While I agree with this article wholeheartedly - there are so many bullshit jobs, I do think some of it suffers from the Doorman Fallacy (fitting I know)
Many hotels removed doorman believing they didn't serve a crucial function. Yes, the door could still be opened without them, but it missed all the other functions that were not immediately obvious.
For example, the doorman signals luxury, they are the first point of contact with guests and help to reduce stress, confusion and frustration. They also act as security, preventing crime outside the hotels or the homeless person sleeping in the doorway - all functions that are not immediately obvious.
So yes, many roles no longer have a single defined function or don't fully deliver on it, we need to be careful when we isolate something and view it from a purely functional lens that we miss the things around it.
I 100% agree and it is unfortunate that private equity and large hotel chains believe the exact opposite. I used to work for a guy that said, “As a business owner, I have a responsibility to my people and the families they support. Not everyone is essential to the business, but the job is essential to them.” I can’t reconcile that with today’s way of doing business…
I giggled because these terms are so unbelievably British. And yes these hit the nail on the head.
However, I do want to challenge AI’s impact on duct tapers. I think in many ways, AI is going to be the catalyst that makes the systems collapse that have had bandaids for decades. In that case, I think we will need more people with the duct taper skill sets. They will need to be duct taping while also fixing a larger system and may actually find purpose in those opportunities if they enjoy the fixing aspect. This time they are fixing the root causes and the duct taping piece is strategic, vs reactive.
What's missing here is that many jobs are not bullshit, but they may be filled with bullshit, and require bullshit qualifications. Let's consider the humble pay clerk.
When spreadsheets came in, they were said to eliminate bookkeeping work because they made complex calculations simple. Companies and government responded by making the calculations more complicated - more pay and tax laws, regulations and so on. And so the job that was once done by a 14yo school leaver like Australia's later PM Keating was now done by a 24yo with an accountancy degree. And the increased complexity of the calculations meant it was easier to make mistakes, and easier to hide fraud, so companies had to hire auditors, too - accountants with a masters.
The net result was that the introduction of spreadsheets led to one 14yo bookkeeper with a pen and a book becoming three 24yo accountants and a 34yo auditor and five degrees and four computers, and probably an IT support guy, too.
AI will make generating more pointless busywork easier. So there will be more of it. New regulations will be made to require more reports which will be too long to read and so AI will summarise them for you, and you can go to meetings about them. Then when AI fucks up, there'll be a class of auditors for AI, and new regulations about checking AI's processes and outputs, which will require hiring more people and... so on.
I'm familiar with this process because I was in the army when we changed from the SLR 7.62mm to the Austeyr 5.56mm, and the promise was that because the weapon and ammo were lighter, we'd be carrying less stuff. The brass responded by having us carry more ammo, so that on net we actually ended up carrying more weight than before. And this is something familiar to any student of military history: if stuff is made lighter they make you carry more of it, or carry something else.
AI will create more bullshit jobs than ever before.
I like the latest episode of if books can kill podcast on this very book. The main point is that most corporate jobs have an aspect of these five categorizations but it’s not really as neat as all of this. Graeber was brilliant and I quote him a lot too but it’s clear he didn’t spend much time in corporate cubicles
I’d add one more to the list, “regulatory ass coverers”
Audit, legal (regulation legal not lawsuit legal), regulatory experts of all stripes. If your job only exists so the org doesn’t get dinged by the govt due to bullshit rules they came up with, you’re one of these. You could argue a massive amount of govt employees themselves are in this category.
What about jobs where you see the value of your function to supporting the company’s goal but you don’t believe the company’s goal provides any value to society? It’s a goal whose sole aim is to make money and wouldn’t exist without capitalism
as someone who was in a Flunky job, helping someone else look better, it was truly a nightmare whilst being in that job, but it made me realise the only way out of this nonsense is building something for yourself so you can cast a net as wide as you want, instead of just having to do as you're told and being forced to stick to your box. awful feeling. but having that, I appreciate there are folks out there who are okay with it, and there's nothing wrong with that. it's just didn't suit my personality at all.
As you say, AI doesn't need to look busy. It has no ego that needs a flunky.
Which means it should expose the bullshit, right? But if corporate culture still rewards activity over impact, then a bullshit generator with AI access will produce a new kind of 'AI slop': corporate AI slop! Ultimately, we need a cultural shift around measuring worth before the tools, or we risk just automating dysfunction faster.
Good thoughts. Thankfully well retired before having to cope with the AI stuff.
I must say though that I don't think much of my career fell into the bullshit category.
Not that there weren't plenty of mindless forms to be filled etc but as an engineer (major projects) my main role was to make things happen. If that required writing a bullshit business plan, then that is what you did because otherwise the job would not get started.
I don't know about AI. I dabble with it a bit and can see that it would allow me to do things which I might have been able to - slowly. I don't think it would have taken over my engineering career.
