly. 420 00:23:20.460 --> 00:23:30.289 That If all telemarketers were to vanish in a puff 421 00:23:30.329 --> 00:23:33.609 of smoke, the world would be a better place. But 422 00:23:33.710 --> 00:23:35.890 a lot of corporate lawyers feel that way, too. I mean, 423 00:23:35.930 --> 00:23:38.069 you know, sure, there's some higher-ups who would argue, no, 424 00:23:38.130 --> 00:23:41.029 corporate law is very important. It holds things together. But, 425 00:23:41.309 --> 00:23:45.519 you know, most corporate lawyers I've talked to, usually the 426 00:23:45.579 --> 00:23:48.480 lower-ranking ones, will say, oh, come on. I mean, if 427 00:23:48.500 --> 00:23:50.880 this entire industry were to disappear, it would be great. 428 00:23:50.920 --> 00:23:53.160 You know, I mean, you only need a corporate lawyer 429 00:23:53.180 --> 00:23:55.440 if somebody else has a corporate lawyer. It's a little 430 00:23:55.460 --> 00:23:58.920 like a feudal lord. I mean, they always say feudal 431 00:23:58.940 --> 00:24:01.500 lords are there to protect the peasants, right? That's their 432 00:24:01.539 --> 00:24:06.490 justification for taking feudal rents. But if you really look 433 00:24:06.529 --> 00:24:08.609 into the matter, who are they protecting the peasants from? 434 00:24:09.150 --> 00:24:11.970 Other feudal lords. So if there were no feudal lords, 435 00:24:12.009 --> 00:24:18.730 feudal lords would be unnecessary. So that's why I call 436 00:24:18.759 --> 00:24:22.480 them goons. There's an element of aggression there. But on 437 00:24:22.500 --> 00:24:26.640 the other hand, You know, they're only there because other 438 00:24:26.680 --> 00:24:28.019 such aggressive people exist. 439 00:24:31.039 --> 00:24:35.440 David says another BS job is the flunky. These jobs 440 00:24:35.519 --> 00:24:39.720 primarily exist to make someone or something look impressive. 441 00:24:40.109 --> 00:24:43.329 Classic flunkies of the past have included things like doormen 442 00:24:43.410 --> 00:24:46.589 or footmen. You know, I always wonder what a footman 443 00:24:46.690 --> 00:24:48.589 actually was. You always read about them in Alice in 444 00:24:48.630 --> 00:24:51.950 Wonderland and these 19th century books. You know what a 445 00:24:51.950 --> 00:24:55.579 footman were? They were the guy's wore these really, you know, 446 00:24:56.220 --> 00:24:59.640 fancy military-looking uniforms. But the thing they actually did was 447 00:24:59.680 --> 00:25:02.039 they ran in front of people's carriages looking for bumps 448 00:25:02.079 --> 00:25:06.170 in the road. Uh, so, you know, the whole idea 449 00:25:06.190 --> 00:25:08.009 is if I have a servant just to do this 450 00:25:08.289 --> 00:25:12.589 one basically kind of superfluous, not really totally necessary thing, 451 00:25:13.190 --> 00:25:15.410 I'm really rich and important, so you

should know that. 452 00:25:16.670 --> 00:25:20.500 And that's a classic flunky. Often flunkies will be assigned 453 00:25:20.660 --> 00:25:24.750 one very minor task, uh, sort of like the guy 454 00:25:24.829 --> 00:25:28.569 who tweezers the Lord's mustache before a joust or something 455 00:25:28.609 --> 00:25:32.579 like that. But really, they're just there so that everybody 456 00:25:32.619 --> 00:25:35.619 can know I've got lots of servants. But in the 457 00:25:35.660 --> 00:25:38.039 corporate world, it's very much the same. Because in the 458 00:25:38.079 --> 00:25:41.839 corporate world, the actual status of an executive is often 459 00:25:41.940 --> 00:25:46.150 measured by how many people work under him. So he 460 00:25:46.190 --> 00:25:49.849 has no incentive to get rid of unnecessary employees. And 461 00:25:50.049 --> 00:25:53.940 in fact, you often find people saying, yeah, I'm just 462 00:25:54.119 --> 00:25:56.880 there to make someone else look important or seem important. 