To believe most jobs are pointless?

[FirmBrickLemur]

Half of modern jobs just push paper around, while nurses and teachers get underpaid. Shouldn’t we rethink how we value work?

As an AHP I am grateful that you hold the view that we should get a payrise but aint going to happen in a capitalist society. Caring for people is not valued in a senswe that you can't make money from it. It costs to care.

Sure. Let's sack everyone and just have nurses and teachers.

Presumably we only need to teach nursing then

I’d bet a tenner most if not all of these “pointless” jobs will be taken over by AI in the next decade. I’m nearly retirement age, but I do worry what will happen to the jobs market. Theres very few things AI cannot do better than an easily distracted human, including health care!

The public sector is absolutely horrendous for this.
The private sector is too, to an extent but there's more realistic pressure on a private company to make a profit and not waste money on coats on chairs type jobs.

The NHS is the absolute worst for this, it has become a monster filled with parasitic management level people who only exist to keep their own job while actual doctors and nurses get screwed over and are massively underpaid.

Yes! (But I am a nurse) 🤣🤣

Can you give some examples of jobs which only involve pushing papers around?
Hairdressers? Retail staff? Builders? Designers? Engineers? Researchers and research assistants? Delivery drivers? Mortgage underwriters? Solicitors? Construction workers? Factory workers?

What are the jobs you are talking about specifically?

Also why do we continue referring to all medical professionals as "nurses"? A hospital is more than nurses - porters, admin staff, HCAs, AHPs. I am surprised the PP is not offended to be lumped together under the "nurse" umbrella. As an AHP, I am.

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 agree, and have also thought recently about how AI will remove the need for a lot of these office jobs in the near future. And I say that as someone who has an NHS office job!

Bullshit Jobs by David Greaber is a great book that looks at this in detail.

I think AI can aid teaching and healthcare, but not take it over. I also think low paid jobs like nursery nurse won't be paid any more just because they can't be done by AI, but I do think jobs that are considered skilled, and are currently well paid might be phased out.

DD is studying a DD for a career which probably won't be required at all due to AI. She's going to have to think sideways when she enters the job market.

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?

You need to be more specific. You can just declare that there are plenty of office jobs that are unnecessary and wouldn't be missed without some specific examples.

**you can't

And teaching!

But what sort of an office and what sort of a job? If you can't give specific examples despite claiming "half the jobs" need to go, that tells me there can't be that many.

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?

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.

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'.

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

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.

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 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.

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

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.

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.