I think a lot of those jobs aren't necessarily what you bring day to day but rather that you have the knowledge and experience to deal with when **** goes wrong.
BS jobs
- Thread starter RezClone
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I think a lot of those jobs aren't necessarily what you bring day to day but rather that you have the knowledge and experience to deal with when **** goes wrong.
Dude I’ve worked for two major corporations and there are absolutely BS jobs in them.
You'd be surprised. In a mid to large company it will usually take the form of a position that could easily be consolidated. That person is usually doing work and not just sitting there all day, but their workload could pretty easily be covered by others and/or some efficiencies.
- Mar 27, 2006
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Agreed. There's plenty of redundancy in even very successful companies. Redundancy isn't necessarily bad, but there's a tradeoff. You might have a task/process/system that only requires a single person to perform, but is critical enough that you want several folks to be well versed in it, or provide oversight.
I have very similar experience, but the place I worked also had tanning booths so that added a couple customers per shift to the tally.
This thread reminds me of this great scene. This movie has held up over the test of time, we still crack jokes at work related to stuff in Office Space.
I can't recall a job I have had that I consider a BS job to be honest and I think I would probably be looking for a different job if I ever did have one as I need to be busy to feel like I am accomplishing something.
A BS job these day that comes to mind is the person at Walmart that stands near the self checkouts that feigns interest in checking receipts while on their phone most of the time. Seems like such a pointless job, they get rid of checkers only to put someone near the self checkouts to make sure you are doing the job that they no longer want to pay someone else to do. Seen many people just walk right past them when they ask if they can check their receipt and just say something like "nope, if you don't trust me to scan my purchases then hire some checkers to do it for me."
I can't recall a job I have had that I consider a BS job to be honest and I think I would probably be looking for a different job if I ever did have one as I need to be busy to feel like I am accomplishing something.
A BS job these day that comes to mind is the person at Walmart that stands near the self checkouts that feigns interest in checking receipts while on their phone most of the time. Seems like such a pointless job, they get rid of checkers only to put someone near the self checkouts to make sure you are doing the job that they no longer want to pay someone else to do. Seen many people just walk right past them when they ask if they can check their receipt and just say something like "nope, if you don't trust me to scan my purchases then hire some checkers to do it for me."
Tell me you have a BS job, without telling me you have a BS job.
Perhaps all of us on this forum while at work would qualify?
I sometimes wonder about the people working in our county conservation offices. They seem to have quite a few employees for mowing a couple county parks and watching birds screw.
I sometimes wonder about the people working in our county conservation offices. They seem to have quite a few employees for mowing a couple county parks and watching birds screw.
Not to cave the topic but...
On a more macro level, I've often wondered about the whole income tax accounting structure. The complexity alone uses the intellectual resources of hundreds of thousands of tax accountants and IRS employees. (Not to mention the time necessary from citizen/filers - and the paper involved.) Versus some kind of simplified system requiring maybe 5% of the personnel. Think of what kind of affect that would have on the GNP of our country if all those hours were used to do something that resulted in a tangible product.
On a more macro level, I've often wondered about the whole income tax accounting structure. The complexity alone uses the intellectual resources of hundreds of thousands of tax accountants and IRS employees. (Not to mention the time necessary from citizen/filers - and the paper involved.) Versus some kind of simplified system requiring maybe 5% of the personnel. Think of what kind of affect that would have on the GNP of our country if all those hours were used to do something that resulted in a tangible product.
My job prior to covid required a lot of face to face interaction, so when the order came that we'd be working from home, I had almost nothing to do unless I got a phone call. There were 8-hour work days where I'd only get a phone call or two, usually while sitting at home watching TV or helping my wife with our newborn son. Talk about a mindless job, but it was fine for a time. I was a service representative for large credit union.
Last company had someone who thought they were important quit thinking they would beg her back with a raise. They gave her duties to me with a 1k raise. I spent 2-3 hirs a week on her stuff.
Education has a lot of made-up position, generally from the state. Curriculum director, making sure the school is compliant with the states standards which goes against the whole idea of local control. The CD as most schools is then giving other tasks or sits in their office, planning the next exciting in-service to bore the staff to death.
The area AEA has dozens of people that are there to teach the newest models of education to teachers to make students better learners. Great idea, but on average about every 5 years they change their approach and come out with the next new and best thing. Just when the kids get good at the technique, we change to something else.
The consultants at the AEA dealing with the SPed kids, they show up complaining about the way you wrote up the IEP, give you a few suggestions on what you are doing, and then off again, until they show up for the 3-year eval. on the kid. If that damn IEP is so important, and must be written in such a specific way, how about the consultant write the damn thing instead of laying that off on the SPed teachers, that already have plenty to do, dealing with the kids.
The area AEA has dozens of people that are there to teach the newest models of education to teachers to make students better learners. Great idea, but on average about every 5 years they change their approach and come out with the next new and best thing. Just when the kids get good at the technique, we change to something else.
The consultants at the AEA dealing with the SPed kids, they show up complaining about the way you wrote up the IEP, give you a few suggestions on what you are doing, and then off again, until they show up for the 3-year eval. on the kid. If that damn IEP is so important, and must be written in such a specific way, how about the consultant write the damn thing instead of laying that off on the SPed teachers, that already have plenty to do, dealing with the kids.
There is a lot of truth to that. A lot of times management (at least for me in my role) is waiting around for someone or something to F up, make a hard decision, or say okay to spending money.
A lot of BS jobs also exist because someone thinks that adding person B to watch person A will solve the issue that Person A is having. You see this a lot in construction (at least in my opinion).