Bullshit Jobs - <AUTHOR> http://slatestarcodex.com/2018/08/29/bullst-jobs-part-1-of-%E2%88%9E/ <comment><USER2> I am fairly convinced that bullshit jobs (and entire bullshit industries) exist as a consequence of the following things:

1) There is less and less actual work to be done due to technological progress; 2) There are economic incentives to create larger and larger organizations; 3) Society hasn't found a rational way to redistribute wealth yet.

This is tragic. Entire human lives are being wasted on this dystopia of boredom and meaninglessness. I would argue that part of the stalemate is caused by politics and social norms. Even though there is not much actual work to be done, people still tend to tie their self-worth and social status to employment. This leads them to demand jobs from politicians, and the politicians find a way to provide them. "Jobs" is usually one of the main topics in any modern election. A rational society at our current stage of development would be celebrating job destruction, not creation.

As technology progresses, and all things being equal, the situation will only become more extreme and ridiculous. Unfortunately, I bet we will get out of this stalemate in a rather nasty way: through resource depletion and environmental collapse.

It depresses me that our species hasn't been fundamentally able to elevate itself above basic monkey-like biological programs and do better than this.

<comment><USER3> It's not that these jobs are bullshit jobs, it's that commonly they are wrapped up in _bullshit procedures_.

These procedures typically appear when there's an initiative to reduce costs. The easiest and cheapest way to employ an unskilled person to do a skilled job is to hand them a book of 'procedures' on their first day and say "Everything you need to do and know is in this Book". No time consuming cross-training required, no hiring of expensive people who already know the skill. As the Book of Procedures enables you to rinse and repeat the process with every new hire, you are no longer invested in keeping 'talent' within the organisation; good people leave once they realise that the job is 70% procedure vs. 30% actual work... No matter, there's always The Book, let's hire another grunt from the employment queue.

However, because you are filling up your organisation with unskilled workers, errors become more common place. To reduce the error rate, you introduce some extra checks and balances to ensure that the job is being done correctly. These extra procedures go in to The Book. The ratio is now 90% procedure vs. 10% actual work.

People who actually know how to do their job, having learned it well, or had previous skills, get frustrated that most of their workload is 'make-work' following all the extra procedures, and the people who have no skill, just follow the The Book, because they know no different, and it keeps them out of trouble.

Meanwhile, somewhere upstairs in the boardroom, people in grey suits are patting themselves on the back as operating costs have fallen, profits are up, and incidents are down. Creating The Book of Procedures is now considered a valuable skill in it's own right, so the people who care about climbing the managerial pole devote large chunks of their time adding yet more processes to the The Book, and thus the cycle continues, until several roles in the company are nothing but endless procedure creating/tracking without any actual product output.

There's still the problem of a high attrition rate amongst the middle tier staff, but hey, there's always more fish in the sea right?

<comment><USER4> This is what frustrated me after reading the "E-myth" book. Apparently, the recipe for successful business is to enshrine _everything_ in superdetailed Book of Procedures, and have employees follow its content like they were programmable automatons. Now maybe this _works_ , but eliminating human agency like this doesn't sit well with me for some reason.

<comment><USER5> The main reason why organizations evolve to a bureaucratic mess is human agency, in particular the fact that each individual has personal interests and is motivated to achieve their personal goals. Bureaucracy is designed to restrict personal initiatives that favour the individual worker at the expense of the organization. For example, in Greece public sector workers abuse their position by expecting grafts to do their job, and they deny service to those who don't pay by giving a higher priority to everyone else. Thus, rules are put in place to restrict how prioritization is handled by public sector workers to mitigate this problem. Yet, now public sector workers are bounded to a rigid set of rules which dictates how and when a process should be processed.

<comment><USER6> Exactly this. The procedures are put in place to prevent abuse of the system by the individual. The problem is that they rarely have the intended effect. First, frequently the policies are put in place to prevent an abuse which performed by an individual at some point. As time goes on, not only do conditions in the world / org change but the people who were part of the org when the abuse happened leave. This creates a situation where people can't remember why a rule exists, but follow it blindly just because it exists, even if in current circumstances it hampers the organization.

Second, inevitably there will be a series of edge cases which any rule is poorly suited to address. These edge cases require a thoughtful application of regulatory authority, which itself requires a thorough understanding of the current context and the purpose of the rule. This thoughtfulness requires intelligence or deep domain expertise, which is often not found in the regulators because if they had these things then they wouldn't be in boring regulatory jobs like HR to begin with. Evaluation of edge cases also requires work, and it's far easier for someone to simply say no than it is to actually investigate the request.

Third, everyone knows that some employees are more valuable to the organization than others and should be allowed to bend or break simple rules as long as permission is sought. However, this will inevitably invite a bullshit lawsuit and so companies have a huge incentive to codify policies and be rigid about them.

<comment><USER7> > As time goes on, not only do conditions in the world / org change but the > people who were part of the org when the abuse happened leave. This creates > a situation where people can't remember why a rule exists, but follow it > blindly just because it exists, even if in current circumstances it hampers > the organization.

Not only that, organizations measure different things differently even from the start. If someone is socializing at work and this wastes 15% of their time, but a procedure to prevent them from socializing at work wastes 40% of their time, everyone is actually better off to just allow employees to socialize (or what have you). But "employees slacking off" is an unsanctioned thing to be reduced whereas "employees following procedure" is an officially sanctioned thing to be increased, so the fact that the procedure is more costly than the "abuse" never enters the decision process.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> University administrators.[1]

Stanford is busily building their new Redwood City "campus". It's _all administrators_. No students. No faculty. No research. 13 office buildings. 2700 staff.

 _Initially, the campus will be home to Stanford employees working in such critical areas as the School of Medicine administration; Stanford Libraries and University Archives; the major administrative units of Business Affairs; Land, Buildings and Real Estate; University Human Resources; Residential & Dining Enterprises; and the Office of Development. ... Three of the university's eight vice presidents will have their offices at Stanford Redwood City._[2]

[1] [https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/06/higher-ed- administ...](https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/06/higher-ed- administrators-growth_n_4738584.html) [2] [https://redwoodcity.stanford.edu/frequently-asked- questions](https://redwoodcity.stanford.edu/frequently-asked-questions)

<comment><USER9> I was like WTF at this and had to google it. From Wikipedia...

"Academic staff: 2,219

Administrative staff: 12,508 excluding SHC

Students: 16,430"

Oh how far western civilisation as fallen to end up with the statistics above.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_University](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_University)

<comment><USER10> How far western civilisation has fallen to end up with employing people in middle level, secure (if inefficient) jobs!

Excuse my flippancy, I've worked in universities before and they are horrendously inefficient - _however_ , quite often in the cities where a big university is there's very few other large employers (where I was the joke at house parties was asking whether someone you'd never met worked for the university or the hospital), where should these employees go?

Either the university goes through a back-breaking transformation project and streamlines everything at once, or it scales up the bits it's not focusing on with people power, and improves bite-sized chunks here and there.

The growth in services offered by universities, and student expectations that those services are just there means they have to be fulfilled in some way. People always bemoan things like enrolment officers or admins to manage the janitorial staff, or PhD support officers, print room servicing technicians etc..., but when you see the numbers who make use of those services, you'll see what a mammoth task it is to automate each little bit to make the requirement to have someone do it go away.

I'm sure the HN audience can identify 1000 ways to make a university more efficient and take away these "bullshit" jobs, and I would love to see someone tackle it and make it work (whilst ensuring there are other jobs these people can be, well, paid for), but it's nowhere near as simple as "SaaS ALL THE THINGS".

