Now the major unspoken thing - we are all paying the salaries of these people. Not only in public sector managerial roles, but across the board. We, as customers, pay for all the consultants, the marketing execs, the pointless packaging and its designers. We pay for all these people on £100K a year to have pointless meetings with each other. This is why the cost of living is sky high. We no longer simply have basic, necessary, goods, services and utilities and a few chosen luxuries. We have layer upon layer of expensive, totally unnecessary, useless, wasteful cost on top of everything, including basic necessities. Hence we all have to work long hours in useless jobs to pay for basic living.
This shit is the inevitable trajectory of capitalism. The problem is not only moral rot. It is that capitalism has never been a rational construct on which to base the world. Mathematical logic tells us cooperation consistently outperforms competition. It is faster, more efficient, and more sustainable. Yet capitalism sanctifies competition—and predation—as its cornerstones.
How a Broken System Becomes “Natural”
The obvious question is how something so flawed not only survives but dominates. The answer lies in legitimation. A broken machine needs constant storytelling to appear inevitable. Capitalism dresses itself up as rational, scientific, and beyond dispute. It has to. Otherwise, the cracks would show too quickly.
That is why business management is packaged as a high intellectual pursuit. The rituals of strategy, optimization, and leadership science exist not to create clarity but to sanctify the system. It is an elaborate PR campaign to convince workers, customers, and governments that running businesses is an elite activity only fit for the chosen few.
The Deception Industry
Business schools are the chief manufacturers of this illusion. They do not merely teach management. They enshrine it. They hand out credentials with the weight of scripture, presenting shallow frameworks and recycled clichés as rigorous truths. PhDs write case studies that elevate guesswork into doctrine. MBAs leave believing they have mastered a science, when in reality they have memorized a vocabulary of myths.
This is not clumsy jargon. It is calculated deception. The models, the spreadsheets, the leadership paradigms are designed to create an appearance of necessity. If the system can convince you that business management is a precise science, then you will accept its dictates as naturally as gravity. Questioning it becomes arrogance.
Myths Feeding Myths
The result is a self-reinforcing mythology. Consultants tell managers what they already know. Managers report it back upward wrapped in new jargon. Academic “thought leaders” cite both as evidence of their theories. It is an echo chamber that validates itself at every level.
Inside this circle, the more complex the model, the more impressive it looks, even when complexity only masks emptiness. Entire careers are built on circulating insights that collapse the second you test them against reality. But reality does not matter. What matters is maintaining the aura of expertise.
Customers as Collateral
For decades, the system at least pretended to put the customer first. “The client is king,” went the slogan. That claim now looks laughable. Call your bank. Deal with your insurer. Buy processed food from a supermarket shelf. What you will find is declining service and declining quality, wrapped in increasingly elaborate excuses.
Because the goal is not solving problems anymore. It is sustaining the theater. Customers become props in the performance, tolerated only to the extent that they keep the revenue flowing. Satisfaction and value creation are irrelevant next to the higher priority: defending the myth that capitalism is coherent and inevitable.
The Cost to the Psyche
The cruelest irony is that the deception is transparent. The people inside these systems know it. The business professors know it. The consultants know it. The managers know it. They all understand, at some level, that what they are defending is smoke dressed up as steel. And yet they continue, because the alternative, admitting the system is nonsense, threatens their very livelihoods.
This comes at a cost. Living inside a lie hollows people out. When you know your work is theater, when you sense the rituals are designed to fool rather than to build, meaning evaporates. What replaces it is dissonance. Cynicism. A slow drift toward believing nothing matters except the paycheck.
That is the real consequence of capitalism’s masquerade. Not only a degraded economy of goods and services, but a degraded collective psyche. Millions of people playing roles they no longer believe in, trapped in an existential pantomime they cannot walk away from.
While I think you're largely right, I'd argue that this problem is way deeper than capitalism -- or any -ism for that matter. Complex systems of all kinds become unwieldy and bloated. The most successful systems become the most unweildy and bloated simply because they had the time and resources to do it.
Isn't growth in biologically-rooted systems always intentional? Human cultures obviously have many layers of abstraction on top of, say, a bacterial culture, but both can be modeled using some function of resources, time, and constraints.
Seems to me that capitalism now is more a victim of its own success rather than having some unique flaw. Even deception and manipulation run rampant in non-human biological systems. But regardless, perhaps we can both agree that the trick is in setting up the constraints/incentives that lead to more flourishing, without throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Peter Turchin describes this problem as an "over production of elites" and has noted this is typical in late state empires / societies. Read his book on the topic to learn more about his observations and hypothesis.
As you said, there is a huge amount of waste in the system. Jobs that are done a certain way, because that’s the way they’ve always been. Money that is wasted, simply because higher ups don’t care about it.
Then prices rise steeply, thus, asking us to compete with others for high pay jobs that numb us into meaningfulness.
We’ve lost touch with reality. So much that we believe following a post with a #real hashtag will enable us to see what a normal life looks like. But our life is here. In this moment. In this place we are. We only ought to look deeply.