463 00:25:57.220 --> 00:26:00.500 Receptionists often say that. You know, obviously some receptionists are 464 00:26:00.539 --> 00:26:02.900 very busy and have a real job, but there are 465 00:26:02.940 --> 00:26:06.019 some receptionists who, you know, maybe they get one phone 466 00:26:06.059 --> 00:26:09.799 call a day too. Otherwise they change the candy bowl or, 467 00:26:09.819 --> 00:26:12.900 you know, water the plants or something, but basically they're 468 00:26:12.920 --> 00:26:15.799 just sitting around. So why do they have a receptionist 469 00:26:15.839 --> 00:26:17.299 at all? You know, if it's just one call a day, 470 00:26:17.319 --> 00:26:19.789 they could just take the call themselves, right? The reason 471 00:26:19.869 --> 00:26:22.170 why is because if you don't have a receptionist, you 472 00:26:22.210 --> 00:26:23.529 don't look like a real corporation. 473 00:26:24.549 --> 00:26:27.170 One reason that companies end up with BS jobs is 474 00:26:27.210 --> 00:26:31.069 that it's sometimes difficult or impossible or unpleasant to get 475 00:26:31.150 --> 00:26:33.910 rid of people who are not functioning well. You mentioned 476 00:26:33.930 --> 00:26:38.680 the example of the guy who's apologizing for the carpenter 477 00:26:38.720 --> 00:26:41.099 not showing up. Now, it could just be that getting 478 00:26:41.160 --> 00:26:44.099 rid of that guy and hiring another carpenter might be 479 00:26:44.500 --> 00:26:48.960 administratively onerous. So Talk to me about this idea that 480 00:26:49.180 --> 00:26:51.730 part of the problem might actually just be, you know, 481 00:26:51.750 --> 00:26:56.130 rigidity in how organizations work. And instead of basically, you know, 482 00:26:56.430 --> 00:26:58.170 getting rid of the person you don't want and finding 483 00:26:58.190 --> 00:27:00.529 the person you do want, you end up sometimes just 484 00:27:00.589 --> 00:27:02.690 keeping the person you don't want or now hiring an 485 00:27:02.730 --> 00:27:05.029 additional person to come in and do the job that 486 00:27:05.049 --> 00:27:06.230 you actually do need to get done. 487 00:27:06.910 --> 00:27:09.779 That was one of my favorite examples, actually, because, you know, 488 00:27:10.079 --> 00:27:13.440 the taskmasters are obviously the ones where it's most difficult 489 00:27:13.480 --> 00:27:16.599 to get them to fess up and tell it. send 490 00:27:16.680 --> 00:27:18.920 in testimonies about what's going on, but I got a couple. 491 00:27:19.519 --> 00:27:22.900 And one of them said exactly that. One reason that 492 00:27:22.960 --> 00:27:25.559 you end up getting so many bullshit jobs in large 493 00:27:25.599 --> 00:27:30.099 bureaucracies is if someone has seniority and, you know, good reports, well, 494 00:27:30.140 --> 00:27:33.779 it's almost impossible to fire them. So if suddenly they 495 00:27:34.140 --> 00:27:36.700 become a drunk or just, you know, lose interest in 496 00:27:36.720 --> 00:27:40.700 the job, become bad at what they do, The easiest 497 00:27:40.779 --> 00:27:43.319 thing to do instead of getting rid of them is 498 00:27:43.359 --> 00:27:45.640 to hire someone else to do their job. But if 499 00:27:45.660 --> 00:27:47.400 you hire someone else to do their job, you can't 500 00:27:47.440 --> 00:27:49.859 admit that they're doing their job, right? So you have 501 00:27:49.880 --> 00:27:52.140 to make up a different job. And then often you 502 00:27:52.160 --> 00:27:54.670 have to walk them through, get them, you know, tell 503 00:27:54.710 --> 00:27:56.390 them what to put on their CV so they look 504 00:27:56.430 --> 00:27:58.769 like they can do this other thing, even though really 505 00:27:58.789 --> 00:28:00.910 they're going to be doing, you know, what the drunk 506 00:28:00.930 --> 00:28:03.930 guy does. And so you have these elaborate rituals of 507 00:28:03.990 --> 00:28:08.299 creating dummy jobs. Right. And then, you know, when that 508 00:28:08.339 --> 00:28:10.809 guy goes, you might need to hire someone to actually 509 00:28:10.849 --> 00:28:15.410 do the made-up job. And it just becomes endlessly Machiavellian 510 00:28:15.430 --> 00:28:16.029 and elaborate. 511 00:28:16.490 --> 00:28:19.710 What we're doing here, Michael handles more of the big-picture stuff, 512 00:28:19.890 --> 00:28:20.990 and I handle more. 513 00:28:20.829 --> 00:28:22.579 Of the day-to-day stuff. Yeah. 514 00:28:22.599 --> 00:28:23.460 So together. 515 00:28:23.480 --> 00:28:24.980 I think I understand. 516 00:28:25.079 --> 00:28:25.319 All right. 517 00:28:25.500 --> 00:28:27.380 Each of you is doing half a job. 518 00:28:27.700 --> 00:28:29.640 And sometimes I can hardly handle that. 519 00:28:34.049 --> 00:28:37.160 When we come back, The psychological consequences of working in 520 00:28:37.220 --> 00:28:39.720 a job that you not only find boring, but that 521 00:28:39.740 --> 00:28:40.799 you think is meaningless. 522 00:28:53.650 --> 00:28:55.009 At Opel, as a