<comment><USER11> Its not just the universities. Its all big people structures. After a while the whole point of management is to take care of themselves until the eventual decline of the structure due to inefficiency and corruption.

12.5K people managing 2.5K. Having an real worker to manager ratio of 1:5 is not inefficient, its trying really hard to be self destructive.

<comment><USER10> I think you're looking at the numbers incorrectly - the _vast_ majority of the admin staff aren't managing the academic staff, they're providing other/different services, as well as _supporting_ the academic staff.

EDIT: I'd also like to make the point that I'm not _advocating_ for this level of human resource, but that I've seen it from the inside and know how much of a complicated issue it is to be solved to the extent that throwaway comments on a forum about "waste" and "inefficiency" contribute exactly FA, and could lead to animosity toward those roles and the people in them making a go of it (as bored as they might be).

<comment><USER11> That depends on how you define 'admin staff'. Do you classify Janitors, Chefs, Shuttle Drivers etc as 'admin staff'?

If so then based on how large the campus is, it could still make sense. But I doubt if those sort of jobs are covered in that term.

<comment><USER12> Those people aren't students or faculty, so unless there's another category, they are Administration.

Administration sounds silly, but remember that in the business world, we don't have Administration, we have _General and Administrative_. There's a lot of stuff in _General_. Schools apparently call that Admin for some reason.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Okay, I wasn't going to comment, but I thought this would be extremely relevant : I've been getting paid for free for the past four months. I've been turning up to work, reading novels all fucking day, eating at the company cafeteria, and leaving. I generally spend 4-6 hours at the office.

For 4 months now.

Let that sink in.

What happened is that I transferred from a 'public' team to a 'private' team, which means that I might have access to privelaged insider information,which means I can't sit with the public teams. But there isn't any seat in the private rooms. So I'm sitting in the cafeteria, reading books, playing on the PlayStation, etc etc.

I ask my manager every single day when I'm going to get a new spot. It's usually 'next week for sure' or 'friday for sure'. Hasn't happened yet. During the first month, I stayed for 8 hours each day, doing nothing. I've gradually stopped giving a fuck anymore and am looking for other jobs now, even though this is a pretty sweet gig.

<comment><USER14> Reminds of something I read here not too long ago. From what I understand, it makes the rounds every now and then.

[https://sites.google.com/site/forgottenemployee/](https://sites.google.com/site/forgottenemployee/)

<comment><USER15> That was a hilarious read! Know more stories like it? I only got reliable Internet access in 2008 (kid in a third world country) and I've always been interested in the dot-com bubble days.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This may be an unpopular opinion but I don't believe BS jobs are prevalent in the private sector. Of course, bureaucracy exists, but that is hardly a new thing. There are outliers, but this is far from the pandemic presented here.

Some of the arguments I keep hearing:

1/ I don't understand why X exists and therefore X must be a BS job. In the parent article, we read a premise that "someone invented a procedure", but the author jumps into conclusion without really understanding why are employees not allowed to bring whatever chair they wish to the office. Then he jumps to another conclusion, that nobody really cares because his psychiatrist note is usually accepted. As a manager, if my subordinate asks for a special chair, I will ask him to get a doctor's note, to see if he is serious or just bored, and to prevent all his colleagues from wanting a special chair the next day.

2/ "There is less and less actual work to be done due to technological progress." If this was true, there would be unemployment, not BS jobs.

3/ "There are economic incentives to create larger and larger organizations." True and totally unrelated. What is the argument?

4/ "Managers like to have large teams." True, and economic forces push against that. This does not explain the apparent pandemic of BS jobs (that I don't see anywhere).

etc.

If you won't mind, I will try some anecdotal evidence and jumping to conclusions myself:

5/ I have not seen many - if any - BS jobs in my IT career. Sure, it would be great to reduce state regulation but the guy in my company responsible for compliance is not doing a BS job.

6/ Automation and technology saved us from slaving in the fields and sweatshops. Driving a truck full of confectionery across the US is pretty much a BS job if you ask me. Same as "Shirley, make me 5 copies of this contract before the lunch" \- on a typewriter.

7/ BS jobs pandemics is nothing else but a variation of the "Grass was greener when I was young". Developed countries (maybe with the exception of the US) have safer environments than ever, more disposable income than ever and people live longer than ever.

<comment><USER4> > _As a manager, if my subordinate asks for a special chair, I will ask him to > get a doctor 's note, to see if he is serious or just bored, and to prevent > all his colleagues from wanting a special chair the next day._

And I would wonder whether you think of your employees as little children, or are you just giving into the false economy of being cheap on equipment. The latter seems common, and I've personally been in companies that could easily double the productivity of their developers at the one-time per-developer cost of _one_ developer salary, by buying a decent computer, extra monitor, a pair of headphones and a good chair.

Also note that in this article, the employee needed a note to _bring their own chair_ to work, so it's essentially free for the employer anyway.

> _5 / I have not seen many - if any - BS jobs in my IT career. Sure, it would > be great to reduce state regulation but the guy in my company responsible > for compliance is not doing a BS job._

I guess we have strongly different perspectives, because to me, _most of the jobs_ I've seen in this industry are bullshit, in the sense that the world would be a better place if those jobs (often: companies) didn't exist in the first place.

<comment><USER17> > I've personally been in companies that could easily double the productivity > of their developers at the one-time per-developer cost of one developer > salary, by buying a decent computer, extra monitor, a pair of headphones and > a good chair.

This is completely pervasive myth in places like HN.

I founded a startup. For the first three months we hadn't signed a lease for real office space, so there were no monitors, crappy chairs, and old laptops.

Three months later we had all the things.

Productivity did not improve. It absolutely did not double. (It is a bit insane to even claim that it could.)

Those things do not improve productivity in any meaningful way. At worst they are just status symbols. At best they are just signalling. "My company values me and I know that because I have two monitors". Their actual impact on productivity is minimal, despite the thousands of HN posts claiming otherwise.

<comment><USER4> And I counter that with my personal experience because I've been at this job long enough that I notice things that are really, really distracting me from doing my job. Like:

\- sitting in a hot, airless room will drop my productivity to much less than half; I'll be spending most of the day angry and trying to fight sleepiness

\- a computer that can barely run a browser and an IDE at the same time will operate slower than I think, and will introduce distractions and annoyance every time I have to wait 15 seconds for the page to reload

\- having just one display is bearable (I'm used to it), but having two significantly cuts down on switching between programs, removing those small delays add up over the day (incidentally, adding a third display is marginal for me; I find myself not using it very much - I usually dock IMs and project logs there)

Few years ago I actually had all three issues simultaneously at the same company. I complained until they were resolved, and only then I started to feel that it's me who's the limiting factor in my productivity. As it should be.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> People fall into rituals and procedures for reasons that are not necessarily obvious to them. Why should we expect to be able to determine what is and isn't "bullshit"?

Wouldn't you need to know where the whole endeavour ends up, before you can pass such definitive judgement?

I'm not questioning any individuals feelings (your job may certainly feel like bullshit to _you_ ), but whether something is sustainable and makes sense on a larger, super-human scale (organization, society, species) is tough to determine by any single actor. It's typically left to be played out and then (hopefully) analyzed and learned from.

Ultimately patterns (atoms, cells, people, societies, whatever) organize by efficiency, by how well they reduce energy gradients across time, not by what the individual actors wishes or feels. If a drone-like society turns out to be the most efficient in this sense, full of silly rituals which nevertheless make it more cohesive / stable / whatever, then that's where we're headed. Even though it currently doesn't seem that way, with individualism, science and articulation scoring some spectacular victories.

<comment><USER19> >Ultimately patterns (atoms, cells, people, societies, whatever) organize by efficiency, by how well they reduce energy gradients across time, not by what the individual actors wishes or feels.