And the moment you decide to step out of the rat race, is the first step toward it. Because we can have that meaningful life. That life without waste. That life that allows us to enjoy ourselves to the fullest. Where we contribute to the fullest.
I don’t think there are many jobs now that are there “because it’s the way it was always done”. Quite the opposite. The “old” jobs, like tea trolleys that came round offices, or accountants who ensured things were done right, or the very many jobs that used to exist to give the system slack so at busy times it coped have been slashed. It’s all brand new “shiny” pointless jobs these days. And paid at extortionate levels. It makes no sense other than the purely individual.
Ever read a comment you wish you'd thought of? That's how I feel right now. I feel like I was close to being able to make the connection between dissatisfaction at work, layoffs, costs, and overall human malaise. Thank you for putting this into words!
You got it and the worse part is the property bubble it created in residential and commercial with Office space. The whole thing has to crash which is the point the financialists want that to happen so they can steal every last thing.
So
Downsize, save for a rainy day Go without. Learn how to Garden. Be ready when the inevitable shows up.
Not only high salaries but so many pointless jobs. For basic necessities we need housing, electricity, phone and broadband. We don’t need, eg, 24 electricity companies all employing consultants, marketers, advertisers etc, purely to better compete with each other for our ever increasing electricity payments.
To add, the we do pay for those inflated salaries, and mostly we pay for the amassed wealth of the top 5% wealthiest and everyone trying to become billionaires.
True. But I look at it this way. We are also funding the salaries of the few at the top who use that money to buy private jets, multi-million dollar mansions and more without proof they are all that productive. Those who want to use tools like AI to eliminate jobs. If the system ain't gonna change (and I believe it isn't) and until we do the hard work of figuring out the role of work in a future (that will realistically require fewer people to carry it out), I would rather my money go so the multitudes so we can eat, keep a roof over our heads, support our families etc.
I think execs are using AI as an excuse to eliminate jobs without understanding the value of the jobs. AI can probably cope with basics but not they myriads of weird and wonderful situations humans learn to deal with.
Who is paying for all of this? Any data on the actual cost of all this consultancy vs material and labour. I saw the comment about consultancy driving up costs for customers...but i wonder is it actually that costs have gone up so high elsewhere that the percentage a company is willing to spend on consultancy has always been the same. So an absolute increase im volume of meetings. Curious whwt the actual data is. I'm also wondering if those entities are willing to pay this, not because they believe in the nonsense they get most of the time, but because the one time they do get something good its worth either a massive advantage or worth it because it saved them from a massive failure. Does the charade exist to formalise a and fund an idea pot which is 99 percent crap and 1 percent diamond.
First, thank you for these thoughts and expressing them so poignantly. I’ve been feeling this and I wonder if it is worth expansion: it’s not just the meaningless of today’s corporate world or the $ between actually helpful jobs (teacher, EMT), though those are deep and real. For me, as a mid-40s professional, it’s the exposure (or evolution) of the social contract that was in the cultural ether growing up in the 90s/early 2000s. That society was progressing in positive ways and we could all contribute to it, in some form or fashion. That notion has gone out the window, and that leaves me (and I’d imagine many others) feeling a combination of rudderless and that the carpet has been pulled out from beneath us.
Absolutely. Those of us in our 30s and 40s were brought up to believe that if we worked hard and went to college, everything would work out for us. Then we got there, looked around, and realized we'd have to mortgage our souls for a paycheck while basic human rights were being eroded around us (at least, in the USA). It's hard not to feel despondent.
1. this is not some new phenomenon. This is the way the corporate world has always been. And yet corporations are still with us
2. All startups eventually turn into corporations.
3. most startups aren’t doing anything super meaningful either. Is building/selling some dumb AI that saves 10 minutes of a corporate worker’s daily time and gives his boss an excuse to layoff an entire department, really more meaningful?
4. 90% of the work time e.g. of a paramedic is either boring or excruciatingly hard. So people who do really important work don’t necessarily enjoy it most of the time
Scratch the surface and you will find a deeper truth: work does not & never did give “meaning” to life. Be grateful you are rich and privileged and don’t work to stay alive. Make your life meaningful by enjoying every moment you can, and being connected and kind to the people around you. Those two are hard enough. Stop worrying about the rest.
Well all startups don’t turn into corporations, unless they’re given shitloads of venture capital, in which case they develop corporate thinking REAL fast, even while they’re still small. Generally though, in my experience, small businesses and startups are healthier places to work, because everything is more transparent, communication has to be more effective, the concept of ‘value’ has real meaning, and meaningless bullshit work costs money that the company can’t afford.
Have to agree Robert, the concept of value does have real meaning in smaller businesses and a purpose other than maximising only shareholder value is a beautiful thing.
