Why BS jobs are not just hilarious
We live in a funny world. For the first time in the history of mankind, we are in a situation where one human being can produce an input significant enough to provide the things necessary for living (like food, water, warmth and shelter) for 10 000 people or more. A hundred years ago, many smart guys estimated that by this time we would be lying on our backs, utilizing all the wonderments of technology free from the problems of yesteryear, and rising into higher levels on consciousness.
Yet somehow, we’re back in the situation where people are actually dying because of working too much. Not because their backs are sore from lugging all that hay around (and not having powerful enough machines to help). Not because the effort needed to produce nutrition for the entire village simply requires that we work 16 hours a day. No, none of that applies.
On almost any measure that we had in place 100 years ago, we don’t really even work that much. Actually, come to think of it: we don’t even work.
Given these facts, how on Earth do we manage to be working in a way that is driving our species to extinction (via mental exhaustion, plain boredom, lack of direction and being busy as the prevailing modus operandi of anyone-who's-anyone)? The reason is simple: because we have generated a huge network of illusionary jobs that are needed only because some other made-up work exists as well.
Yet somehow, we’re back in the situation where people are actually dying because of working too much. Not because their backs are sore from lugging all that hay around (and not having powerful enough machines to help). Not because the effort needed to produce nutrition for the entire village simply requires that we work 16 hours a day. No, none of that applies.
On almost any measure that we had in place 100 years ago, we don’t really even work that much. Actually, come to think of it: we don’t even work.
Given these facts, how on Earth do we manage to be working in a way that is driving our species to extinction (via mental exhaustion, plain boredom, lack of direction and being busy as the prevailing modus operandi of anyone-who's-anyone)? The reason is simple: because we have generated a huge network of illusionary jobs that are needed only because some other made-up work exists as well.
And these made-up jobs are busy as hell. They exist to “create value”, yet that value is not observable via human senses, but something you need to believe in to see it – like Santa, or the smoothening effect of No More Wrinkles Face Cream. This is why many of them are just racing towards an elusive target. On a micro-level, we can fix things by setting sub-optimized individual targets (“Liza, your target this year is EUR 600 000 in sales and a certificate in Mindful Leadership For People Selling Insurances To Media Companies"). But on the macro-level, we are lost. Why does a company exist? What about an industry? Why do we sell insurances? What would be different if we just…didn’t?
We justify and rationalize these made-up jobs by saying that “it’s good that we create jobs for people”, which is resting on the underlying notion that work is something we need to create. That is one crazy assumption. (The world is not ready, nor will it ever be. We do not have to create work, just as we don’t have to create pain. Life provides the pain necessary for growing. The world provides its incompleteness necessary for us to be able to work.)
There will always be work to be done. Let us not worry about that. The question on how we divide the stuff on Earth (food, drink, all sorts of material and immaterial resources) among us living creatures is a separate question.
A majority of us work on jobs that form closed loops with other jobs. They don’t relate to anything that we would need for living – according to science or any other belief system. Thus, according to my logic, they should only exist in case they add more value (of some other kind – e.g. knowledge, joy) than they destroy (via e.g. making people miserable at work, harming our planet, creating or maintaining injustice and inequality between human beings).
Why do we do this? Not because we're evil, but simply because we don't know what we should and shouldn't do. We have no idea what would be the impact of lifting one company up from the face of Earth and getting rid of it. What would be lost, what would be gained....would anyone even notice.
There is one very concrete reason for this collective drowsing: we are almost entirely lacking a holistic way to measure the usefulness of organizational activity. We only have one commonly accepted and widely used measuring system: that of financial performance. It is good that we have it. Otherwise we would be even more clueless. But it is helplessly inadequate, one-sided and outdated. And its role has gotten out of hand. (Ironically, mainly because it has no competition. I think it’s time we create some.) It can’t tell the difference between a company that makes us develop, learn and move forward as a species, and one that makes us more stupid, unhappy and/or sick.
Very concretely: Let’s think of two imaginary organizations with three product lines each. They both have the same, okay level of financial performance. One of them makes schoolbooks, supplies for medical research and reparations of old houses. The other makes slim pretty “female” cigarettes, padded bras for pre-teen girls, and colorful sugary snacks in the shape of Sesame Street characters that say “Buy me if you wanna be cool!”.
We should be able to tell these apart, and also explicitly encourage their activity differently. Today we cannot.
As all truths in this universe, this kind of measuring is of course a paradox. It is theoretically impossible to create a measuring system to rank all human activity perfectly and unanimously from #1 to infinity. And thank God for that – that’s why we have been given brains and the ability to practice healthy judgment. It also follows from this paradox, that it is our obligation to try to get as close as we possibly can. Our commonly used paradigms should be built on our brains and best knowledge – not vice versa.
The underlying assumption behind all of this is that getting things done – any things that bring some sort of change to how things are right now – will get us forward. As paradoxical as it sounds, we’re stuck on getting things done. It’s not serving us anymore.
Are we ready to question that assumption?
We justify and rationalize these made-up jobs by saying that “it’s good that we create jobs for people”, which is resting on the underlying notion that work is something we need to create. That is one crazy assumption. (The world is not ready, nor will it ever be. We do not have to create work, just as we don’t have to create pain. Life provides the pain necessary for growing. The world provides its incompleteness necessary for us to be able to work.)
There will always be work to be done. Let us not worry about that. The question on how we divide the stuff on Earth (food, drink, all sorts of material and immaterial resources) among us living creatures is a separate question.
A majority of us work on jobs that form closed loops with other jobs. They don’t relate to anything that we would need for living – according to science or any other belief system. Thus, according to my logic, they should only exist in case they add more value (of some other kind – e.g. knowledge, joy) than they destroy (via e.g. making people miserable at work, harming our planet, creating or maintaining injustice and inequality between human beings).
Why do we do this? Not because we're evil, but simply because we don't know what we should and shouldn't do. We have no idea what would be the impact of lifting one company up from the face of Earth and getting rid of it. What would be lost, what would be gained....would anyone even notice.
There is one very concrete reason for this collective drowsing: we are almost entirely lacking a holistic way to measure the usefulness of organizational activity. We only have one commonly accepted and widely used measuring system: that of financial performance. It is good that we have it. Otherwise we would be even more clueless. But it is helplessly inadequate, one-sided and outdated. And its role has gotten out of hand. (Ironically, mainly because it has no competition. I think it’s time we create some.) It can’t tell the difference between a company that makes us develop, learn and move forward as a species, and one that makes us more stupid, unhappy and/or sick.
Very concretely: Let’s think of two imaginary organizations with three product lines each. They both have the same, okay level of financial performance. One of them makes schoolbooks, supplies for medical research and reparations of old houses. The other makes slim pretty “female” cigarettes, padded bras for pre-teen girls, and colorful sugary snacks in the shape of Sesame Street characters that say “Buy me if you wanna be cool!”.
We should be able to tell these apart, and also explicitly encourage their activity differently. Today we cannot.
As all truths in this universe, this kind of measuring is of course a paradox. It is theoretically impossible to create a measuring system to rank all human activity perfectly and unanimously from #1 to infinity. And thank God for that – that’s why we have been given brains and the ability to practice healthy judgment. It also follows from this paradox, that it is our obligation to try to get as close as we possibly can. Our commonly used paradigms should be built on our brains and best knowledge – not vice versa.
The underlying assumption behind all of this is that getting things done – any things that bring some sort of change to how things are right now – will get us forward. As paradoxical as it sounds, we’re stuck on getting things done. It’s not serving us anymore.
Are we ready to question that assumption?
RSS Feed