Bullshit Jobs: A Theory by David Graeber
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A truly wonderful book. David Graeber may have gotten popular by just posing a simple question, but the outpouring of RESONANCE with the rest of us made this anthropologist see the need for a much bigger book filled with study after study, reasoning, demographics, a careful skewering of all official political stances.

But the point is blindingly obvious. When 40-50% of all jobs have their own workers wondering what the hell they're doing with their lives, either by the uselessness of their work, the mind-numbing, soul-crushing idiocy of constantly duct-taping a broken system, checking off boxes that lead to nowhere, and the rise of just trying to look busy at all costs when there's nothing to do, there IS a problem.

The author goes over everything, mind you. All the arguments why this obviously isn't the case, the loud, screeching mentalities that say it can't be the case, and all the actual self-reporting where people say it's absolutely the case, all the way through almost every industry.

A little tidbit, however: jobs that are absolutely necessary for a functioning society, be it teachers, sanitation, food production, or keeping roofs over people's heads generally pay the worst, as if to drive home the fact that those above them HATE them for doing something that might salve their souls. My words, not the book's.

We keep seeing it... you can either have a job that makes you fulfilled and you get paid peanuts, or you can you have a job where you sell your soul or even actively make many other people's a living hell and get paid a lot.

This is the premise. David Graeber writes about it wonderfully, carefully, with a ton of evidence, good reasoning, and goes into the causes, philosophies, and potential solutions.

If you want to get a good foundation on what those might be... I highly recommend this book.

It sure as hell punched all my buttons and made me want to write down all my own experiences.

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