It's not new but it's definitely worse. When I joined the workforce 40-odd years ago, a median salary delivered a good quality of life and a it didn't take up most of your time and energy and grind your soul to dust. Corporations weren't bigger than most countries, most markets were open and not dominated by a handful of profit-extracting behemoths, executives didn't get paid mega-multiples of average earnings, workers rights were stronger, Unions too. The playing field was more even, between companies and between employers and employees.
People felt, in the main, that they got a fair share of the cake. That they were treated with some respect and dignity. That organisations exercised some care for them. None of that is true today but they are constantly gaslight that it is.
That line about "too late to pivot, too early to retire" hits differently when you're in your mid-fifties. I've already pivoted once and don't feel like I've wasted decades - met incredible people, accomplished meaningful projects. But early retirement isn't quite within reach either, so you're right about the timing trap.
What resonates is how this performative dysfunction infects everything. I work in non-profits now and see the same bloat, the same documentation theater crowding out actual impact. It's not just corporate - it's systemic.
I think AI is revealing even more about the broken systems we've created than COVID did. When machines can automate the busy work, what's left is the uncomfortable truth about how much of what we do serves no real purpose... or serves overlords more than our soul.
Keep writing about this. You're giving voice to what many of us see but rarely hear discussed this directly.
I’m so glad it resonated. Although I wrote that, this is purely just what I imagine it feels like. I don’t believe it’s too late to pivot and I don’t think it ever really is. But I appreciate that it must be daunting and exhausting!
THIS!...as another one "in his 50's" and in his 3rd sabbatical pulling up the floorboards.
It is systemic at the level of "work" as a system and AI is revealing / reflecting back what we've failed to look at more deeply...both at work and in education.
The critique lands, but I think it’s only half the story. Meetings-for-meetings’ sake aren’t just about bad culture, and they’re not always meaningless, they’re baked into how work itself is structured. When each person’s role is reduced to such a tiny slice, nobody holds the full picture. You end up with people gathering just to make sure the fragments line up. Meetings become the glue, not because they’re inherently valuable, but because the system is so fragmented that no single person can see or shape the whole design.
When your scope is narrowed to a task so small it doesn’t carry meaning on its own, it’s easy to feel like you “do nothing.” The big picture—the “why”—is invisible, so people grasp for meaning elsewhere.
I don't know if it needed a follow up, but it was a good quick read. One thing that stuck out to me and caused a light-bulb moment was the pay discrepancies between jobs that actually have a function in society, and jobs meant to brain drain individuals by packaging up their creativity for people up the ladder to sell.
I try not to believe in some grand plan, or secret meeting of high-level .01%'ers somewhere pulling strings, I mean... nothing is truly able to be manipulated at such a large scale without someone finding out. Everything is exposed eventually. However, I do find it strange that the jobs that we all MIGHT'VE taken, had we not been sucked into these corporate parasitic companies, would've added actual value to our communities.
In my latest article, Impact & Intention, I dive into the impact broader decisions have. The impact of removing hundreds of thousands of very educated individuals, and placing them into burnout loops that serve disconnected billionaires instead of local, and regional communities, has to be something large. It has to be something large enough to both simultaneously cause the death of service based careers while also fueling the rise of fake careers that are ultimately meaningless when the reaper comes for you.
I cannot really put it into good words right now, but I will try, and I will write about it soon.
I totally agree, the value misalignment in our economy is genuinely shocking sometimes. Drop me a dm when you release your article I'd love to check it out!
The one I hate so much to think about is a teacher. Growing up, teachers made the biggest impact on my life and truly shaped me. I wanted to be a teacher. But I used my communication skills for sales and make 300k a year to… help companies? I’d love to be shaping the next generation but the prospect of me and my partner living on 200k less is too difficult.
It’s a good point, I’ll put in the parking lot and circle back to latter after I finish the KPIs my AI note taker created from reading this article to be more efficient.
This collective internal boundary setting and people building meaning for themselves will eventually burst through the container that is the systems we have worked under and in large part feel trapped to uphold. And I don't know what that will look like, or the aftermath, but I'm here for it.
It feels like society as at a point of healing it's own inter-generational leadership trauma. For whatever reason (because every individual has their own), people are taking ownership where they can and finding their own internal meaning rather than external validation and interpretations of success.
All it took was to realize we weren't actually alone, and to start reconnecting with ourselves and each other.
I think a lot of what we are feeling can be explained with sociological theory, specifically a disenchantment with capitalism and neoliberalism. We aren't drinking the koolaid of individualism and profit anymore because we're all getting fucked by the system. Only the billionaires are truly winning here.
I’ve worked in nonprofits for eight years, and despite the work being meaningful, burnout often stems from high levels of vicarious trauma combined with low pay.
The other thing that’s noticeably missing is the camaraderie and true bonding with colleagues. Not many after work drinks etc, no more friends for life - it’s pleasant and polite but everyone wants to go and live their real life.
Additionally, whenever I’m approached about a 5-day a week corporate role, I always ask about the possibility of 3-4 days. They always say no and there’s never 5 days of work.