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separate from the world 557 00:31:07.529 --> 00:31:11.549 around them, where they stop and the world starts is 558 00:31:11.589 --> 00:31:14.369 not clear to them. They're kind of continuous with their mother, 559 00:31:14.390 --> 00:31:17.930 they're continuous with their environment. Okay, so babies actually figure 560 00:31:18.069 --> 00:31:19.930 out that they are a discrete entity at the moment 561 00:31:19.950 --> 00:31:22.609 they realize they can have predictable effects on the world. 562 00:31:23.009 --> 00:31:25.029 So there's some point where a child say they're moving 563 00:31:25.049 --> 00:31:27.230 their arm around and they move something on the table, 564 00:31:27.990 --> 00:31:34.509 like move a pencil. And they realize if they move 565 00:31:34.549 --> 00:31:36.410 their arm the same way, the pencil will move in 566 00:31:36.450 --> 00:31:40.150 the same way as well. And the moment where they 567 00:31:40.190 --> 00:31:43.390 realize that, there's this sort of feeling of incredible happiness 568 00:31:43.490 --> 00:31:45.509 comes over a child. You can see them just let 569 00:31:45.809 --> 00:31:50.210 absolute joy and delight. Wow, I can move a pencil. 570 00:31:50.589 --> 00:31:52.809 This is great. It'll happen the same way every time. 571 00:31:53.289 --> 00:31:56.529 And that moment, they say, is the moment you realize 572 00:31:56.549 --> 00:31:58.630 that you are something different from the world. You know, 573 00:31:58.650 --> 00:32:00.390 you're a thing that can have effects on the world. 574 00:32:01.220 --> 00:32:03.779 And what they argue is that sense of self is 575 00:32:03.859 --> 00:32:06.859 tied up with that kind of joyous realization that you 576 00:32:06.880 --> 00:32:07.859 can have effects on the world. 577 00:32:20.250 --> 00:32:23.490 What happens when small children are prevented from influencing their worlds? 578 00:32:24.269 --> 00:32:28.710 David says they experience a decline in well-being and efficacy. 579 00:32:30.109 --> 00:32:32.150 Kids freak out. You know, they go from being incredibly 580 00:32:32.190 --> 00:32:36.549 happy to being really confused and upset. You're blocked from 581 00:32:36.609 --> 00:32:38.880 having any meaningful effect on the world around you. You 582 00:32:39.819 --> 00:32:46.019 kind of collapse. Now, I really think that's what's happening 583 00:32:46.079 --> 00:32:50.089 in the case of bullshit jobs. People suddenly become incredibly depressed. 584 00:32:50.809 --> 00:32:55.569 They lose all motivation. They don't understand why they feel 585 00:32:55.630 --> 00:32:58.769 that way. That's, you know... In a way, they think, 586 00:32:58.910 --> 00:33:01.750 I should be happy, right, on getting paid money to 587 00:33:01.769 --> 00:33:04.309 do nothing. Something for nothing, that's a great deal. But 588 00:33:04.910 --> 00:33:06.809 why am I so miserable? I think that's the reason. 589 00:33:15.059 --> 00:33:18.339 I remember once talking with Peter Ubel. He's a researcher 590 00:33:18.400 --> 00:33:21.599 at Duke University. He once conducted a study. He told 591 00:33:21.640 --> 00:33:25.140 volunteers that they could sit silently, you know, no iPhones, 592 00:33:25.180 --> 00:33:28.069 no distractions, nothing, for five minutes. And if they did that, 593 00:33:28.109 --> 00:33:31.849 they would get $ 2. 50. He also told them that they 594 00:33:31.869 --> 00:33:37.829 could spend the time solving very, very difficult problems. And 595 00:33:37.849 --> 00:33:40.119 he asked them how much would they want to be 596 00:33:40.170 --> 00:33:44.099 paid for doing the puzzles instead of doing nothing. Here's 597 00:33:44.119 --> 00:33:44.779 what Ubal told me. 598 00:33:45.140 --> 00:33:46.980 We found that the large majority of the students said 599 00:33:47.099 --> 00:33:48.980 we'd have to pay them more than $ 2. 