I disagree. Look up game theory and tragedy of the commons.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_theory)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons)

>term used in social science to describe a situation in a shared-resource system where individual users acting independently according to their own self-interest behave contrary to the common good of all users by depleting or spoiling that resource through their collective action.

>Although common resource systems have been known to collapse due to overuse (such as in over-fishing)...

Especially check the "examples" section

<comment><USER18> I am familiar with both; what's the connection in particular?

That patterns organize along least-energy principles and propagate by extracting resources from surrounding energy gradients is almost a tautology. I'm genuinely curious what you're disagreeing with.

<comment><USER19> I disagree that people and societies organize by efficiency and how well they reduce energy across time. In fact the two almost contradict each other. People organize based on individual/egotistical "efficiency", and not the efficiency of the system/society.

<comment><USER18> Thanks. Then we're in disagreement :-) For me, people are a part of the whole system, following the same rules as everything else in the universe. No special exceptions, no "get out of jail free" card.

(by the way, it's reducing energy _gradients_ —differences between here and there, doing work—not energy itself)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> The thing I find really hard to understand from a business perspective is that bullshit jobs are the low hanging fruit from a cost saving perspective. Why do they persist? What drives managers, teams, companies and cultures to accept bullshit in their environment. What drives the happiness of the bullshitters themselves. Coming from business I understand it's partially senior management does not care Enough. They've got real problems on their hands. But every now and again a No bullshitters should pop up and say stop this local incident of BS. It just does not happen. I'm one of those that tries to make senior management aware of total time and energy sinks in the corporation. Often it just doesn't click and I move on. Why don't cultures change (fast) enough?

<comment><USER21> I have had a middle manager tell me that they where not cutting down the team, because he wanted to be a manager of 5 people, just like that.

The problem is that teams in large organizations are not run by the company owners themselves anymore, instead they are run by a middle manager whose job is to run the team.

The middle manager has no incentive to cut down too much on the team size, as that would risk his career, perceived social status, and even directly its job.

If a team of 10 all of the sudden becomes a team of 3, maybe there is no need for the middle manager anymore.

Also it does not look well on the CV to be a manager of a team of 3 instead of 10 people, so its not good for the manager career to cut down the team too much.

If the team size gets reduced a lot, the manager will be asked to do non- managerial tasks again, which would effectively mean a demotion.

<comment><USER22> > I have had a middle manager tell me that they where not cutting down the > team, because he wanted to be a manager of 5 people, just like that.

Better yet: there are companies where a team needs to have at least N people in order for it to be assigned a manager. Otherwise it gets a "team leader" and several of those get assigned to a single manager.

N varies with the job, too. It can be as low as 5-6 in software development or engineering, and as high as 30-40 in administrative departments or poorly- automated production floors.

So if you cut the bullshit jobs, you also cut yours. No one does that.

How good it looks on the CV is also a factor, indeed, and often it's a barrier of entry, too. When hiring managers, many companies, including the ones that you'd think would know better, routinely demand a minimum team size, regardless of team performance. You can manage a team of 200 and run all projects into the ground and still get hired -- and yet get disappointed looks if you managed a team of 20, no matter how well it performed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I don't understand how this is a bullshit job.

A manager foresaw a problem. Right or wrong, that manager didn't have the time or inclination to do a grad-level research project on back pain diagnosis and foolproof verification systems. Instead, they delegate to people who are trained in medicine and make a process by which someone else receives and stores the doctor's note.

This solves the perceived "cowboy" chair problem where everyone brings a custom chair and ends up tearing up the carpet or whatever. Pretty much nobody wants to risk their job by outright forging a note. So few people risk the higher levels of cheating-- like the psychiatrist example-- that the manager can just assume those people have back pain. And, in the event that one of these assumptions are broken by a bad faith actor, someone _can_ go back and read some or all of the doctors' notes.

I would think the bar for "bullshit job" is the 2nd and 3rd boss Peter has in Office Space who parrot the criticism that the first boss gave him. Unless you invoke magic those jobs have no value whatsoever.

In other words, bullshit jobs should be the ones that add no value but cannot be removed because the structure of the organization suppresses the tools necessary to officially measure the employee as ineffective. It's like the king's idiot son-- everyone just has to pretend he isn't an idiot.

Edit: clarification

</comment><comment><USER24> Ah, when bullshit jobs come up, sometimes the measure is "if this person disappeared, how long would it take for the world to notice?". This article is interesting to me because it applies a slight modification, "if this task was eliminated, would systems be more efficient?".

In some ways this is a good question to ask, but much like a statement in legacy code, it's sometimes unclear why a rule exists until after you remove it, and then it's too late.

If only there were unit tests for real-life bureaucracy...

<comment><USER25> > If only there were unit tests for real-life bureaucracy...

Not called unit tests but we have something similar here in Norway:

\- 5 or more weeks of mandatory holidays. (both you and your boss get trouble if you don't use it.)

\- maternity/paternity leave (more than a year combined IIRC, and while it won't land an _individual_ in hot water legally, -everyone including your boss expects you to take advantage of it. Oh and it might land the company in hot water if they prevent anyone from using it which might explain why even the company often actively encourage it.)

It works mostly the same:

\- like unit tests it verifies that the organization works, including edge cases like "what if half the company is away for two weeks at the same time". (The last point is encouraged by design it seems by specifying that at least two of the weeks should be in the summer.)

\- like unit tests it might _seem_ like a giant waste but turns out to be useful in the long run.

<comment><USER26> > 5 or more weeks of mandatory holidays.

Impossible. Our handsomest politicians assure us that even 2 weeks vacation is pushing the bounds of outright societal collapse!

<comment><USER25> That's another similarity, I guess.

"We struggle to deliver the features we promised and you say we should create test code as well?"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> The creation of bullshit jobs probably comes from a combination of 3 things:

\- the primal psychological need to show that we are busy to the tribe, to prove that we are useful and carry our weight in the group. Those who didn't in early times where expelled from the tribe, ridiculed, etc.

\- the quest of certain individuals for status and power over other individuals, meaning a middle manager will want to be a manager of 10 persons and not 4, so it will keep hiring to fill all positions regardeless of true need - its his social status and his career, and not his money

\- the huge amount of automation introduced in the last few decades, making many jobs unnecessary.

There have always been bullshit jobs, just not that many as today.

<comment><USER27> also close to your last point,

\- abundance of people with good social and low practical skills

<comment><USER28> In a world with 80% service jobs, social skills _are_ practical skills.

<comment><USER27> Social skills are practical skills for "bullshit jobs" as they are presented in the article, so it's really no contradiction.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Regarding the doctor's note thing, isn't it just to present a hurdle that the majority of people wouldn't jump over unless they actually needed to? So as to prevent people arbitrarily demanding an unlimited variety of conveniences that they don't really need?

<comment><USER30> Another example: if somebody asks you to do a random task (which is essential, very important, top priority), then a tiny amount of push back - e.g. sending an email asking for clarification of what is needed and why - often makes the task suddenly become unnecessary.

The broader principle is that if a request for expenditure of time/effort/money has minimal cost or risk to the requester, they are incentivized to request unlimited expenditure if it has any potential to benefit to them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I am struggling to find a definition. The article refers to another article that comes with 'the ballooning of not even so much of the 'service' sector as of the administrative sector, up to and including the creation of whole new industries like financial services or telemarketing, or the unprecedented expansion of sectors like corporate law, academic and health administration, human resources, and public relations.'