I had a great path towards equity partnership as a lawyer and then at a wealth management firm and always remember some early career advice. "You have to want your boss's job." All I saw were people twenty years ahead of me looking miserable even with wealth and career satisfaction. I wanted enough money to live a decent lifestyle, but plenty of time to wander and pursue hobbies.
The answer is self employment. I have no boss. I make my own schedule. If I want more money, I work harder and get more clients. If I don't, I just keep what I have. The work is more fulfilling advising families than companies, and I see the financial planning world flourishing with small "solopreneur" firms. It has the benefits of capitalism (you can sell you practice) without any corporate bureaucracy and if one client wants to fire me, or I want to fire them, it's totally insulated from multiple happy clients.
This path is available in almost any field through consulting roles, but you have to be competent and deliver value. Unfortunately for most corporate employees that excel at politics and running useless meetings--this isn't an option. If you're good at what you do you can hang a shingle. Corporate benefits are bull shit anyways. Healthcare is just another cost to build into your plan, and retirement plans and tax rules are much more favorable to business owners than employees. Find a way to replace your current salary with consulting income, and go from there.
This all tracks. These are the exact conversations I'm having with potential clients. It's the folks particularly in their forties and '50s I end up working with, either to figure out how to reframe their relationship to work, or find a way to escape from corporate and start something of their own. There's no single right path but for each individual they usually have options.
I feel lucky to have been ejected from corporate when I did. I had one of those meetings about meetings jobs and it almost broke me.
I may not be earning big tech money but I have a good lifestyle and get to help people find themselves again.
Kind of going off Fergie's comment... Consumerism is the root cause of pretty much all of this.
Drive your car until it rolls to a stop and cannot be repaired. Use your phone until it can no longer text or call. Wear your clothes until they are threadbare. Quit buying energy drinks and snacks at gas stations. Buy used everything, or better yet, borrow everything within reason. And on the flipside of that, lend anything you own to anyone who has need of it. Donate what you don't use, preferably to some place/person that isn't going to resell it so their CEO can make millions (looking at you Goodwill). And when you do buy, make sure to do your research and purchase high quality goods that will last many years. Quit letting corporations get away with the "planned obsolescence" routine.
Over-consumption sustains this system. At some point, you just have to say that enough is enough and be content with what you have.
“Quitting to pursue meaning … crawling back to worse corporate roles” is my biggest fear.
It’s the golden handcuffs, but also the knowledge that it CAN potentially get worse if you take a risk.
Every day, I tell myself that it’s just a job. That fuels my creative passions outside. I started writing here because i looked inward and ran back towards what brought the most joy to me as a child. I hope that’s enough.
I don’t necessarily think quitting without either a strong vision of what you want out of it, or something already economically viable on the side is a plausible option for many folks …
honestly, I think a way around it is just as you point out, leverage the corporate infrastructure to build something of your own on the side that invigorates you and go from there.
the extra time and effort spent here versus the inevitable bed rot or brain rot after a 9-5 (let’s be honest, 9-6 or even 9-9) is where many potentially get stuck.
Alex, a great follow up. So good to see how much you have churned up the water for people, and how well you have captured the essence of what so many are feeling. You are onto something here.
Reading your post reminded me of another bizarre aspect of this shift in corporate jobs: the Consultancy. As you say, a lot of the 30-40 something's are feeling trapped in the lie, but a LOT of very skilled developers (Data Scientists, Engineers etc) are saying 'sod this' and jumping ship, they have more choice than many others. The result is that the corporate middle management are left with holes in their teams, which the 'big four' consultancies are only too happy to fill, at a staggering increase per hour. The kicker here is that a lot of the skilled developers leave the nonsense of the corporate world to go into a consultancy, and end up back in the roles they did, but for a different corporation. Many that I have spoken have talked about job security (through variety and increased pay) though the difference between what they earn and what they are charged out at is still a significant amount.
One of the commenters (Fergie I think it was) - commented on how we - as consumers bear the costs of this. This is another example of that cost, but you may not realise quite how significant it is.
Now the major unspoken thing - we are all paying the salaries of these people. Not only in public sector managerial roles, but across the board. We, as customers, pay for all the consultants, the marketing execs, the pointless packaging and its designers. We pay for all these people on £100K a year to have pointless meetings with each other. This is why the cost of living is sky high. We no longer simply have basic, necessary, goods, services and utilities and a few chosen luxuries. We have layer upon layer of expensive, totally unnecessary, useless, wasteful cost on top of everything, including basic necessities. Hence we all have to work long hours in useless jobs to pay for basic living.
Mmm this is a really good point and I hadn’t thought of this. Thanks so much for sharing!
This shit is the inevitable trajectory of capitalism. The problem is not only moral rot. It is that capitalism has never been a rational construct on which to base the world. Mathematical logic tells us cooperation consistently outperforms competition. It is faster, more efficient, and more sustainable. Yet capitalism sanctifies competition—and predation—as its cornerstones.
