Work It Out

AI generated art.  I'm sorry you have to look at it.

I was reading this morning about how robots are going to be able to do my job in the future and I’m thinking “Bring it.”  I wish I could believe it was true.  They've been saying this was right around the corner for years.  Where is it? 

Obviously the advent of robots and AI heralded as The Future by those who have a ticket to it is meant to be viewed as a threat by the rest of us, but it's taken so long (and the evidence of its progress so collectively weird and monotonously underwhelming) that the thrill is gone.  Do they think they're gaslighting us?

Meanwhile, the workforce seems to be in the midst of an awakening of some kind, an aftershock of the unprecedented super-coordinated response of the managerial class to COVID two and a half years ago which restructured our work lives seemingly overnight.  As the notion of the type of work that really is essential became crystallized in our collective minds, so too was there clarity about the misfortune of the poor souls we underpay and overwork to do it for us.  As for the rest of us, there could no longer be doubt.  You didn't have to read David Graeber's book of the same title to know that 90% of us have Bullshit Jobs.*  

The exposure of the value of our jobs when things got real (and of the abuse that we who work endure whether or not what we do is essential) has had an effect.  First there was the Great Resignation in which, given the opportunity to resume office life as before as the crisis lifted, millions decided to pass.  Now there is Quiet Quitting, a social media misnomer that means merely the growing disinclination of employees to do more than what they're paid to do. Naturally this has been met with Quiet Firing by employers.  In this passive aggressive contest, my money is on the quitters.  You can’t quiet fire me,  I quiet quit.

If I sound ungrateful, it's because I am.  The computers that were supposed to replace us instead gave us ADD, which makes working on the bullshit they want us to do impossible. Forget about giving 110% and getting ahead. It’s soul-sucking enough just staying put. And we're supposed to feel bad about this?

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* These are the jobs that reportedly take more than three words to describe, unlike say, "I farm."  "I build houses."  "I teach children."  "I deliver mail."  Bullshit jobs are low concept because they are largely meta and exist solely to support the whims and inefficiencies of modern enterprise.  In my online wanderings, I have seen Bullshit Job holders attempt to rise to the bait of internet challenges to try to justify their essentialness in a thumbnail. "I enhance value." "I meet budgets." "I oversee compliance."  Ok but what do you do?  I'll admit it. I have a Bullshit Job!  Thank you David Graeber for putting a name on it.