E.g. I wanted a two-button device that I can carry in my pocket while walking (under my cardiac coach's orders after the quad bypass) to allow me to step a "track" on my mobile forward or backwards. Otherwise, one has to get the phone out of pocket - log on - swipe or something and put it back in your pocket while carrying the shopping etc. I asked my AI if such a device is available commercially - apparently not. I then asked it how to make one. Quick as a flash it advised on the hardware - an ESP32 module which I happened to have on hand - as you do if you are an engineer. It provided the code which I downloaded to the device with only a few errors and within minutes I had my two-button device wirelessly interfaced to my phone. Considerably more work required to package it to make it "cool".
I can see that "coders" could be worried, but somebody still has to motivate it - the AI won't do that for a while or possibly ever.
A couple of days ago, I used an AI service that can generate a video commercial, based off of your website. The quality was as good as anything from our corporate marketing department, and better than most small businesses could achieve. Our corporate HR department essentially passes out materials and policies developed by HR management agencies. Both departments could be reduced to one person with the help of AI. My point is that more jobs are becoming bullshit jobs, than ever before. As larger employers catch on… well, the future does not look good for the bullshit workers.
As a retired attorney, I am following this transition with great interest because the legal profession has undergone a ton of tech-driven change already in the last 25 years.
I think it will hit transactional practices the worst first - you don’t need armies of overpaid associates to prepare paper anymore. The reams of compliance documents, deal docs, etc will continue to be automated. What began with services like legal zoom and DIY legal platforms can now be done with free AI. Essentially, all of the legal work that has always been commodity-type work, previously done by paralegals and associates, will no longer need those people to do, and you’ll have a small number of “final eyes” attorneys to double check stuff.
Litigation will take longer. Many states already regulate the use of AI for creating court-filed briefs, but you’ll no longer need armies of associates to do all of the legal research. 30 years ago they still taught law students how to do research using hardcopy case reporters. Westlaw and Lexis supercharged that but still required some associate to craft search strings and comb through results. All that can be increasingly done by AI. Same with document review - I spent countless as an associate hours combing through document boxes and tagging evidence with sticky notes. Everything now is exchanged electronically, and can be increasingly analyzed electronically, obviating the need for deep benches of associates.
You’ll still need humans to argue in court, negotiate deals, and engage in the type of work that is relationship and nuance driven, but as a percentage of overall work, that is actually pretty small.
While I agree with this article wholeheartedly - there are so many bullshit jobs, I do think some of it suffers from the Doorman Fallacy (fitting I know)
Many hotels removed doorman believing they didn't serve a crucial function. Yes, the door could still be opened without them, but it missed all the other functions that were not immediately obvious.
For example, the doorman signals luxury, they are the first point of contact with guests and help to reduce stress, confusion and frustration. They also act as security, preventing crime outside the hotels or the homeless person sleeping in the doorway - all functions that are not immediately obvious.
So yes, many roles no longer have a single defined function or don't fully deliver on it, we need to be careful when we isolate something and view it from a purely functional lens that we miss the things around it.
I 100% agree and it is unfortunate that private equity and large hotel chains believe the exact opposite. I used to work for a guy that said, “As a business owner, I have a responsibility to my people and the families they support. Not everyone is essential to the business, but the job is essential to them.” I can’t reconcile that with today’s way of doing business…
Nice, scams are now on Substack
I giggled because these terms are so unbelievably British. And yes these hit the nail on the head.
However, I do want to challenge AI’s impact on duct tapers. I think in many ways, AI is going to be the catalyst that makes the systems collapse that have had bandaids for decades. In that case, I think we will need more people with the duct taper skill sets. They will need to be duct taping while also fixing a larger system and may actually find purpose in those opportunities if they enjoy the fixing aspect. This time they are fixing the root causes and the duct taping piece is strategic, vs reactive.
What's missing here is that many jobs are not bullshit, but they may be filled with bullshit, and require bullshit qualifications. Let's consider the humble pay clerk.
When spreadsheets came in, they were said to eliminate bookkeeping work because they made complex calculations simple. Companies and government responded by making the calculations more complicated - more pay and tax laws, regulations and so on. And so the job that was once done by a 14yo school leaver like Australia's later PM Keating was now done by a 24yo with an accountancy degree. And the increased complexity of the calculations meant it was easier to make mistakes, and easier to hide fraud, so companies had to hire auditors, too - accountants with a masters.
The net result was that the introduction of spreadsheets led to one 14yo bookkeeper with a pen and a book becoming three 24yo accountants and a 34yo auditor and five degrees and four computers, and probably an IT support guy, too.
AI will make generating more pointless busywork easier. So there will be more of it. New regulations will be made to require more reports which will be too long to read and so AI will summarise them for you, and you can go to meetings about them. Then when AI fucks up, there'll be a class of auditors for AI, and new regulations about checking AI's processes and outputs, which will require hiring more people and... so on.
I'm familiar with this process because I was in the army when we changed from the SLR 7.62mm to the Austeyr 5.56mm, and the promise was that because the weapon and ammo were lighter, we'd be carrying less stuff. The brass responded by having us carry more ammo, so that on net we actually ended up carrying more weight than before. And this is something familiar to any student of military history: if stuff is made lighter they make you carry more of it, or carry something else.