How a Broken System Becomes “Natural”
The obvious question is how something so flawed not only survives but dominates. The answer lies in legitimation. A broken machine needs constant storytelling to appear inevitable. Capitalism dresses itself up as rational, scientific, and beyond dispute. It has to. Otherwise, the cracks would show too quickly.
That is why business management is packaged as a high intellectual pursuit. The rituals of strategy, optimization, and leadership science exist not to create clarity but to sanctify the system. It is an elaborate PR campaign to convince workers, customers, and governments that running businesses is an elite activity only fit for the chosen few.
The Deception Industry
Business schools are the chief manufacturers of this illusion. They do not merely teach management. They enshrine it. They hand out credentials with the weight of scripture, presenting shallow frameworks and recycled clichés as rigorous truths. PhDs write case studies that elevate guesswork into doctrine. MBAs leave believing they have mastered a science, when in reality they have memorized a vocabulary of myths.
This is not clumsy jargon. It is calculated deception. The models, the spreadsheets, the leadership paradigms are designed to create an appearance of necessity. If the system can convince you that business management is a precise science, then you will accept its dictates as naturally as gravity. Questioning it becomes arrogance.
Myths Feeding Myths
The result is a self-reinforcing mythology. Consultants tell managers what they already know. Managers report it back upward wrapped in new jargon. Academic “thought leaders” cite both as evidence of their theories. It is an echo chamber that validates itself at every level.
Inside this circle, the more complex the model, the more impressive it looks, even when complexity only masks emptiness. Entire careers are built on circulating insights that collapse the second you test them against reality. But reality does not matter. What matters is maintaining the aura of expertise.
Customers as Collateral
For decades, the system at least pretended to put the customer first. “The client is king,” went the slogan. That claim now looks laughable. Call your bank. Deal with your insurer. Buy processed food from a supermarket shelf. What you will find is declining service and declining quality, wrapped in increasingly elaborate excuses.
Because the goal is not solving problems anymore. It is sustaining the theater. Customers become props in the performance, tolerated only to the extent that they keep the revenue flowing. Satisfaction and value creation are irrelevant next to the higher priority: defending the myth that capitalism is coherent and inevitable.
The Cost to the Psyche
The cruelest irony is that the deception is transparent. The people inside these systems know it. The business professors know it. The consultants know it. The managers know it. They all understand, at some level, that what they are defending is smoke dressed up as steel. And yet they continue, because the alternative, admitting the system is nonsense, threatens their very livelihoods.
This comes at a cost. Living inside a lie hollows people out. When you know your work is theater, when you sense the rituals are designed to fool rather than to build, meaning evaporates. What replaces it is dissonance. Cynicism. A slow drift toward believing nothing matters except the paycheck.
That is the real consequence of capitalism’s masquerade. Not only a degraded economy of goods and services, but a degraded collective psyche. Millions of people playing roles they no longer believe in, trapped in an existential pantomime they cannot walk away from.
While I think you're largely right, I'd argue that this problem is way deeper than capitalism -- or any -ism for that matter. Complex systems of all kinds become unwieldy and bloated. The most successful systems become the most unweildy and bloated simply because they had the time and resources to do it.
You're right, but in this particular case, the bloat is as much intentional as it is entropic.
Isn't growth in biologically-rooted systems always intentional? Human cultures obviously have many layers of abstraction on top of, say, a bacterial culture, but both can be modeled using some function of resources, time, and constraints.
Seems to me that capitalism now is more a victim of its own success rather than having some unique flaw. Even deception and manipulation run rampant in non-human biological systems. But regardless, perhaps we can both agree that the trick is in setting up the constraints/incentives that lead to more flourishing, without throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Wow. Beautifully said. One of the most validating comments I have ever read. Couldn't agree more.
Peter Turchin describes this problem as an "over production of elites" and has noted this is typical in late state empires / societies. Read his book on the topic to learn more about his observations and hypothesis.
Wow very interesting! Thanks for sharing :))
Thanks, I've just borrowed it on Libby.
Interesting
Thanks for the tip. Fits well for my next piece on "forced scarcity of exceptionalism."
As you said, there is a huge amount of waste in the system. Jobs that are done a certain way, because that’s the way they’ve always been. Money that is wasted, simply because higher ups don’t care about it.
Then prices rise steeply, thus, asking us to compete with others for high pay jobs that numb us into meaningfulness.
We’ve lost touch with reality. So much that we believe following a post with a #real hashtag will enable us to see what a normal life looks like. But our life is here. In this moment. In this place we are. We only ought to look deeply.
And the moment you decide to step out of the rat race, is the first step toward it. Because we can have that meaningful life. That life without waste. That life that allows us to enjoy ourselves to the fullest. Where we contribute to the fullest.
I don’t think there are many jobs now that are there “because it’s the way it was always done”. Quite the opposite. The “old” jobs, like tea trolleys that came round offices, or accountants who ensured things were done right, or the very many jobs that used to exist to give the system slack so at busy times it coped have been slashed. It’s all brand new “shiny” pointless jobs these days. And paid at extortionate levels. It makes no sense other than the purely individual.
