BS Jobs are basically jobs that not only lack any meaning for the people doing them, they don’t actually need to exist. But people put up with them somehow, both employee AND employer, having somehow climatized themselves to reality. TV’s “The Office” or the comic, “Dilbert” are all about them.
Here’s a 10-minute video of David Graeber explaining the idea more.
Graeber, a prominent member of the Occupy Wall Street movement, is a bit of a non-conformist, to say the least. There’s a reason why he works in academia, and not in the business world. Though a lot of his criticism is justified, then again, is really saying anything a good manager doesn’t know already?
Surely the sign of a good manager or leader is that they *eliminate* BS jobs, not create them?
From our perspective, BS jobs are not proof of capitalism’s flaws, as Graber suggests, but proof that there’s a cultural problem.
And once you acknowledge that the cultural issue exists, you now have a possible path forward. Hurrah!
