To believe most jobs are pointless?

I’m not saying all jobs are pointless - of course, builders, engineers, and researchers contribute real value. But let’s be honest, there are plenty of office jobs where people spend their time on unnecessary meetings, reports no one reads, and tasks that don’t actually improve anything. If those roles disappeared overnight, would the world notice?

I often think this too! I look at the various job adverts or ask someone what their job is and am none the wiser! The one I really love is "consultancy" - in what? of what? to whose benefit?

My adult DD has a high powered job in an international company - she tells me what she does, but it means nothing at all - it is all flim-flam. Meetings, unnecessary international flights, company away days ....... sometimes I feel really sad that this creative person is wasting their life on it all - but not my decision!

I am sure there is some pruning to be done - but then the unemployment figures would go up ........

I don't think how we value work is the issue - everyone I know highly values healthcare professionals and teachers. I don't think the value of the work is a straight relation to the pay for the work though, and that's standard. Think of farmers - without them, we'd have nothing to eat or wear, yet they're hardly living the life of Riley.

Jobs that require funding from public money aren't going to be as well paid as other areas, because the money that pays them isn't a never ending pot. Sure you can redistribute some of that by doing away with roles you see as pointless (but those roles can't just be from random companies or industries because that money won't suddenly get donated to public funds). You also need these unnecessary roles to contribute to public funds via taxes.

Things like governance and compliance are absolutely necessary, "red tape" and "paperwork" are there for a reason 90% of the time. You just might not understand the "real value" of it.

I think the Covid crisis showed that society relies on very specific groups of workers to keep functioning: healthcare workers, medical researchers, those who keep the food supply going and utilities on, teachers, the police...basically all the essential workers.

The rest of us might do something useful now and then but it is not essential work to our survival as a specie/society.

Bit of a name change here.

I worked in a department (about 60 of us) that was contracted to advise schools on what they could spend essentially grant money on. I was very much on the school’s side and would help them jump all the right hoops to ensure they got it/use the right buzz words.

I once pointed out if the government didn’t spend millions each year on our team, and the team at the DfE, they could just give the school’s the money directly and everyone would be happy.

Basically the government spending millions each year to ensure the schools were focusing on ‘academic success’ and not using the extra grant money to plug other short falls.

This could decimate lots of high tax paying laptop jobs though!

We need tax payers. Taking someone from a 60k marketing job and sticking them in a minimum wage care job would mean less money for that actual necessary jobs.

Just because the OP thinks a job is pointless and unnecessary doesn't mean it isn't meaningful and necessary for other people.....

It's all about "barriers to entry". You need specific skills to become a train driver, and it's a very long training period, with high numbers of applicants, quite a high rejection rate and quite a high drop out rate. Because of that, it's highly paid. You can't just recruit and train up a train driver in a few days in the same way that you can "train" a retail or care worker

Isn't it also highly paid as its heavily unionised? After all, normally when jobs have high application rates it suppresses the salary paid. Train Unions are one of the few remaining Unions that still have a lot of power as they cause immediate and severe disruption to the rest of the economy when they strike.

It’s all relative isn’t it, would anyone die without those people making those reports for my company, no but would our company continue to make the right products, sell them to the right people and make as much money as we currently do to continue to grow the business probably not. I would guess at least 50% of the people reading this post have one of our products. We can only make those by making enough money to keep designing new products.

I agree OP, because I'm in a 'bullshit job' 😂. I actually left a healthcare career to do so because I was miserable and it was destroying my mental health. I was astounded at how many jobs exist in the corporate world that seemingly do fuck all yet get paid £££.

For a while I was a lot happier, in fact still am, but I do often think to myself, especially after another crappy meeting where nothing actually gets done, that this is so pointless. But I also suspect I'm one of those people that may never be happy with their career so...perhaps don't listen to me!

Ha! Remove all regulation and compliance functions and see how long before the Daily Mail sadface articles start woth people moaning that "someone should have done something".

Indeed, supply & demand & other aspects of economics.

In the private sector it’s up to the company investors/senior managers/boards what they will pay for. What they think will be profitable etc.