And brand new shiny pointless systems that can't do as much as Access and Excel combined but are sold as modern and innovative.
You should turn this into a post about how the next generation needs to learn to be grateful!
Followed you just for this comment. Well said 🤝
And most of us just choose to keep quiet and cash the paycheck because what could be worse?
Ever read a comment you wish you'd thought of? That's how I feel right now. I feel like I was close to being able to make the connection between dissatisfaction at work, layoffs, costs, and overall human malaise. Thank you for putting this into words!
You got it and the worse part is the property bubble it created in residential and commercial with Office space. The whole thing has to crash which is the point the financialists want that to happen so they can steal every last thing.
So
Downsize, save for a rainy day Go without. Learn how to Garden. Be ready when the inevitable shows up.
This suggests that high salaries are the reason for the increasing prices of everyday goods and services. And, yes in a way it is. However I would argue that there is a deeper root cause: fiat monetary system. I wrote a short article on this https://open.substack.com/pub/kaijaruna/p/corporate-jobs-arent-the-problem?r=60k9cc&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Not only high salaries but so many pointless jobs. For basic necessities we need housing, electricity, phone and broadband. We don’t need, eg, 24 electricity companies all employing consultants, marketers, advertisers etc, purely to better compete with each other for our ever increasing electricity payments.
To add, the we do pay for those inflated salaries, and mostly we pay for the amassed wealth of the top 5% wealthiest and everyone trying to become billionaires.
True. But I look at it this way. We are also funding the salaries of the few at the top who use that money to buy private jets, multi-million dollar mansions and more without proof they are all that productive. Those who want to use tools like AI to eliminate jobs. If the system ain't gonna change (and I believe it isn't) and until we do the hard work of figuring out the role of work in a future (that will realistically require fewer people to carry it out), I would rather my money go so the multitudes so we can eat, keep a roof over our heads, support our families etc.
I think execs are using AI as an excuse to eliminate jobs without understanding the value of the jobs. AI can probably cope with basics but not they myriads of weird and wonderful situations humans learn to deal with.
Who is paying for all of this? Any data on the actual cost of all this consultancy vs material and labour. I saw the comment about consultancy driving up costs for customers...but i wonder is it actually that costs have gone up so high elsewhere that the percentage a company is willing to spend on consultancy has always been the same. So an absolute increase im volume of meetings. Curious whwt the actual data is. I'm also wondering if those entities are willing to pay this, not because they believe in the nonsense they get most of the time, but because the one time they do get something good its worth either a massive advantage or worth it because it saved them from a massive failure. Does the charade exist to formalise a and fund an idea pot which is 99 percent crap and 1 percent diamond.
First, thank you for these thoughts and expressing them so poignantly. I’ve been feeling this and I wonder if it is worth expansion: it’s not just the meaningless of today’s corporate world or the $ between actually helpful jobs (teacher, EMT), though those are deep and real. For me, as a mid-40s professional, it’s the exposure (or evolution) of the social contract that was in the cultural ether growing up in the 90s/early 2000s. That society was progressing in positive ways and we could all contribute to it, in some form or fashion. That notion has gone out the window, and that leaves me (and I’d imagine many others) feeling a combination of rudderless and that the carpet has been pulled out from beneath us.
Absolutely. Those of us in our 30s and 40s were brought up to believe that if we worked hard and went to college, everything would work out for us. Then we got there, looked around, and realized we'd have to mortgage our souls for a paycheck while basic human rights were being eroded around us (at least, in the USA). It's hard not to feel despondent.
God if only it were that easy!! 😩
YES!
I read your two articles. Some comments:
1. this is not some new phenomenon. This is the way the corporate world has always been. And yet corporations are still with us
2. All startups eventually turn into corporations.
3. most startups aren’t doing anything super meaningful either. Is building/selling some dumb AI that saves 10 minutes of a corporate worker’s daily time and gives his boss an excuse to layoff an entire department, really more meaningful?
4. 90% of the work time e.g. of a paramedic is either boring or excruciatingly hard. So people who do really important work don’t necessarily enjoy it most of the time
Scratch the surface and you will find a deeper truth: work does not & never did give “meaning” to life. Be grateful you are rich and privileged and don’t work to stay alive. Make your life meaningful by enjoying every moment you can, and being connected and kind to the people around you. Those two are hard enough. Stop worrying about the rest.
I feel like this comment needs a bit more attention as this conversation evolves.
Maybe AI could free us from these "bullshit" corporate jobs? While, we need to create more meaningful jobs which actually create "values".
It sure can, but it will also free a lot of people from wildly over-inflated salaries…
Well all startups don’t turn into corporations, unless they’re given shitloads of venture capital, in which case they develop corporate thinking REAL fast, even while they’re still small. Generally though, in my experience, small businesses and startups are healthier places to work, because everything is more transparent, communication has to be more effective, the concept of ‘value’ has real meaning, and meaningless bullshit work costs money that the company can’t afford.