50 to solve 600 00:33:49.680 --> 00:33:52.220 the word puzzles. And yet when we actually finished the 601 00:33:52.259 --> 00:33:55.019 five minutes... and asked them how much they enjoyed those 602 00:33:55.039 --> 00:33:57.900 five minutes, the people solving the word puzzles enjoyed the 603 00:33:57.940 --> 00:34:01.940 five minutes significantly more. And yet very few of them said, yeah, 604 00:34:01.960 --> 00:34:03.440 pay me $ 2 and I'd be happy to do word 605 00:34:03.480 --> 00:34:04.869 puzzles because at least I'll be having fun. 606 00:34:05.849 --> 00:34:08.130 One implication from the study, David, is that people don't 607 00:34:08.190 --> 00:34:11.489 fully appreciate all the dimensions of a job when they 608 00:34:11.510 --> 00:34:14.090 apply for it. So you might think, hey, it's great 609 00:34:14.110 --> 00:34:17.190 to get paid money for doing absolutely nothing, but the 610 00:34:17.269 --> 00:34:19.969 issue of boredom, the issue of meaninglessness, the issue of 611 00:34:20.030 --> 00:34:24.039 pointlessness is these things become salient only after you've started 612 00:34:24.079 --> 00:34:27.659 doing the job. So in some ways, are psychological biases 613 00:34:27.719 --> 00:34:30.199 partly to blame for the proliferation of BS jobs? 614 00:34:31.059 --> 00:34:33.420 Well, I think it's partly, too, that we're all taught 615 00:34:33.460 --> 00:34:36.019 that people want something for nothing. I mean, think about economics. 616 00:34:36.099 --> 00:34:38.179 What does economics teach you? Basically, that we all want 617 00:34:38.219 --> 00:34:41.880 something for nothing, that people wish to get the maximum 618 00:34:41.920 --> 00:34:46.340 benefit for the least expenditure of time and resources and effort. 619 00:34:47.230 --> 00:34:51.199 So according to economics, anybody can who's handed a job 620 00:34:51.219 --> 00:34:53.000 where they're paid good money to do nothing, should be 621 00:34:53.019 --> 00:34:56.920 happy as a clam. So one of the strange things 622 00:34:57.199 --> 00:35:00.300 is that people don't understand why they aren't happy. We're 623 00:35:00.340

--> 00:35:03.659 given this false assumption about what people are basically about 624 00:35:03.699 --> 00:35:05.059 and what people are basically like. 625 00:35:06.880 --> 00:35:11.599 You argue that there are even spiritual consequences of BS jobs, 626 00:35:11.659 --> 00:35:14.159 and one of them is something that you call scriptlessness. 627 00:35:14.360 --> 00:35:15.010 What do you mean by that? 628 00:35:16.469 --> 00:35:21.059 I remember being very impressed by a psychological study which 629 00:35:21.300 --> 00:35:23.559 looked at people, you know, sort of looked at times 630 00:35:23.579 --> 00:35:25.539 they'd been in love or people had been in love 631 00:35:25.579 --> 00:35:28.800 with them when they were teenagers and how they'd managed 632 00:35:28.840 --> 00:35:32.730 to integrate the experience or especially unrequited love. And what 633 00:35:32.769 --> 00:35:34.550 they found out was that, you know, if you're in 634 00:35:34.590 --> 00:35:37.949 love with someone who does not return your feelings, well, 635 00:35:38.170 --> 00:35:40.769 you know, it's difficult, but you can come up with 636 00:35:40.809 --> 00:35:43.170 a story about it. You know, people would come to 637 00:35:43.230 --> 00:35:45.949 terms with it. They almost remember the incidents fondly 20 638 00:35:45.949 --> 00:35:48.309 years later. It was the people who had other people 639 00:35:48.349 --> 00:35:50.530 who were in love with them who didn't actually feel 640 00:35:50.570 --> 00:35:53.030 the same way about them who were still kind of hurting. 641 00:35:53.429 --> 00:35:57.170 They were really confused. They felt guilty, but they felt indignant. 