Harder to define/measure success in charities & public sector.

It's interesting that you think compliance is pointless. Do you think things like health and safety, safeguarding, data protection etc are unimportant?

I’m talking about roles where the main function is excessive bureaucracy, unnecessary middle management, or pointless meetings that don’t contribute much. Think of roles that exist mainly to justify themselves rather than produce real outcomes - some layers of corporate admin, consultancy, or compliance that add red tape instead of value..

Again, this is very vague. Can you give a specific example because this just sounds like you've read it somewhere but don't have any substance to support your claims.

I do think we need a job audit in this country. Incentivise and financially support shortage areas etc. We seem to have a glut of delivery drivers, hand car washes, nail bars and a chronic shortage of carers and healthcare staff. Better routes in would be great plus financial incentives for staff that stay in these roles.

It's more about supply and demand and barriers to entry.

Jobs that literally "anyone" can do because they don't require specific unique skills, qualifications, education, etc are usually the low paid ones.

Jobs that few people can do are usually the high paid ones.

Which is why a GasSafe registered plumber can charge more than an "odd job man" plumber, the latter being banned from gas work.

It's all about "barriers to entry". You need specific skills to become a train driver, and it's a very long training period, with high numbers of applicants, quite a high rejection rate and quite a high drop out rate. Because of that, it's highly paid. You can't just recruit and train up a train driver in a few days in the same way that you can "train" a retail or care worker.

Worked in Local Government for almost 30 yeas and I completely agree.

In Local Government there are teams who work hard in meaningful jobs and deliver real benefit to communities.

There are also jobs which do not need to exist and have very little to do and where the staff sit idle for an awful lot of their working day.

LG Managers like to have staff as its a way of having status, is associated with higher pay, and I presume it also makes them feel their own job is more secure ( massive job losses in LG in the last two decades). There is no real oversight of managers so they are able to accumulate staff they do not need. I have seen entire teams whose function has disappeared and yet are kept on, in the same now pointless job, with literally no work to do.

I am currently in a post where at my handover it became horrifyingly clear to me that the the previously post holder did almost nothing. For almost three weeks now I have sat at home watching you tube videos and pissing about on Mumsnet. Doing well under an hour's work each day. The whole team I am in has no clear function. This is in a Council in a dire financial situation.

I am absolutely convinced that the reason public sector office staff have avoided going back to work (its the same in the civil service where I am in the UK) is because so many of them don't have enough to do. Its not quite so miserable being under-occupied at home as it is in the office.

So you get no benefit from these paper pushes in your own life? What would you miss if they weren't there?

I have an office job that involves lots of meetings and reports.

It also ensures that the mobile and broadband networks you used to post this thread are robust, available, affordable and invested in for the future.

I mean I suppose you could get nurses and teacher to do that.

I'm the same. During covid, I got lots of snide remarks when I continued working as I only have an "office job". But without me, none of the staff of my clients would have been paid (those in essential work) and none would have got furlough payments. Lots of small business clients wouldn't have got their covid support grants and loans. HMRC wouldn't have got the corporation tax, PAYE, VAT, etc due from the businesses still operating, etc. Companies would have been struck off Companies House (causing redundancies etc) if I didn't prepare and filed their accounts, etc.

There’re a load of examples in the ‘Bullshit Jobs’ book.

Let me guess, half the jobs that are commonly believed to be 'bullshit jobs' are anything but and their employers would fall apart without them?

But this is MN with it's very limited view of what constitutes 'a job'.

It’s the premise of the ‘Bullshit Jobs’ book (enjoyed the premise but the book was way too long).

Economics explains why jobs doing useful services and producing useful goods aren’t paid more.

My job involves pushing paper around. It costs my employer (not the state) a lot of money to employ me and computer programmes to calculate and/or pay over PAYE, NI, VAT, Business Rates, Corporation Tax. I also sort Government-mandated pension deductions. In the past I have administered many other similar things e.g. import duty, levies, etc.

How do you think the Government gets the money to pay nurses and teachers without the input of an army of free-to-them paper pushers?