The 5 types of disposable jobs 🗑
↩️UNFOLLOW University — July 7, 2023
Happy Friday!
Besides having the best title ever, Bullsh!t Jobs is easily one of the most humorous yet profound books I’ve read in a while.
Anthropologist David Graeber makes a well-researched case for why we should measure the value of a job by its contributions to society. As you can guess, bullish!t jobs - or what I call “disposable jobs” - represent the type of employment so completely pointless and unnecessary that even the employee fails to justify its existence.
From David’s point of view, if you suspect you have a “disposable” job then you probably do. He makes profound arguments as to why disposable jobs even exist by tracing the origins of labor, commerce and modern management.
I hated this book for the first hour after it fell into my hands and then I couldn’t put it down for the rest of the week. One of the primary occupational categories filled with disposable jobs is marketing and advertising.
I know, ouch.
Admittedly, most of the commercials, campaigns, websites and mobile apps I’ve worked on for the last 20 years are gone. And the products and brands that remain today are no longer my responsibility (a few of them no longer exist at all!).
Was it a waste? Nope.
The jobs were just jobs. The way I treated my team and served people is what will last much longer than a marketing campaign.
🤯 Radical Truth
Your job is temporary. How you do it becomes permanent.
Teachers, doctors, scientists and even engineers do jobs that consistently contribute to society in measurable ways. Unfortunately, sometimes there’s also an inverse relationship between their value to society and compensation.
And then there’s the rest of us. David asserts that roughly 2 out of 5 jobs are pointless. Lawyers, advertisers/marketers, corporate middle managers and financial managers top the list of useless occupations. They aren’t bad or low-paying jobs, on the contrary, many of them pay extremely well. But they exist primarily to protect the status quo, keep money moving in inefficient ways or generate activity for the sake of staying busy.
“Huge swathes of people spend their days performing tasks they secretly believe do not really need to be performed,” David writes. “The moral and spiritual damage is profound. It is a scar across our collective soul yet virtually no one talks about it.”
So let’s talk about it.
These are the 5 types of disposable jobs:
Flunkies 🤵🏻♂️ - Exist only or primarily to make someone else look or feel important. These “underlings” provide a low-cost way to appear successful. Examples: doormen, concierge, receptionists, and marketing coordinators.
Goons 😈 - Employed muscle used to manipulate via aggression. These people typically know their jobs involve manipulation or deception. Examples: lobbyists, PR specialists, telemarketers, corporate lawyers, and hitmen.
Duct Tapers 🤕 - Exist only because of a glitch or fault in the organization that should be fixed. These people perpetually solve the same problems the larger team is too lazy, too cheap or too unorganized to address long-term. Examples: some developers, data checkers, airline desk staff, and project managers.
Box Tickers ✅ - Exist to allow an organization to claim it is doing something that it isn't. The company’s objective is usually to do the opposite of what these people are paid to promote (e.g., nutritionist at Coca-Cola, data privacy experts at Facebook, environmental sustainability at ExxonMobil) Examples: diversity & HR roles, corporate or government compliance, and presentation designers.
Taskmasters 🎩 - Unnecessary superiors that exist solely to assign work to others or create new pointless tasks. These people are highly paid ornaments investing all of their professional and personal time in entirely useless tasks, conferences and awards. Examples: most middle and upper management, university deans and chancellors.
Is it extremely harsh and provocative? Maybe.
Is it also a healthy dose of mental friction against following the status quo? Absolutely.
Ultimately, how you work determines if your job is disposable or vital. How you treat invaluable things, like people, is a better predictor of success than how you do temporary things, like jobs.
And that’s no bull. 😬
⚡️Courageous Question
If my work disappeared today, what difference would it make in the world?
🗣 Wonderful Words
“Those who believe they have bullsh!t jobs are generally correct.”
🙏🏽 Prayer Package
God, so many of the worries that stress me out are reflections of the trust I’ve failed to place in you. But nothing is an accident and your word will not return void. I can lean on your consistency. Take the works of my hands and the ideas of my mind, and make them of long-term significance. Allow me to find and see the beauty in small tasks done for a big Savior. Amen.
🎵 Be Enthroned - Bethel Music 👑
🛠 Practical Tool
Like great pilots, good leaders create the conditions for success by following a plan, trusting the crew and knowing where - and when - to land safely. When I joined Patrón Tequila 10 years ago as Vice President of Digital Marketing, I had no clue how high or low the journey would go. In this candid conversation from the UNFOLLOW Podcast, my good friend Daryl asks real questions about loving and leaving jobs. We also discuss practical lessons for leaders in turbulent times who can feel like their work is “disposable.”
What does a courageous career look like? When is the right time to walk away?
Have a great weekend. I’m headed back to the U.S. after an amazing trip to Europe on an advisory project. Working with amazing people and doing worthwhile work doesn’t have to feel like winning the lottery. For many of us, success looks very different than it did before. I’m learning to embrace uncertainty as the father of opportunity.
If you’re new to UNFOLLOW University you can learn more about me here or check out my previous posts.
See you next UNFOLLOW Friday!
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Every Friday I’ll send you 5 courageous ideas to help you redesign your work life by making better career decisions:
🤯 Radical Truth - A story from me
⚡️ Courageous Question - A challenge for you
🗣 Wonderful Words - A quote worth remembering
🙏🏽 Prayer Package - A moment of meditation
🛠 Practical Tool - An actionable resource