642 00:35:57.190 --> 00:35:59.349 They just didn't know how to feel. And one of 643 00:35:59.389 --> 00:36:02.690 the reasons why they suggested is because, you know, if 644 00:36:02.730 --> 00:36:05.250 you're in love with someone who doesn't love you, you 645 00:36:05.289 --> 00:36:08.280 know exactly how you're supposed to feel. There's like 2,000 646 00:36:08.280 --> 00:36:11.059 years of literature telling you exactly how you're supposed to feel, 647 00:36:11.099 --> 00:36:13.940 how you're supposed to behave, what's appropriate, what isn't. Whereas 648 00:36:13.980 --> 00:36:16.820 if you're on the other side, pretty much at a loss. 649 00:36:16.860 --> 00:36:19.320 You know, there are no novels written from the point 650 00:36:19.400 --> 00:36:24.099 of view of Roxanne instead of, you know, Cyrano. And 651 00:36:25.340 --> 00:36:27.599 so those people didn't have a script. And in a 652 00:36:27.659 --> 00:36:31.039 very similar way, it seems like bullshit jobs put one 653 00:36:31.079 --> 00:36:34.639 in a similar situation. You don't know how you're supposed 654 00:36:34.659 --> 00:36:38.000 to feel about this. You should be happy, but you're not. 655 00:36:38.480 --> 00:36:40.760 You don't know if you can talk about it. You 656 00:36:40.800 --> 00:36:43.539 don't know who you can confer. There's no kind

of 657 00:36:43.719 --> 00:36:48.590 anchor to give yourself a sense of what's going on 658 00:36:48.610 --> 00:36:51.389 or what you should think or do about it. 659 00:37:00.659 --> 00:37:02.880 One of the most interesting ideas you explore is that 660 00:37:02.900 --> 00:37:06.739 in many countries we have a fetish about work. We 661 00:37:06.780 --> 00:37:09.159 think a person who's working a job, even if it's 662 00:37:09.199 --> 00:37:11.889 a BS job, is in some ways a better human 663 00:37:11.949 --> 00:37:15.409 being than the person who's just hanging out. So it 664 00:37:15.469 --> 00:37:18.849 seems like there's a moral component to this whole belief structure. 665 00:37:19.949 --> 00:37:24.170 Absolutely. I think this cannot be understood except through looking 666 00:37:24.250 --> 00:37:27.510 at the history of, well, for one thing, religion. I mean, 667 00:37:28.030 --> 00:37:29.309 if you look at the story of the Garden of 668 00:37:29.369 --> 00:37:31.809 Eden or even Hesiod's story of Prometheus, they both have 669 00:37:31.849 --> 00:37:34.269 the same basic theme, which is that, you know, we 670 00:37:34.309 --> 00:37:36.730 have to work because we disobeyed the gods or we 671 00:37:36.750 --> 00:37:40.349 disobeyed God. We rebelled and we were punished. And gods 672 00:37:40.389 --> 00:37:42.409 are seen as creators. So in a way, we are 673 00:37:42.469 --> 00:37:44.539 punished themselves. They said, you want to be like God? Fine, 674 00:37:44.579 --> 00:37:46.340 be like God. You can create the world, but it'll 675 00:37:46.360 --> 00:37:49.280 be painful and miserable. So there's this notion that A, 676 00:37:49.320 --> 00:37:52.440 work is productive, and B, that it is suffering, and 677 00:37:53.300 --> 00:37:55.510 that it's kind of our punishment for our own arrogance. 678 00:37:55.820 --> 00:38:01.130 But at the same time, it's seen as moralizing. Through working, 679 00:38:01.170 --> 00:38:06.829 we become an adult, become a real, mature, self-contained human being. 680 00:38:08.469 --> 00:38:10.679 as opposed to kids who are just all over the place, right? 681 00:38:10.949 --> 00:38:14.440 Through work, you become an adult. So all of these ideas, 682 00:38:14.539 --> 00:38:17.579 work as production, work as punishment, work as necessary to 683 00:38:17.599 --> 00:38:23.079 retain maturity, all kind of bundled together. And what's happened 684 00:38:23.179 --> 00:38:25.880 is that there is this idea now that if you're 685 00:38:25.940 --> 00:38:29.449 not doing something, something you don't really enjoy, you're not 686 00:38:29.510 --> 00:38:31.489 working harder at it than you really want to be working, 687 00:38:31.889 --> 00:38:34.510 preferably for someone you don't like very much, you know, 688 00:38:34.570 --> 00:38:37.750 you're just a bad person. You're not a real adult, certainly. 689 00:38:37.849 --> 00:38:41.670 And you're probably just some lazy parasite who doesn't deserve 690 00:38:41.710 --> 00:38:44.190 the help or support of their community. And that idea 691 00:38:44.210 --> 00:38:48.119 has been drilled into people incessantly for the last 30, 692 00:38:48.119 --> 00:38:48.789 40 years. 