Not a very clear one I think. So only engineering and production are 'real jobs' ? Only people that create something physical ? He also calls late night delivery pizza a bullshit service. Is that only about the delivery, or does that include the pizza (only baked because some bullshitter ordered it). Even so, a late night pizza might also be appreciated by 'the world's population to pursue their own projects, pleasures, visions, and ideas'. So when they order that same pizza at night its not a bullshot service anymore ?

We need a better definition before spending more time analyzing and ranting.

<comment><USER32> Pizza delivery is not a bull-shit job. He mentions people doing this lousy job only because people are forced to hold bull-shit jobs so they can eat and then don't have time to cook for themselves. He expanded this article into a book after doing some research. His working definition of bull-shit job is that the job holder calls it a bullshit job.

<comment><USER31> > His working definition of bull-shit job is that the job holder calls it a > bullshit job.

That is a very subjective definition.

<comment><USER33> Yes, the new Bullshit Jobs book says:

 _"Final Working Definition: a bullshit job is a form of paid employment that is so completely pointless, unnecessary, or pernicious that even the employee cannot justify its existence even though, as part of the conditions of employment, the employee feels obliged to pretend that this is not the case."_

 _"The attentive reader may have noticed one remaining ambiguity. The definition is mainly subjective."_

Then goes on to explain that many cases are obvious: like if an office worker's spending 80% of her time making cat memes. But even in more complicated cases, you're likeliest to know best. (Not managers. The higher up you are, the more people have reasons to hide things from you.) After a couple years at the same company, normally people will learn enough of the company's secrets.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I think the spontaneous emergence of such procedures is straightforward:

      1. Wu appears in work with a chair
      2. Said chair creates mild inconvenience to X
      3. X asks Wu to remove the chair
      4. Wu replies his chair violates no company code
      5. X launches the creation of a chair bringing policy, designed mainly to make Wu's chair a clear violation of it

<comment><USER35> If you are in a large company then it will accrete these rules until it is almost impossible to get anything done.

<comment><USER36> It might be an interesting experiment to automatically attach an expiry date to new rules, and if nobody (or too few) stakeholders vote for keeping them, they automatically go out of scope.

<comment><USER37> This sort of happens by default in private industry, in that companies usually only exist for 50 years or so and are continuously being replaced with other organizations that haven't yet become sclerotic. This process is probably less efficient than just having rules expire would be.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Why does working a Bullshit Job have to be about ritual or tribal identity or anything else, when the most important thing in that person's life is putting food on the table? Even if a job is bullshit, there isn't enough of a social safety net in most/all of the world to provide for one's needs without taking a job. For an employee with no financial cushion and trying to avoid homelessness/starvation, what the job does or its contribution to society is secondary to the income it provides that allows that person their basic necessities.

Similarly, if those basic needs were met a la Universal Basic Income or a Star Trek society, there'd probably be less bullshit jobs of people doing something, ANYTHING, just to earn enough to live and provide for their family.

</comment><comment><USER39> I don't think requiring a doctor's note is necessarily bullshit. Special chairs are more expensive so it's a shallow cut to prevent everyone wanting one just because it's available. If they are more comfortable and the two people sitting next to you have one, wouldn't you want one too? Now obviously there is potential for fraud and so there is some bs as the author notes. But let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater I can see a reason the company would have this process.

<comment><USER40> The note is to allow the employee to bring their own chair to work. How does this cost the company anything extra?

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Reminds me of a distant previous job where I requested a 24" LCD for monitoring and doing other tasks, the response was why I need such a large LCD while everybody in company just have 17"? Though it's no written in paper but generally you can't be different than all other employees unless you have a very strong reference. And this case it's doctor's note.

<comment><USER42> I use monitors as a surprisingly good heuristic for measuring the values of an organization.

If you make your rockstar ninja unabomber programmers stare at a single 24" screen all day, you're basically paying for Wayne Gretzky and then skimping on skates.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> ...imho this is a small-scale view of the fact that we live in a _bullshit society:_ our social systems can't properly handle "people with too much free time who don't know themselves what to do with that free time". For a variety of reason: from increased social unrest and fact that people would actually have time to care about who/how governs, to the productivity lowering effect of having the productivity of the people that actually choose (and are able to!) to be productive being lowered by being surrounded by slackers etc..

Our current social order needs "rituals" to stabilize people's behaviors, and _you can 't just let people pick any random set of rituals from the space of posibilities and expect the consequences not to be horrible!_ You might end up with warring clans that choose to wage war in lack of a better occupation, or with weird cults that bounce between self-destructive and other-destructive behaviors. If you've had the chance to see the darker sides of human nature it's not hard to imagine swarms of people with nothing to do forming sado- massochistic pain-pleasure cults that wage wars amongst themselves "for fun" or to kidnap eachother's children to torture during massive orgies or whatever... People's minds cane easily become fertile grounds for very dark tendencies.

"Work rituals" are at least stable, stabilizing, and not-very-harmful.

<comment><USER44> Finally, someone who understands New Orleans.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> I have been unemployed for the most of my life, and i now have a 9to5 job. I think I hate jobs. I love working with code and projects, but it's very difficult or impossible to find a job, even in programming, that has some kind of meaning, good sense, or is stimulating.

Jobs feel like you're playing the role of a robot. It has no soul. It just shows how society has become so mechanized and lifeless and dead boring.

It's not all jobs, but I really feel alien to the society of labor. I might be unable to adapt and do work I don't like, but at least this article is agreeing that I'm not 100% of the problem.

On the other hand, creating a project by one self and making it happen seems hard, but it really shouldn't. My view is that society doesn't really like struggling artists.

</comment><comment><USER46> Reminds me of an internship I did at a large organization, where the computer I was assigned to was partially unusable (even after formatting it would hang and freeze all the time), but procedures stated that I couldn't change it because it wasn't 3 years old. Procedures also stated that I wasn't allowed to bring my own computer to my workplace, so I ended up spending a lot of time sitting there drinking coffee and reading books, instead of actually doing the work I was supposed to.

Nobody cared.

<comment><USER47> You first-worlders are damn lucky. In my country, it is considered a good day when you get paid half the money you were promised for doing some hardcore high-skill job. Which is still like 10 times lower than what you would get in the first-world, living-costs adjusted.

Real elephant in the room is the resource flow from the colonies to the first- world and the Western financial institutions that enable it. That's probably the thing allowing you to bore yourself to death with bullshit jobs.

No one likes talking about it though.

"Why do we have every resource and service available but half the population has to do bullshit jobs? Probably because of technology - yes, that must be it."

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Well, I think Dr. Alexander is doing a great job. I mean, he is protecting the mental health of his patients by using the authority he has been given and I think that is what his job is about.

Nevertheless, he might do even better if he would recommend to his patients someone who is better qualified to help them with treating the origin of their physical problems (while still providing them with the letter they require).

<comment><USER49> As I understand it the majority of back pain cases have unknown/undiagnosable causes (and the only "treatment" is either more or less exercise and painkillers),so unless there is an actual physical deformity a psychiatrist is as qualified as anyone to diagnose it.

</comment></comment><comment> ainar-g The article[1] linked in the OP is an interesting read of its own.

[1] [http://strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs/](http://strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs/)

<comment><USER50> Isn't copying content from the article just a _bullshit comment_???

Joking aside, your comment made me read the article. I agree with it almost entirely, except I don't believe there needs to be a conscious decision to invent bullshit jobs for them to appear everywhere. I believe people are capable of hiring other people for bullshit jobs and not questioning why they do it without some kind of conspiracy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> Bullshit jobs are created just like the comments on this article demonstrate.

The proper response is "This is bullshit, let's fight it". Yet, it's not of personal importance, and really, how many fights can you fight, so somebody somewhere comes up with a way to circumvent the system. Others help refine the step for that - because you know it's bullshit, and circumventing bullshit feels satisfying.