Have to agree Robert, the concept of value does have real meaning in smaller businesses and a purpose other than maximising only shareholder value is a beautiful thing.
It's not new but it's definitely worse. When I joined the workforce 40-odd years ago, a median salary delivered a good quality of life and a it didn't take up most of your time and energy and grind your soul to dust. Corporations weren't bigger than most countries, most markets were open and not dominated by a handful of profit-extracting behemoths, executives didn't get paid mega-multiples of average earnings, workers rights were stronger, Unions too. The playing field was more even, between companies and between employers and employees.
People felt, in the main, that they got a fair share of the cake. That they were treated with some respect and dignity. That organisations exercised some care for them. None of that is true today but they are constantly gaslight that it is.
That line about "too late to pivot, too early to retire" hits differently when you're in your mid-fifties. I've already pivoted once and don't feel like I've wasted decades - met incredible people, accomplished meaningful projects. But early retirement isn't quite within reach either, so you're right about the timing trap.
What resonates is how this performative dysfunction infects everything. I work in non-profits now and see the same bloat, the same documentation theater crowding out actual impact. It's not just corporate - it's systemic.
I think AI is revealing even more about the broken systems we've created than COVID did. When machines can automate the busy work, what's left is the uncomfortable truth about how much of what we do serves no real purpose... or serves overlords more than our soul.
Keep writing about this. You're giving voice to what many of us see but rarely hear discussed this directly.
I’m so glad it resonated. Although I wrote that, this is purely just what I imagine it feels like. I don’t believe it’s too late to pivot and I don’t think it ever really is. But I appreciate that it must be daunting and exhausting!
THIS!...as another one "in his 50's" and in his 3rd sabbatical pulling up the floorboards.
It is systemic at the level of "work" as a system and AI is revealing / reflecting back what we've failed to look at more deeply...both at work and in education.
The critique lands, but I think it’s only half the story. Meetings-for-meetings’ sake aren’t just about bad culture, and they’re not always meaningless, they’re baked into how work itself is structured. When each person’s role is reduced to such a tiny slice, nobody holds the full picture. You end up with people gathering just to make sure the fragments line up. Meetings become the glue, not because they’re inherently valuable, but because the system is so fragmented that no single person can see or shape the whole design.
When your scope is narrowed to a task so small it doesn’t carry meaning on its own, it’s easy to feel like you “do nothing.” The big picture—the “why”—is invisible, so people grasp for meaning elsewhere.
Mmm really important clarification here thanks for sharing!
I don't know if it needed a follow up, but it was a good quick read. One thing that stuck out to me and caused a light-bulb moment was the pay discrepancies between jobs that actually have a function in society, and jobs meant to brain drain individuals by packaging up their creativity for people up the ladder to sell.
I try not to believe in some grand plan, or secret meeting of high-level .01%'ers somewhere pulling strings, I mean... nothing is truly able to be manipulated at such a large scale without someone finding out. Everything is exposed eventually. However, I do find it strange that the jobs that we all MIGHT'VE taken, had we not been sucked into these corporate parasitic companies, would've added actual value to our communities.
In my latest article, Impact & Intention, I dive into the impact broader decisions have. The impact of removing hundreds of thousands of very educated individuals, and placing them into burnout loops that serve disconnected billionaires instead of local, and regional communities, has to be something large. It has to be something large enough to both simultaneously cause the death of service based careers while also fueling the rise of fake careers that are ultimately meaningless when the reaper comes for you.
I cannot really put it into good words right now, but I will try, and I will write about it soon.
I totally agree, the value misalignment in our economy is genuinely shocking sometimes. Drop me a dm when you release your article I'd love to check it out!
The one I hate so much to think about is a teacher. Growing up, teachers made the biggest impact on my life and truly shaped me. I wanted to be a teacher. But I used my communication skills for sales and make 300k a year to… help companies? I’d love to be shaping the next generation but the prospect of me and my partner living on 200k less is too difficult.
And thus the problem with the world today.
My mum is a teacher so this one really hits home for me.
It’s a good point, I’ll put in the parking lot and circle back to latter after I finish the KPIs my AI note taker created from reading this article to be more efficient.
lol nice😂😂
This collective internal boundary setting and people building meaning for themselves will eventually burst through the container that is the systems we have worked under and in large part feel trapped to uphold. And I don't know what that will look like, or the aftermath, but I'm here for it.
It feels like society as at a point of healing it's own inter-generational leadership trauma. For whatever reason (because every individual has their own), people are taking ownership where they can and finding their own internal meaning rather than external validation and interpretations of success.
All it took was to realize we weren't actually alone, and to start reconnecting with ourselves and each other.
What a world that would be!
Agreed!
I think a lot of what we are feeling can be explained with sociological theory, specifically a disenchantment with capitalism and neoliberalism. We aren't drinking the koolaid of individualism and profit anymore because we're all getting fucked by the system. Only the billionaires are truly winning here.
I’ve worked in nonprofits for eight years, and despite the work being meaningful, burnout often stems from high levels of vicarious trauma combined with low pay.