693 00:38:49.849 --> 00:38:52.579 Isn't it possible that there are actually jobs that people 694 00:38:52.639 --> 00:38:56.159 might find meaningless or pointless, but that are in fact 695 00:38:56.800 --> 00:39:00.019 useful or essential? I mean, to take your example, it 696 00:39:00.059 --> 00:39:02.920 does seem absurd to ask Kurt to drive you know, 697 00:39:02.920 --> 00:39:05.340 100 miles to help move a computer 15 feet. But 698 00:39:05.380 --> 00:39:08.360 maybe they have found, I'm just tossing this out, when 699 00:39:08.400 --> 00:39:11.179 you factor in liability or regulations or some other set 700 00:39:11.219 --> 00:39:14.269 of rules, that this is indeed the cheapest way to 701 00:39:14.309 --> 00:39:16.929 do something. So isn't it possible that at least in 702 00:39:16.989 --> 00:39:20.329 some cases, bullshit jobs have a purpose that might be 703 00:39:20.369 --> 00:39:22.309 invisible to the person who's working the job? 704 00:39:23.590 --> 00:39:26.570 Well, it's possible. And no doubt there are a few 705 00:39:26.630 --> 00:39:30.090 cases like that. But I think that the number of 706 00:39:30.150 --> 00:39:32.820 cases like that must be far outnumbered by the number 707 00:39:32.840 --> 00:39:36.780 of cases where it's the other way around. Because after all, 708 00:39:36.920 --> 00:39:39.519 if there is some way that Kurt's job is really necessary, 709 00:39:40.079 --> 00:39:42.420 it seems unlikely that no one's going to explain that 710 00:39:42.500 --> 00:39:46.579 to him. On the other hand, if you are working 711 00:39:46.659 --> 00:39:50.360 for a magazine that it turns out doesn't really exist, 712 00:39:50.420 --> 00:39:51.579 I have an example like that. 713 00:39:52.079 --> 00:39:53.599 A magazine that doesn't exist? 714 00:39:54.000 --> 00:39:57.199 Yeah, she was writing for Travel Magazine, one of those 715 00:39:57.280 --> 00:39:59.639 ones they have in airplanes, and gradually she figured out 716 00:39:59.679 --> 00:40:03.719 that it's a scam. Actually, there is no such magazine. 717 00:40:03.760 --> 00:40:06.360 They have this whole office full of people preparing copy 718 00:40:06.409 --> 00:40:09.349 and illustrations for a magazine that never is actually printed. 719 00:40:09.369 --> 00:40:10.409 Wait, wait, wait. 720 00:40:10.449 --> 00:40:14.860 Why were they doing that? She wasn't quite sure. She 721 00:40:14.889 --> 00:40:16.820 thought it might have to do with a tax write-off 722 00:40:16.880 --> 00:40:18.699 or they got a grant or some sort of like, 723 00:40:18.760 --> 00:40:21.260 you know, there's some financial scam going on. There's lots 724 00:40:21.300 --> 00:40:23.260 of things like that going on. So if you're involved 725 00:40:23.300 --> 00:40:25.579 in a scam or something like that, you

know, of course, 726 00:40:25.599 --> 00:40:28.190 that's the very thing they won't tell you. So, you know, 727 00:40:28.349 --> 00:40:30.510 if there's a way that your job seems pointless, but 728 00:40:30.530 --> 00:40:33.829 it's useful, chances are someone is going to explain that 729 00:40:33.889 --> 00:40:36.070 to you just because, you know, you want your workers 730 00:40:36.090 --> 00:40:39.030 to be motivated. On the other hand, you know, if 731 00:40:39.050 --> 00:40:42.780 you're writing reports for a central office and you know, 732 00:40:42.800 --> 00:40:44.639 the central office just takes the reports and files them 733 00:40:44.659 --> 00:40:46.719 and never reads them. Probably they're not going to tell 734 00:40:46.739 --> 00:40:47.039 you that. 735 00:40:48.239 --> 00:40:50.199 I want to talk about the idea that jobs in 736 00:40:50.239 --> 00:40:53.360 some ways are jobs. You know, they pay the bills, 737 00:40:53.400 --> 00:40:55.559 they cover the mortgage, they allow us to go on vacations. 