From there, this will no doubt spread, and be further refined. The ultimate outcome is a content free form that allows everybody to take no personal risk, and simply trades the actual decision making for signing a form that you know will never harm you.

And voila, there will, at some point, be a specialization where you just see large volumes of people, and sign their slip. The insurance will press to make it lower skill and less expensive. Since no actual skill is needed, it won't stop at being delegated to nurses. Sooner or later, it's a minimum wage job. At this point, companies will start bringing it in-house - why would you want people taking half a day off for signing a bogus form? And after a while, there's huge demand for this - each company needs it - but really, they're not needed fulltime. And so there will be an agency that has these people travel to your office.

At this point, backpain form signer certainly is a new job. And the decisions at every step of the way were entirely rational.

I want to end this with a rousing call to fight bullshit where you see it, but realistically, it would be an all day job. So we'd get bullshit fighters. Who probably at some point just sign forms.

</comment><comment><USER4> > _It seems to be an issue of people spending time and money to create and > satisfy procedures that degenerate into rituals, so that they can look all > procedural and responsible in front of – courts? regulators? investors? I > don't know._

Direct supervisors? I don't think someone inventing or enforcing a procedure like this is trying to satisfy _investors_. They're mostly concerned with their own job security and chances of promotion. I propose that a big chunk of the economy is made of such chains of people trying to please their direct bosses.

<comment><USER52> > _Direct supervisors? I don 't think someone inventing or enforcing a > procedure like this is trying to satisfy investors._

You'd be surprised. There are a lot of procedures and changes changed when a company tries to attract investors...

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> Those bullshit jobs which pull the great bulk of humanity together to pay the mortgage and buy groceries and degrees and Beanie Babies and cocaine... They are the substrate from which real progress grows.

</comment><comment><USER54> In addition to all of the other valid observations, I think some of the impetus to create these bullshit jobs is to maintain a certain level of employment we wouldn't have otherwise only because thr alternative jobs wouldn't be excepted.

I.e., take all your excess administrators and TSA employees and offer them jobs that are in demand but unwanted like construction or something. I doubt they'd take them.

People want office jobs, so we find ways to make office jobs.

</comment><comment><USER55> It would be ok to replace "Mr Smith tells me he has chronic back pain" with "Mr Smith has chronic back pain", if the former is enough evidence to make that diagnosis. If he was diagnosing Mr Smith with cancer, or depression, the doctor's note wouldn't include a scan of the tumour or a transcript of the interview: the doctor should abstract those away and just present the conclusion.

<comment><USER56> True, but the presumption in the case of cancer is that:

a) The doctor in question is qualified to diagnose cancer.

b) The doctor has made that diagnosis, in the medical sense.

In this case, Scott is a psychiatrist, who is unqualified to diagnose back pain or recommend any course of treatment on the matter. He believes his client when they say that they are in pain, but that belief is a personal, not professional, opinion.

<comment><USER55> He's a medical doctor. He's qualified to diagnose back pain and recommend (professionally, not just personally) the patient tries using his own chair. As I understand it the AMA would be OK with this, while they wouldn't be OK with, say, me (not a medical professional) writing the same letter and presenting it as a professional diagnosis.

He knows the limits of his abilities and wouldn't recommend the patient take 2 weeks off work, undergo back surgery or prescribe opiates. If any of those were in the discussion, he'd tell his patient he really does need to see a specialist.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> > In an efficient market, why would profit-focused companies employ a bunch of > people who by their own admission aren't doing anything valuable?

There are lots of reasons for bullshit tasks, I found. And let's call it tasks, not jobs. Because a job is something regular that pays a monthly income, and there ARE certainly complete bullshit jobs!

One reason, as mentioned here, is process. Everything needs a process, so that it's clear (or rather that it's unclear, but more about that later) who's responsible, what needs to be done, and that there is an objective checklist to show that something is done when it's done. It sounds stupid but it makes complex things work. In a relatively big company for this chair topic a number of separate, independent units, who might not even know each others existence, need to cooperate on a task that is split in organisational, financial and temporal terms. That is hard. But with a process it's possible to get finished at some point.

The second thing is that each company that is still alive had a time of growth and a time when they where stuck. When you are stuck, you can't just fire everybody. And you can't allow people to just browse Facebook all day. So what do you do? You create bullshit tasks. That keeps the juice flowing. And if an interesting, profitable opportunitiy comes up you still have people, orgs, etc setup so you can start approaching it. It also makes sense, to some degree.

The third one I can immediately think about might come as shock to some people. We grow up with the believe that things are equal and supposed to be fair. Truth is, the world sucks and is an unfair place. Therefore power hierarchies really exist, even in the seemingly most open places. Even at the cool company you heard about and really want to work at. And what do people do who achieved some powers in these virtual pyramids? They create obstructions for the people below them so they can't follow them upstairs and maybe even take their seat. Bullshit processes, bullshit tasks, and bullshit jobs help greatly with that. This might look inefficient, but in fact might actually be the most efficient system in existence. Because it works. It worked in the stone age, in the medieval times, in modern dictatorships, and also (sadly) in modern democracies. Like the invisible hand that governs the resource allocation in free markets, power structures are always there and make things work. Maybe not like you want it, but you are also not at the top of the pyramid, right?

Alright, that's what I can think off. They do valuable things, just that the value is not obvious to you nor is the value shared with you. That's why it looks like bullshit.

</comment><comment><USER58> There is a thing that I don't understand from the original article[1]:

> The ruling class has figured out that a happy and productive population with > free time on their hands is a mortal danger. And, on the other hand, the > feeling that work is a moral value in itself, and that anyone not willing to > submit themselves to some kind of intense work discipline for most of their > waking hours deserves nothing, is extraordinarily convenient for them.

Does the author really mean that if you don't work you still deserve something in return? That one kinda sounds like bullshit. Has that been expanded upon somewhere?

Also, the author mentions that this was already attempted during the 60s and that it ended in a disaster but doesn't tell what that was. I am not from America, so I don't really know the history of the country during the 60s. What happened?

[1] [http://strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs/](http://strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs/)

</comment><comment><USER59> If you buy in to Yuval Noah Harari's narrative than the limiting factor has been and is flexible cooperation within group, at scale. It is what out highly developed sences of politics and religion are for. Its what money is for, caste systems, popes, grand admirals, corporations and premium fashion brands.

In any case... a lot of traditional "bullshit jobs" are about. Middle management. Lawyering, reporting, coordinating, administrating, bureaucratic procedure management....etc.

Maybe we should think of these as extremely inefficient ways of solving that neverending "problem" of flexible cooperation in large groups. Even though the low hanging fruit is gone and the marginal efforts are extremely inefficient... throwing resources at bottleneck is ... to be expected.

Just a thought. Not sure that I'm convinced myself. I think it might explain the chair rule though.

</comment><comment><USER50> I felt that the note could be understood as mildly passive aggressive. Maybe adding something like "I have no reason not to believe him/her" would remove any interpretation that you're writing this note out of obligation but do not believe the patient.

Good post btw; I have no input on ethics and would be stumped as well.

<comment><USER60> But he does want to help the patient, does he not? But to write something else would be to take the burden of proof into his hands. "Obligation" also makes it sound like he's forced to do it, it's more like without further tests which would inconvenience the patient, he can't be sure the patient is reporting the truth (even with the patient in front of him, he wouldn't be able to objectively observe pain, and he can only ask and believe the answer).

But the note fixes the stupid problem of "The rules say no special chairs without a doctor's note"...

