To believe most jobs are pointless?

For a minute, I thought I was reading the daily mail, not MN.

I also work in a bullshit job then. But, my pushing paper around (it's 2025, it's all digital) makes sure that the charity I work for complies with the law, keeps everyone safe and doesn't get hit with a legal battle or massive fine. You do realise that someone needs to set up the infrastructure for delivery teams to do the jobs that they are best at? Make sure they are covered by insurance? Make sure funding flows in and out?

Just because you don't understand what people do for a living doesn't mean that we only need teachers and nurses in the workplace.

Except look at the admin jobs that have been pushed away to give way to ‘please check our website’ when a real person could help, look at banks being shells. Ai etc can do these jobs but at the expense of having the comfort of a person to help when eg something has broken down and you need help now

I work in IT and finance and I automated myself out of my last three roles, a fact that I'm very proud of. There are a lot of jobs where things are being done inefficiently because it's easier to get one person to keep doing a job slowly (or in a way that made sense 20 years ago) than take 10 people to automate the work to remove a job altogether.

It doesn't mean the jobs themselves are valueless though - my last job kept payment systems going and if the automation hadn't been done properly millions of card payments could have failed from day 1.

The point of most jobs, in the private sector at least, is that someone thinks money can be made by paying someone to do them. While that remains the case the jobs will exist and the more money made from doing them the higher the price they'll command. I agree that some roles should be more highly valued and better rewarded, but these tend to be those that don't generate profit and are funded via the finite amount in the public purse. So unless people pay higher taxes this won't change. However this is unrelated to whether there's a 'point' to other jobs or not.

You can compare individual workload. Dh was actually bored because he didn't have enough to do. He's just applied for and got a different role within the university which he thinks will be a vit more From what he says, there's more hanging around in offices chatting than there is burnout.

Not just the DM. How many public enquiries and 'lessons to be learned'

No, Local Government, but as I said upthread, I have been recently recruited to this pointless, nothing to do job, at at time when the council is in a dire financial state and desperately looking to save money by cutting services, and where the previous post holder clearly had fuck all to do.

None of that stopped management wanting to keep their staff levels up by recruiting to this post, despite not needing the staff.

Its bloody unbelievable. And its immoral on staff like me who believe they are going to a real and meaningful job when they accept the job, only to find out it only exists to satisfy a manager's ego, and its immoral to the public purse. Other people's taxes are wasted on my pointless wage!

The problem in the public sector is that there are endless rules to follow, that no-one on the ground or even in middle management has any power to change.

A lot of it is due to supply contracts with large private sector service providers who make a fortune acting as a middleman for supplying goods and services at extortionate rates.

For example, if I want a train ticket, I can't just buy one and claim back the cost like a normal person, I have to fill in a form, which needs to be signed by my manager and then it's sent to the team PA to book it with the external travel agent, which involves some back and forth as the price will have changed during all the faffing around also they can't book all types of ticket and won't book open returns even when cheaper than fixed trains (fuck knows why) so we lose so much time because we're hanging around for the train we're booked on, or we have to buy a flexible ticket anyway because the event over-ran, also they add on their cut so even when it all goes to plan it costs more.

Then if I have to fly anywhere (for hands on work in places like the Isle of Man) I have to fill in another form to justify my frivolousness and environment destroying activities and I have to fill in an extra risk assessment, because going to the IoM counts as 'dangerous' because I am going alone to a rural area outside the EU (seriously).

I do wonder what would happen if the higher ups said 'lets just quietly ignore all this nonsense and get on with the job how we like, which is much cheaper and more efficient'. My guess is it would take years for anyone who makes the rules to notice.

I don't think jobs are pointless but there is definitely a huge discrepancy in the type of work and pay.

If someone is good at their job, great - they should be paid accordingly! Kudos to them for working their way up the ladder and earning the big bucks!

But for us folk who work in the NHS, we've continually been in an "overworked, understaffed, underpaid" institution that, I don't believe, will get any better. Most people in those jobs (like myself) don't go into it for the money but more the role itself.

Having said that, the fact my BIL (who left college with no qualifications and didn't give a toss about his education) sorts out some air con units and fridges and is on way more money than me is baffling and definitely makes me believe that I should've become an engineer instead.

Yeah, the managers in my team would say we are all pared back now and we have to cut back on what we can do due to lack of staff, too. And we can only do what we can do etc etc. Yet here I am, able to waste hours each day on Mumsnet and You Tube videos because I have next to nothing to do. 😐

Do you work in a university? If so, I'd be very worried if I was in a position where there wasn't much to do. The financial crisis isn't going anywhere!

Yeah, the managers in my team would say we are all pared back now and we have to cut back on what we can do due to lack of staff, too. And we can only do what we can do etc etc. Yet here I am, able to waste hours each day on Mumsnet and You Tube videos because I have next to nothing to do. 😐

It just really pisses me off when people state “office job” my job may be office based but to be honest last week I had to deal with an investigation into a product the led to batches being held of the market (which is a BIG DEAL) if we had let that product go to market and something had gone wrong people would point the finger and ask why we didn’t investigate/do our job…but yeah…it’s only a. Office job.