738 00:40:56.000 --> 00:40:57.360 I want to play you a clip from the movie 739 00:40:57.400 --> 00:41:00.260 Dinner with Schmucks, where the lead character explains to his 740 00:41:00.300 --> 00:41:03.739 girlfriend why he works at a job that he doesn't love. 741 00:41:04.059 --> 00:41:06.539 There's you and the me that you know, and we 742 00:41:06.579 --> 00:41:09.320 love each other, and we have a wonderful life. But 743 00:41:09.340 --> 00:41:11.340 then there's the me that you don't know. And the 744 00:41:11.380 --> 00:41:13.969 me that you don't know has to do things sometimes 745 00:41:14.159 --> 00:41:16.010 so that you and the me that you know can 746 00:41:16.030 --> 00:41:18.789 live in this nice apartment and eat at nice restaurants 747 00:41:18.829 --> 00:41:21.289 and go to Cabo for Christmas. He takes care of us. 748 00:41:21.670 --> 00:41:22.070 You know what? 749 00:41:22.230 --> 00:41:23.369 There should not be any you. 750 00:41:23.690 --> 00:41:24.130 I don't know. 751 00:41:24.510 --> 00:41:25.110 But there is. 752 00:41:25.610 --> 00:41:27.690 You might not like him. I don't like him. I 753 00:41:27.730 --> 00:41:29.769 hate him. But we need him. You know, it's like 754 00:41:29.789 --> 00:41:31.050 the CIA. The CIA? 755 00:41:31.710 --> 00:41:32.030 Mm-hmm. 756 00:41:32.469 --> 00:41:35.400 The CIA does some pretty funky, nasty stuff in the shadows. 757 00:41:35.699 --> 00:41:37.099 But I, for one, am glad they're there. 758 00:41:37.750 --> 00:41:40.289 What do you think, David? If we didn't have BS jobs, 759 00:41:40.750 --> 00:41:42.250 how would millions of people get paid? 760 00:41:43.590 --> 00:41:46.630 Well, there's a lot of ways you could solve that problem. 761 00:41:47.469 --> 00:41:49.989 Probably the easiest one would be just pay everybody and 762 00:41:50.090 --> 00:41:52.030 then let them sort out what they do for themselves. 763 00:41:52.510 --> 00:41:55.179 Because we have this idea that's drilled into our heads 764 00:41:55.239 --> 00:41:57.679 that people want something for nothing. But as I say, 765 00:41:57.719 --> 00:42:00.340 the very fact that people who are actually paid to 766 00:42:00.380 --> 00:42:04.559 do nothing are so unhappy shows that that's not really true. 767 00:42:04.960 --> 00:42:06.880 People really do want to have an effect on the 768 00:42:06.900 --> 00:42:10.980 world around them. I always give the example of prisons. Obviously, 769 00:42:11.000 --> 00:42:13.360 in America, you know, they basically force people to work. 770 00:42:13.420 --> 00:42:14.880 But even where they don't, you know, where they have 771 00:42:14.900 --> 00:42:19.900 really nice prisons, they use withdrawing your work privileges as 772 00:42:19.940 --> 00:42:22.340 a way of punishing you. That is to say, you know, 773 00:42:22.380 --> 00:42:25.260 given a choice between sitting around playing cards or watching 774 00:42:25.300 --> 00:42:29.869 TV all day and pressing shorts in the prison laundry room, 775 00:42:29.929 --> 00:42:33.570 you know, even these mostly rather antisocial people, you know, 776 00:42:33.590 --> 00:42:36.630 would actually rather work than just sit around. So people 777 00:42:36.710 --> 00:42:40.170 want to work. So I kind of support universal basic income. 778 00:42:40.190 --> 00:42:41.650 I've kind of come around to the position that that's 779 00:42:41.690 --> 00:42:45.050 probably the best solution. If we just give people, you know, 780 00:42:45.070 --> 00:42:48.110 we say like, okay, all this technology, all these robots, 781 00:42:48.130 --> 00:42:50.849 you know, it's produced collectively by all of us. It's 782 00:42:50.889 --> 00:42:53.079 not like one person came up with that. That's a 783 00:42:53.179 --> 00:42:56.539 product of, you know, us and our ancestors doing hundreds 784 00:42:56.579 --> 00:43:00.719 of years of thinking and laboring. So let's pay us 785 00:43:00.780 --> 00:43:03.320 all back for that work, you know. Let's give everybody 786 00:43:03.400 --> 00:43:06.590 a basic income and leave it up to you to 787 00:43:06.639 --> 00:43:07.389 decide what to do. 788 00:43:07.929 --> 00:43:12.639 To be sure, a universal basic income is a controversial idea. Also, 789 00:43:13.000 --> 00:43:15.539 while it would take care of essential needs, a basic 790 00:43:15.599 --> 00:43:18.519 income wouldn't buy people lots of dinners in fine restaurants 791 00:43:18.900 --> 00:43:22.900 or vacations in Cabo. David's underlying point, though, is that 792 00:43:22.940 --> 00:43:26.199 instead of aspiring for greater material wealth, we should all 793 00:43:26.280 --> 00:43:27.360 seek more leisure time. 794 00:43:28.400 --> 00:43:31.760 I know perfectly well that there's lots of societies, most societies, 795 00:43:31.780 --> 00:43:35.559 where people work distinctly less than they do today. You know, 796 00:43:35.619 --> 00:43:38.530 probably the average oppressed medieval serf worked about half of 797