<comment><USER55> I think the "burden of proof" part is exactly what's holding him up. As a skeptic, and an analytically minded person, and perhaps even as a blogger - he's uncomfortable writing "Mr Smith has chronic back pain" without a little more concrete evidence.

I'm arguing that as a doctor he shouldn't require more evidence in this case. It's fine to write "Mr Smith has chronic back pain and I recommend he can use his own chair" and be right only 80% of the time, and introduce a process whereby sneaky chair-seeking miscreants can reliably get a doctor's note even if they don't have back pain. It's fine because the consequences of being wrong are extremely low. In practice doctors should be, and often are, OK with making diagnoses of much more serious conditions that are only 80% or 90% or 99% likely to be correct, even when some other test could reduce the uncertainty further. If he's waiting to be 100% certain a patient has bipolar disorder or anorexia before prescribing any treatment, he's doing them a disservice.

The level of certainty required should be in line with the severity of the condition being diagnosed, and of the recommended treatment. And when writing a note to an employer, it's correct to say "Mr Smith has cancer" or just "Mr Smith has a medical condition", not "I'm 94% sure Mr Smith has cancer, perhaps the next scan will be more conclusive".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> Proceedures are like a web of safety nets. Companies want to avoid risk, so they focus on making the nets tighter and tighter. Eventually, the nets are so densely woven that the possibility of injury for any tightrope walker dancing on the line becomes nil. You can see while this is only for the best interests of the circus as a whole (they can't afford to replace tightrope walkers all the time) and for the tightrope walker himself (he won't get injured) it saps his vocation of any risk, excitement, and thrill, and effectively eradicates everything that made the circus a circus and exciting place to be in the first place.

Such is the field of pencil-pushing work today—except the massive corporations have captive audiences, so in spite of the incredibly flaccid shows they put on, the crowd can't help but pay for a ticket anyway.

</comment><comment><USER62> As some mentioned before bullshit jobs exist because the corporate world still thinks in terms of hours instead of production. People have zero incentive to reduce or automate their work, something that every solo freelancer is struggling to do daily if he wants to survive.

Since they need to fill their hours quota somehow they create meetings and procedures and more job functions that are needed in order to be in line with those new procedures.

The bigger the corporate the bigger the time and money waste. Meeting become global team meetings that costs tons of money, jobs that can be easily automated become complete departments and so on.

Only in a corporate culture where the only thing measured and compesnated is output - there you will see almost zero bullshit.

</comment><comment><USER63> There's a well-known reason for these requirements: they are an attrition tactic. It erects barriers to obtaining insurance benefits. Many give up, reducing the costs to the insurance company. It happens with WAY more than chairs, and is fundamentally unethical.

</comment><comment><USER64> Let me take the opposing view (not just for fun's sake): I think one reason why BS jobs exist is to keep everybody busy. if there were no bullshit jobs, what would we do with all the people? Maybe we end up with many more people unemployed, maybe watching TV all day?

<comment><USER65> I'd rather see those people using their time hiking mountains, watching tv shows, doing arts... than go spend their day at a useless job that will make them feel unhappy because of the lack of accomplishment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> Welcome in bureaucraty world! This patient needed a medical note so that his employer authorizes him to bring his own chair. This medical note is completely fancy and does not contain any assesment about health. For bureaucratic procedure, it is perfect.

</comment><comment><USER67> It would be interesting to see what's the distribution of BS jobs in the HN community: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17880159](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17880159)

</comment><comment><USER68> I've been at offices that require notes like this. (The company paid for special chairs) The reason listed was "we want to introduce some friction - enough that we are not using VC money to buy special equipment for everyone"

</comment><comment><USER69> I did something a few months ago and pulled something in my back. Went to the doctor when the pain hadn't gone after a few days and it was exactly as described. He made me do a few movements until i triggered it, then told me i had lumbago, take some painkillers. I got home and googled lumbago, which basically told me I had back pain.

(As a side note I had some kratom, which worked wonderfully for this, better than the ibuprofen I was prescribed. Fortunately my pain went away after a few days, but I see that the DEA wants to ban kratom in the US. That would be pretty bad for many who use it for chronic pain).

<comment><USER70> My understanding of the kratom situation is that the worst danger is how it's all too easy for it to become habitual. I absolutely do not think it ought to be banned (nor any psychoactive plant for that matter), but interested parties should be forewarned.

Many advocates may only use it occasionally and/or in consistently low doses, but there are plenty of accounts out there of users ramping up dosage and then having a really hard time getting off it. Withdrawals from heavy use read a lot like similar accounts of kicking a Vicodin habit.

<comment><USER69> Agreed, I subscribe to some kratom subreddits and some people do seem a bit irresponsible with their use. And after two or three weeks of daily use I could see it getting addictive. Though it wasn't hard to cut back on at all, but I wasn't using particularly high amounts.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER71> _" Nothing we do in this large department of ours is really very important, and there's never any rush. On the other hand, it is important that we let people know we do a great deal of it."_

General Peckem - Catch 22

</comment><comment><USER72> What allows a firm to stay competitive if there are many apparently wasteful tasks being done? Should that firm not be superseded by competitors offering better efficiency (reflected in prices) or consumer benefit?

I keep coming back to theory-of-the-firm: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_the_firm](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_the_firm)

An industry that accommodates a lot of bullshit work is an industry with high transaction costs. The author hints at that at the end of the article, but leaves it an open question.

</comment><comment><USER73> A test of a bullshit job (or procedure) is whether we could get rid of it. Could we get rid of the doctor's note requirement, or of the compliance officers in the company insisting on one?

In a start-up or small company, yes. Bring your own chair to work day! In a larger company where people don't know each other or there are many employees on low pay or short contracts, not so much. They'd be worried about people stealing the furniture, or bringing in furniture that was not fire safe and then getting sued.

<comment><USER74> If stealing office furniture is an actual concern and ongoing problem that company has some incredibly fundamental problems. Personally i would just bring the damn chair in and play dumb.

<comment><USER73> I know if you have worked only in software companies where everyone is paid six figure salaries then you will think that stealing stores and company property must be incredibly rare and deviant behaviour, but at most companies this is a very real concern of management and something that happens regularly.

<comment><USER74> I understand people steal stuff at pretty much every company, but a chair? That's kinda hard to just walk out with.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER75> The explanation for BS jobs is that the economy is not nearly as "efficient" as we hope that it may be. Incumbents at the top, stay at the top, regardless of how inefficient they may become. A number of forces including government and regulation, and barriers to entry confound to reinforce the position of mega incumbents that simply stay at the top forever.

On the plus side, I'm hopeful that the rise of BS jobs will increase work life balance.

</comment><comment><USER11> From the article:

 _In an efficient market, why would profit-focused companies employ a bunch of people who by their own admission aren't doing anything valuable?_

and

 _It seems to be an issue of people spending time and money to create and satisfy procedures that degenerate into rituals, so that they can look all procedural and responsible in front of – courts? regulators? bosses? investors?_

People aren't exactly that stupid. Its really more on the lines of malice.

I remember in my first job, it was a big IT services company in Bangalore, India. Our manager created some project initiatives to align corporate initiatives on the lines of 'Promoting Green Technologies'. Two or three people in the evening/night would stay behind and check if people's desktops were on. Mostly people just locked the computers and went home. This was necessary because many people kept IDE's and many other work related stuff running, coming back morning and redoing all that for an hour or two was a waste of time.

But these bunch of three would go around and see if someone's desktop was still powered on. They could then turn off the switch(hard turn off) on the wall socket. Next day people would come and then be mightily surprised finding all their unsaved work, or work state itself wiped out.