AI will create more bullshit jobs than ever before.
I call this category regulatory ass coverers
I like the latest episode of if books can kill podcast on this very book. The main point is that most corporate jobs have an aspect of these five categorizations but it’s not really as neat as all of this. Graeber was brilliant and I quote him a lot too but it’s clear he didn’t spend much time in corporate cubicles
I’d add one more to the list, “regulatory ass coverers”
Audit, legal (regulation legal not lawsuit legal), regulatory experts of all stripes. If your job only exists so the org doesn’t get dinged by the govt due to bullshit rules they came up with, you’re one of these. You could argue a massive amount of govt employees themselves are in this category.
What about jobs where you see the value of your function to supporting the company’s goal but you don’t believe the company’s goal provides any value to society? It’s a goal whose sole aim is to make money and wouldn’t exist without capitalism
If your role “does stuff” its not bullshit by the definition of the book. “Generating economic value” counts as “doing stuff”
got it. I might like the book less than I thought then.
A takedown of capitalism, it ain’t. Its a takedown of managerialism if anything.
as someone who was in a Flunky job, helping someone else look better, it was truly a nightmare whilst being in that job, but it made me realise the only way out of this nonsense is building something for yourself so you can cast a net as wide as you want, instead of just having to do as you're told and being forced to stick to your box. awful feeling. but having that, I appreciate there are folks out there who are okay with it, and there's nothing wrong with that. it's just didn't suit my personality at all.
As you say, AI doesn't need to look busy. It has no ego that needs a flunky.
Which means it should expose the bullshit, right? But if corporate culture still rewards activity over impact, then a bullshit generator with AI access will produce a new kind of 'AI slop': corporate AI slop! Ultimately, we need a cultural shift around measuring worth before the tools, or we risk just automating dysfunction faster.
Here, file these TPS reports on the weekend...
How many people will read this and realize , “Wait, that’s my job!” 😆
Lol im a consultant/contractor and I have been all o these!
This is great, thanks.
@Alex McCann, I am loving this newsletter and I appreciate the perspective you are bringing.
Hey, this is obviously a fake/fishing account. Don't message them.
Good thoughts. Thankfully well retired before having to cope with the AI stuff.
I must say though that I don't think much of my career fell into the bullshit category.
Not that there weren't plenty of mindless forms to be filled etc but as an engineer (major projects) my main role was to make things happen. If that required writing a bullshit business plan, then that is what you did because otherwise the job would not get started.
I don't know about AI. I dabble with it a bit and can see that it would allow me to do things which I might have been able to - slowly. I don't think it would have taken over my engineering career.
E.g. I wanted a two-button device that I can carry in my pocket while walking (under my cardiac coach's orders after the quad bypass) to allow me to step a "track" on my mobile forward or backwards. Otherwise, one has to get the phone out of pocket - log on - swipe or something and put it back in your pocket while carrying the shopping etc. I asked my AI if such a device is available commercially - apparently not. I then asked it how to make one. Quick as a flash it advised on the hardware - an ESP32 module which I happened to have on hand - as you do if you are an engineer. It provided the code which I downloaded to the device with only a few errors and within minutes I had my two-button device wirelessly interfaced to my phone. Considerably more work required to package it to make it "cool".
I can see that "coders" could be worried, but somebody still has to motivate it - the AI won't do that for a while or possibly ever.
A couple of days ago, I used an AI service that can generate a video commercial, based off of your website. The quality was as good as anything from our corporate marketing department, and better than most small businesses could achieve. Our corporate HR department essentially passes out materials and policies developed by HR management agencies. Both departments could be reduced to one person with the help of AI. My point is that more jobs are becoming bullshit jobs, than ever before. As larger employers catch on… well, the future does not look good for the bullshit workers.
Have been reading this book, re-reading some parts of it, reading the reference material, and making tons of notes for the last three months now.
As a retired attorney, I am following this transition with great interest because the legal profession has undergone a ton of tech-driven change already in the last 25 years.
I think it will hit transactional practices the worst first - you don’t need armies of overpaid associates to prepare paper anymore. The reams of compliance documents, deal docs, etc will continue to be automated. What began with services like legal zoom and DIY legal platforms can now be done with free AI. Essentially, all of the legal work that has always been commodity-type work, previously done by paralegals and associates, will no longer need those people to do, and you’ll have a small number of “final eyes” attorneys to double check stuff.
Litigation will take longer. Many states already regulate the use of AI for creating court-filed briefs, but you’ll no longer need armies of associates to do all of the legal research. 30 years ago they still taught law students how to do research using hardcopy case reporters. Westlaw and Lexis supercharged that but still required some associate to craft search strings and comb through results. All that can be increasingly done by AI. Same with document review - I spent countless as an associate hours combing through document boxes and tagging evidence with sticky notes. Everything now is exchanged electronically, and can be increasingly analyzed electronically, obviating the need for deep benches of associates.
You’ll still need humans to argue in court, negotiate deals, and engage in the type of work that is relationship and nuance driven, but as a percentage of overall work, that is actually pretty small.