00:43:38.590 --> 00:43:42.969 what we work. But certainly people in other societies can 798 00:43:43.010 --> 00:43:45.289 be found to work two or three hours a day maximum. 799 00:43:45.889 --> 00:43:47.929 So what do they do? They come up with incredibly 800 00:43:47.989 --> 00:43:50.219 interesting things to do. You know, we'd all be sitting 801 00:43:50.260 --> 00:43:54.420 around in cafes gossiping and the gossip would get really interesting, 802 00:43:54.460 --> 00:43:57.119 you know, because people would have enough time to have lives. 803 00:43:57.380 --> 00:43:59.260 We just don't know what it's like to actually have 804 00:43:59.300 --> 00:44:00.480 a life anymore, a lot of us. 805 00:44:03.690 --> 00:44:05.469 If I didn't have to work and I still had 806 00:44:05.530 --> 00:44:09.130 money coming in, I would be in a developing country 807 00:44:09.349 --> 00:44:13.730 in Africa helping people learn and participate in the democratic 808 00:44:13.769 --> 00:44:16.610 process and get rid of leaders who don't support their interests. 809 00:44:17.530 --> 00:44:18.809 I'd love to be in like a cover band. 810 00:44:19.010 --> 00:44:19.909 I think that would be a lot of fun. 811 00:44:20.309 --> 00:44:23.190 Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, you know, those kind of genres. 812 00:44:23.550 --> 00:44:24.949 If I didn't have to work, I'd go to Asia. 813 00:44:25.889 --> 00:44:30.969 You know, I would ensure that Those individuals that have 814 00:44:31.210 --> 00:44:35.550 substance use disorder were really taken care of on an 815 00:44:35.670 --> 00:44:36.309 equitable level. 816 00:44:36.329 --> 00:44:37.750 I mean, I like to go to space. 817 00:44:38.170 --> 00:44:38.690 Go to space? 818 00:44:38.750 --> 00:44:39.329 Yeah. 819 00:44:39.889 --> 00:44:42.030 If I have money and if I can do anything, 820 00:44:42.789 --> 00:45:00.090 I love to see the planet from up there. David 821 00:45:00.110 --> 00:45:02.469 Graeber is a professor of anthropology at the London School 822 00:45:02.489 --> 00:45:06.139 of Economics. He studies theories of value and social constructs. 823 00:45:06.559 --> 00:45:09.900 He's the author of the book, Bullshit Jobs. David, thanks 824 00:45:09.920 --> 00:45:11.059 for joining me today on Hidden Brain. 825 00:45:11.500 --> 00:45:12.320 It's been a real pleasure. 826 00:45:27.789 --> 00:45:31.010 This week's episode was produced by Aditi Banlamudi with help 827 00:45:31.030 --> 00:45:34.159 from Parth Shah and Laura Querell. It was edited by 828 00:45:34.219 --> 00:45:37.860 Tara Boyle. Our team includes Jenny Schmidt, Raina Cohen, and 829 00:45:37.880 --> 00:45:44.579 Thomas Liu. Special thanks to Dan Charles. Our unsung hero 830 00:45:44.599 --> 00:45:48.039 this week is Samuel Alwyn Mosley, a producer at the BBC. 831 00:45:48.679 --> 00:45:51.320 There are lots of logistical details that go into coordinating 832 00:45:51.369 --> 00:45:55.489 an interview, particularly when a guest is overseas. David Graeber 833 00:45:55.530 --> 00:45:57.900 was in London when we spoke with him, and Samuel 834 00:45:57.940 --> 00:46:00.460 took care of all those little details to make sure 835 00:46:00.500 --> 00:46:13.469 the conversation went smoothly. Thank you, Samuel. If you've escaped 836 00:46:13.489 --> 00:46:15.989 from a bullshit job and have advice for listeners in 837 00:46:16.010 --> 00:46:19.510 a similar situation, share your story with us on social media, 838 00:46:20.010 --> 00:46:22.239 either by tagging us in the post or with the 839 00:46:22.260 --> 00:46:46.539 hashtag BSJobs. I'm Shankar Vedantham, And this is NPR. 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