After a lot of fights and arguments. They decided they would just send reports instead of turning it off. The reports would then act as way of shaming people for 'wasting energy'. They eventually even got around to automating it.

Months later we saw, It was nothing about promoting green technologies or saving the earth or anything. The three people who were doing it were the manager's pet, and he wanted to promote them. He thought having a line item on 'corporate goal achievement' on their promotion packets would further their cause well. Then we saw those three get promoted over the real people were actually building stuff and delivering things.

Generally when these things happen in a company you need to think on the opposite lines of _Heinlein 's Razor_. Some one somewhere has hiring quotas and budgets, some one is getting promoted, or getting a bonus or getting paid well for bringing up these stupid policies and jobs.

Things exist because there is an incentive for them to exist.

</comment><comment><USER76> I was listening to Feynman's lectures on Quantum Mechanics this morning, and he was talking about the lattice structure of materials and how different lattice structures permeate EM waves and stuff. You've got this repeating atomic structure. Each of them is carbon, or hydrogen or iron or whatever. I suppose in essence you could say on their own each of these is "bullshit" but it's the repeating lattice structure that gives a material it's properties. This reductionist view of "bullshit" jobs is kind of silly - some jobs are unfulfilling, or seemingly pointless but you can only really evaluate them in the overall structure and productivity of the organisation. It's the emergent lattice that counts, not the individual elements.

In the case of this article, author is looking at a single aspect of a larger organisation, and like the blind men and the elephant [0] can only guess at the reasons.

There could well be good reasons for these processes and procedures. Could be to do with management accountability, or insurance (more likely). The fact that in isolation it seems "silly" is notwithstanding that there might a reason in a larger organisational context. Kind of like a traffic light hardwired to red because at scale, operationally it just makes more sense to do it that way [1] (this article is a bad example because it doesn't go into the explanation as to "why" \- operationally, which when I actually heard it seemed quite reasonable - can't find it now).

The way I look at management is like this - a LED produces light by way of _spontaneous emission_ , which is all well and good, but to produce a LASER you need all these photons to be emitted _in phase_ which requires a whole heap of extra bullshit circuitry to create to produce _stimulated emission_. There is a curve of cost/efficiency where you can go _" oh well why am I spending all this money when all I want is light"_ \- but if you don't do all this extra "inefficient" stuff, well then you can't have optical communication, CDs or a fancy lightshow.

Don't get me wrong, there are inefficient organisations that produce little, or even do damage, but IMHO by looking at individual jobs we're looking in the wrong place.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_men_and_an_elephant](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_men_and_an_elephant)

[1] [https://www.thelocal.de/20150615/there-is-a-light-that- never...](https://www.thelocal.de/20150615/there-is-a-light-that-never-goes- out)

</comment><comment><USER77> Since this is an entrepreneurial crowd here on HN, if this is such an issue than why not create meaningful jobs! Use your creativity and help spread entrepreneurship and create products and services that people love, enjoy or makes someone else's life easier! Or better yet do some research and find cheap energy or new treatments for diseases!

</comment><comment><USER78> Meh. Didn't John Stuart Mill describe the Indian empire as "indoor relief for the British middle classes"?

</comment><comment><USER79> Two mutually-reinforcing reasons why bullshit jobs exist in companies:

* managers are of the power-seeking kind. to expand your power base, hire hire hire

* employees on average tend to underperform to their potential and tout the important of their work as there's incentive to look busy and look good

The result: an army of folks doing mediocre or meaningless work

</comment><comment><USER80> This is wonderfully concise and spot-on. With respect to the American health care system, it's painfully accurate. An unbelievable amount of economic activity in the US health care system ultimately boils down to a whole lot of ceremony in order to fit a square peg into a medical billing code sized hole.

</comment><comment><USER81> Bullshit jobs are the new "I closed my Facebook account" articles these days. Everybody talks about it and tries to say it's a symptom of our society going wrong.

I personally prefer bullshit than dangerous jobs. And technology allowed us to switch from the latter to the former. That's good news to me!

</comment><comment><USER82> I worked in an organization with lots of processes. I was in an office with no windows, a bit of a hole or maybe even oubliette. You couldn't tell time of day, weather, etc but it was better than a cubicle.

My door opened to a 10 foot hallway with and about 5 feet down there was a large window. It was a weird L-shape and no one else's office or cube or anything was in the hallway to nowhere. So it was kind of nice that no one walked by and it was off the beaten path.

The window in the hallway was closed with blinds. But if I opened them it was possible to get some ambient light effects so while I couldn't see out it from inside my office, I could tell if it was day or night. So it was better.

A few weeks went by and the blinds were closed one day. That's weird, no one comes by here. I asked some nearby coworkers if they knew who closed and why and they didn't know. No one knew. The entire floor is probably the size of a football field and has 100 offices around the edge with 200 cubes and conference rooms and stuff in the middle. My team is probably 10 people and there's lots of other groups.

No one I knew knew and didn't really care. I maybe spent 2-3 minutes because I was surprised that anyone walked by here, much less cared. I opened the blinds and when about my business.

About a week later, the blinds were closed again. Weird, but again I checked and no one I knew cared. I opened them again.

3 days later, they were closed. Repeat a few times and now I was opening them every day and someone else was closing them. Weird and funny.

This went on for a few days and the blinds would close in the middle of the day. I spend about 3-6 hours out of my office doing different stuff so I come and go. So I would now open them whenever I noticed them back down during the day.

Finally, I'm in my office and I hear the metallic zip sound of blinds closing. I stick my head of of my office and say hello to someone from a different floor and group, I'll call her Betty.

I ask Betty what's up and she tells me that she's closing the blinds. I ask why and she says because they are supposed to be closed. I explain why I like them open and that there's no one else who sees this window and she again says the blinds must be down.

Interesting. I love arbitrary rules as a big board game fan. I ask about why, and she says that no building things can be changed without a business justification as required by OSHA, fire marshalls, and emergency coordinators.

I tell her that I think this wouldn't apply to something as minor as a window blind, but assured me it's for everything.

I try a different tack and propose that the natural state is open, and that she is actually the one who needs a justification to close. But she's too smart for that, she produces an inventory of the building that she makes each January that clearly shows the blinds closed for the past few years.

She is not joking or being ironic. She's serious.

So I ask how business justifications are evaluated and she says that they are submitted to her and she evaluates them. There's no template or format and no one has ever submitted one in the 10 years she was in this role.

Wow, ok. I go ahead and tell her I'll write one and ask how to submit them.

This is funny to me, so later that evening, I spend a few minutes and write up a justification email. It's pretty bullshit and basically says "Window blinds open makes me happier, and thus more productive. Closed blinds reduce productivity and thus reduce organization impact. Yadda Yadda Yadda."

It's maybe two paragraphs. She replies that my justification is insufficient and blinds will stay closed.

This is now less funny. So I look her up in the company director. She is a random workgroup's Secretary and is a contractor who has been in the building forever. She has contracted for three different organization, but has always sat there. She schedules appointments and orders staples and stuff for about 20 of the hundreds of people in the building. She's on a different floor than me. There's five floors. Her group is entirely on a different floor.

This is bizarre. With this knowledge, I resubmit a revised justification. She denies it again. I respond copying her contracting monitor or whatever you call the person who organizes the contract, pointing out this bizarre process. The contracting person is confused and responds that this is not in any contract, they don't give a shit, and question why this is done.

Then there's silence for via email for a few days. The contracting person responds that the blinds will stay open. I never hear from Betty again.

I moved out of that office about 5 years ago. The blinds stayed open while I was there.

About a year or two ago, I was in that building and I walked by my old area to talk to some former co-workers and noticed the blinds were down.