How long have you worked in the NHS? This is a serious question, I’m not being flippant.

I was running about on my knees during COVID lockdowns. It was so busy I managed to only get 2 days off in 2 years.

I am in e-commerce, hardly essential and yet providing a service people wanted rather than needed in the traditional sense.

I tried to go back into agriculture during that time because I felt that was more important but despite qualifications and experience they preferred to employ office workers. I connected with other ex farm workers who all said the same thing, we were unwanted. Some industries spotted the opportunity to score political point during COVID so all this discussion about essential workers being the real deal during lockdowns is somewhat negated by the actions of industry and individuals at this time.

Who says what is or isn't essential? Obviously my work isn't essential in the community sense but it filled a need at the time. Honestly we need to look beyond what we perceive as having value because there is value in things that appear frivolous and wasteful in comparison to others.

There are no unimportant jobs, there are no little people, there are no small acts of kindness. However, there are individuals who seek to demoralise everyone else for their own ends whatever they are. Yes sometimes work feels pointless but it really isn't economic activity is important to find out current ways of life.

This is what astonishes me in the public sector.

Despite services being pared back to the bone, councils being in dire financial straits and some even going bankrupt, their management efficiency is still appalling. They don't seem to have even looked at this. When they need to cut back, they cut services. The big failing they have is bloody awful staff management, which means far too many staff with little to do. The managers though never seem to want to do anything about this, as presumably they feel it could negatively impact them.

Due to the improved use of technology in the workplace. Jobs are definitely in the process of being redefined. Over time some will fade and new jobs will be formed.

Will we need as many people as we do now for society to work. i truly do not know but with more people requiring benefits to survive and the wealth gap increasing, something unpleasant is on the horizon unless the UK can find strong leadership to enforce the changes required but I do not hold my breath as the last few Governments has done nothing for the majority of society but has asset stripped as much as possible, in order to keep the rich wealthy.

BTW I had a friend who used to work in admin at a Uni and she said she used to find an empty room and go for a nap for a couple of hours every afternoon...

if that actually happened it certainly wouldn't now.

This is changing. I don't know any university staff who aren't on the brink of complete burn out.
Universities are also far more complex and much larger organisations than schools so some things are slower. You can't compare the two.

You are making a different point though.

My Council has very recently stopped filling empty roles, as they are so short of cash. If someone leaves, that post is not filled, unless its an absolutely critical role (such as the Council can't end up with no child protection social workers for example).

However, this is a blanket ban on recruiting to any (non critical) vacant post, even if there is a role for that post. (and the fact that the Council can do this and still function, I think does show you how many under-occupied people there were in the Council. If everyone already had a meaningful job and was working to capacity, they would not be able to do this).

What I and the other poster were talking about was in times when the LG does not have this restriction, but they still recruit to posts that have not real function or workload.

BTW I had a friend who used to work in admin at a Uni and she said she used to find an empty room and go for a nap for a couple of hours every afternoon...

Society wouldn't collapse if I gave up job as an AHP either. But my partner was just discharged home after a surgery without an OT assessment. I couldn't drive him home safely, he can't get off the couch and on/off the toilet without equipment, he hasn't showered for 6 days because he can't get in and out of the bathtub. He is very lucky to have me as a skilled professional at home who can facilitate some of these things. He wouldn't die without them but he sure as hell wouldn't have had comfortable recovery.
I have quite a lot to say about private healthcare at the moment and I very much wish to see how many "ineffective middle managers" and "compliance time wasters" they dismissed as useless to have resulted in this unsafe discharge.

Maybe not 'Most', but a lot of office based jobs in recent years I would say have become either pointless or overpaid. I include mine in that bucket.
I believe we have become very good at making our jobs sound far more important than they are.
A lot of the blame goes to the employers.
My role used to be worthwhile. I worked hard and was paid accordingly.
But in the past 7 years I find that I am paid a lot for doing something very wanky and pointless. Still at the same company, doing supposedly the same role. But the corporate world has changed so much. I no longer recognise what I do. I'm not the only one.

I think perhaps they might be referring to the "middle management" in public sector jobs that are well paid but perhaps a mis-use of the public's money?
Well, the original post referred to 'half of modern' jobs which suggests they mean more than just middle management 🤷🏼‍♀️

Probably true to an extent, but it's a bit of a sweeping statement with not enough actual examples.

Dh recently quit teaching after decades including SLT roles and moved into a high level admin role at a (good) university. He was immediately astonished and baffled by how many people the uni employs to do very little, to the point that he thinks quite often 3 people are employed to do work that could easily done by one. It's pretty ridiculous considering the financial state of universities right now. He says absolutely everything is done at a snail's pace as well (compared with in schools).

Not understanding the value a particular role has, is not the same as it actually having no value.

About 50% of my job is pointless - nothing changes if l do it or not but l love it and it pays the bills!