You’re so right, they’re not even trying to hide it any more!
The other thing that’s noticeably missing is the camaraderie and true bonding with colleagues. Not many after work drinks etc, no more friends for life - it’s pleasant and polite but everyone wants to go and live their real life.
Additionally, whenever I’m approached about a 5-day a week corporate role, I always ask about the possibility of 3-4 days. They always say no and there’s never 5 days of work.
I imagine this is so so common and it’s such a shame honestly.
It’s a really great point and I missed thanks! Thanks for sharing :))
I had a great path towards equity partnership as a lawyer and then at a wealth management firm and always remember some early career advice. "You have to want your boss's job." All I saw were people twenty years ahead of me looking miserable even with wealth and career satisfaction. I wanted enough money to live a decent lifestyle, but plenty of time to wander and pursue hobbies.
The answer is self employment. I have no boss. I make my own schedule. If I want more money, I work harder and get more clients. If I don't, I just keep what I have. The work is more fulfilling advising families than companies, and I see the financial planning world flourishing with small "solopreneur" firms. It has the benefits of capitalism (you can sell you practice) without any corporate bureaucracy and if one client wants to fire me, or I want to fire them, it's totally insulated from multiple happy clients.
This path is available in almost any field through consulting roles, but you have to be competent and deliver value. Unfortunately for most corporate employees that excel at politics and running useless meetings--this isn't an option. If you're good at what you do you can hang a shingle. Corporate benefits are bull shit anyways. Healthcare is just another cost to build into your plan, and retirement plans and tax rules are much more favorable to business owners than employees. Find a way to replace your current salary with consulting income, and go from there.
Nice! Do you find it more meaningful being self employed? Are you able to see more direct impact?
Maybe but that was never a priority to me. My impact is with my kids, friends, family, etc.
This all tracks. These are the exact conversations I'm having with potential clients. It's the folks particularly in their forties and '50s I end up working with, either to figure out how to reframe their relationship to work, or find a way to escape from corporate and start something of their own. There's no single right path but for each individual they usually have options.
I feel lucky to have been ejected from corporate when I did. I had one of those meetings about meetings jobs and it almost broke me.
I may not be earning big tech money but I have a good lifestyle and get to help people find themselves again.
Thanks for bringing more light to this subject.
In solidarity ✊
I appreciate your kind solidarity sir!! 🫡
Kind of going off Fergie's comment... Consumerism is the root cause of pretty much all of this.
Drive your car until it rolls to a stop and cannot be repaired. Use your phone until it can no longer text or call. Wear your clothes until they are threadbare. Quit buying energy drinks and snacks at gas stations. Buy used everything, or better yet, borrow everything within reason. And on the flipside of that, lend anything you own to anyone who has need of it. Donate what you don't use, preferably to some place/person that isn't going to resell it so their CEO can make millions (looking at you Goodwill). And when you do buy, make sure to do your research and purchase high quality goods that will last many years. Quit letting corporations get away with the "planned obsolescence" routine.
Over-consumption sustains this system. At some point, you just have to say that enough is enough and be content with what you have.
“Quitting to pursue meaning … crawling back to worse corporate roles” is my biggest fear.
It’s the golden handcuffs, but also the knowledge that it CAN potentially get worse if you take a risk.
Every day, I tell myself that it’s just a job. That fuels my creative passions outside. I started writing here because i looked inward and ran back towards what brought the most joy to me as a child. I hope that’s enough.
Do you not think that the wondering what could have been if you did take the risk is worse than the failure itself?
it depends on what the risk is!
I don’t necessarily think quitting without either a strong vision of what you want out of it, or something already economically viable on the side is a plausible option for many folks …
honestly, I think a way around it is just as you point out, leverage the corporate infrastructure to build something of your own on the side that invigorates you and go from there.
the extra time and effort spent here versus the inevitable bed rot or brain rot after a 9-5 (let’s be honest, 9-6 or even 9-9) is where many potentially get stuck.
Alex, a great follow up. So good to see how much you have churned up the water for people, and how well you have captured the essence of what so many are feeling. You are onto something here.
Reading your post reminded me of another bizarre aspect of this shift in corporate jobs: the Consultancy. As you say, a lot of the 30-40 something's are feeling trapped in the lie, but a LOT of very skilled developers (Data Scientists, Engineers etc) are saying 'sod this' and jumping ship, they have more choice than many others. The result is that the corporate middle management are left with holes in their teams, which the 'big four' consultancies are only too happy to fill, at a staggering increase per hour. The kicker here is that a lot of the skilled developers leave the nonsense of the corporate world to go into a consultancy, and end up back in the roles they did, but for a different corporation. Many that I have spoken have talked about job security (through variety and increased pay) though the difference between what they earn and what they are charged out at is still a significant amount.
One of the commenters (Fergie I think it was) - commented on how we - as consumers bear the costs of this. This is another example of that cost, but you may not realise quite how significant it is.
Totally, it was a really insightful comment and perhaps that's another post in itself.