I gave a quick recap and the current occupant didn't care and hadn't noticed. But they did say that Betty was still there.

I think people get really invested in a process they think is important, but is only important to them. A co-worker called this "building imaginary castles in the sky."

It was really cool to them, but meaningless to any observer. Sometimes it's useful in the long run for something else, but hard to tell immediately.

There's confusion that gets compounded and you have real stuff wrapped around it. It seems like it may be bullshit.

</comment><comment><USER83> Reminds me of [https://www.fastcompany.com/3036728/office-roleplay-meet- the...](https://www.fastcompany.com/3036728/office-roleplay-meet-the-people- who-pretend-to-work-at-an-office-together-for-fun)

</comment><comment><USER84> For all the talk about bullshit jobs, I don't recall seeing a single example of one that made me think "yep, that job is clearly creating no value for anyone".

Dog washer is mentioned. Sure it's a luxury, but bullshit? There are clearly people willing to pay for that service.

</comment><comment><USER33> I contributed to David Graeber's new Bullshit Jobs book. And this week published: "Dissecting two academic trolls' review of 'Bullshit Jobs: A Theory'": [https://firstname.lastname@example.com/dissecting-two- academ...](https://firstname.lastname@example.com/dissecting-two-academic- trolls-review-of-bullshit-jobs-a-theory-e2782559becb)

The OP asks a key question: _" In an efficient market, why would profit- focused companies employ a bunch of people who by their own admission aren't doing anything valuable?"_

Anyone wondering this should skim the book, which squarely addresses this concern: _" This is always represented as exactly what would never happen under capitalism. The last thing a private firm, competing with other private firms, would do is to hire people it doesn't actually need. If anything, the usual complaint about capitalism is that it's too efficient, with private workplaces endlessly hounding employees with constant speed-ups, quotas, and surveillance."_

Don't know if I should spoil the explanations. :)

</comment><comment><USER85> Makes me think of every 1st tier support interaction I've ever had where a person can't answer a single question and just refers you to online resources you've already read and couldn't find the answer to.

</comment><comment><USER86> You need a note to bring in a chair? At all the startups I have worked for - as long as it isn't illegal you can bring it in. At zynga they moved my desk to install a keg. (Edit 2008 zynga)

</comment><comment><USER87> Can't he just write a letter "So-and-so wants to bring his own chair to work, and it is important to him. Will you let him?"

It is a note from their doctor. It isn't a medical opinion.

</comment><comment><USER88> Regarding the back pain from sitting to much: IKEA has an electrical standing desk called BEKANT for a little more than 500 EUR. This was life changing for me.

</comment><comment> d--b > people spending time and money to create and satisfy procedures that > degenerate into rituals

There's something about the idea of ritual indeed. Well found

</comment><comment><USER89> "why would profit-focused companies employ a bunch of people who by their own admission aren't doing anything valuable".

The short answer: they might not be doing anything valuable, but that doesn't mean they aren't valuable.

I'm not a sociologist, so this is 'anecdotal', but I have consulted in and worked with a large number of companies during my professional 'career.

First key insight I gained is that [b]the larger the company, the greater the distance between personal action and institutional success[/b]. In a very small business, your own actions directly influence and visibly contribute to the success or failure of the company. As the company gets larger, your own actions or even complete lack their-off will for the vast majority of employees not visibly influence the needle.

In absence of this tight coupling between personal actions and company outcomes, the majority of people will be optimizing decisions in terms of the outcome for [i]themselves[/i], something their direct actions most certainly influence, rather than for some nebulous and intangible 'for the benefit of the enterprise'.

As large companies invariably have a multi-layered hierarchical structure, the lack of objective measurement in company contribution will not counterbalance the 'career-optimizing' forces, and so the average 'me'-focused person will tend to 'out-compete' a more holistic 'company-minded' individual when it comes to climbing the hierarchy.

Optimizing for personal gain does not align with company efficiency unless by accident. It often even contradicts it as 'small but efficient' solutions are the exception as their creation might benefit the one person that can claim the credit for it at some point and rise to the next level, yet burn that bridge for everyone 'coming behind' as they now are just heading a small division instead of shepherding over a large number of warm bodies and the size of the spending-budget they 'control', the universal career success measure for management.

Second key insight: [b]companies are legal entities, but don't [i]realy[/i] exist as a conscious entity.[/b]

Let me explain what I mean. As an external consultant, you never work for company X, you work for person A, the person that hires you. Same (but different), as an employee, you don't realy work for company Y, you work for the benefit of persons B and C, people that got you onto their team to improve their situation.

Combined, both of these insights lead to the realization that a vast number of people do not work because they create by their work actions, their 'job', a focused benefit to 'the company', the 'customers/clients' or 'society at large', all of which are typical personal 'value' related vectors. They work because they are foot-soldiers that provide 'value' in the managerial hierarchy wars, which is something most people will not recognize as 'value' but as 'bullshit'.

A third key realization(I promise, I'll keep it at that), and the one that answers [b]'but why are these inefficient behemoths not put to rest by highly efficient competitors[/b], is that a lot of people tend to misinterpret Darwinian dynamics, a common popular conceptual model in thinking about 'markets' and 'efficiencies'. Popular interpretation that of the 'survival of the fittest'. They imagine animals (enterprises and businesses in this context), to be in an eternal struggle (red in tooth and claw), resulting in the leanest and meanest, the most efficient providing the best 'fit', rising to the top. The invisible hand of the market will create optimal, highly efficient companies in each sector. Unfortunately this model and the interpretation there-off are deceiving. Rather than selecting for the best, a Darwinian dynamic 'just' selects for a sufficient fit to a niche, and only works by weeding out the bottom, those that fail to find a place in any niche at all. In 'static' systems running for a sufficiently long time, promoting the top or weeding out the bottom can lead to the same outcome. In 'dynamic' systems, where 'niches' change over time, both mechanisms can have very different outcomes. Theoretically speaking, top selection tends to efficient but 'over-fitted' solutions, bottom removal does not favor efficiency but resilience, doing 'good-enough' to survive under very many circumstances. Companies that truly 'solve' a problem (something that is definitely on the 'value' scale when people think about 'is my job meaningful'), either eliminate the very basis of their existence by eradicating the 'problem' they solve. It's hard to think of such things or companies, because both they and their reason for 'existence' have disappeared. A more stable solution in terms of company (and thus job) existence must have an ongoing number of cases to 'solve', ideally (in terms of stability) by having the 'solution' create it's own demand for more 'solution', a dependency. People think we as a society weed these out, because they are culturally immediately conditioned to think of 'heroin' or 'illegal substances' as the example of the archetype of of the dependency inducing concept. Thing is that our whole socio-economic market system is based on creating and sustaining ongoing dependency.So once again, people seeing that the company they work for doesn't solve but even plays a role in creating the problems it pretends to solve, again find their job 'meaningless' at best.

Sorry for the long post.

<comment><USER90> This is the comment i came here for. SlateStars previous 'meditations on moloch' considered the idea of complex capitalist systems, and a relentless trend towards efficiency and Survival of participants within the system that eventually snuffs out art, freedom, and results in dire consequences for both the participants and the wider environment.

This interpretation is similar to the one put forward here by Graeber, and as you point out, similarly overestimates the effectiveness of the feedback mechanisms that drive 'fit' or 'fitness' and especially overestimates the willingness or incentive of participants, including corporations as well as workers, to adapt beyond a point where survival, at least for a time, is achieved.

I entirely agree that bullshit jobs exist, and in significant number as a result of a number of factors, but i often suspect that a 'hypercapitalist' system, with greater resource allocation efficiency and price or other signalling, would just be a miserable gig-driven dystopia.

At least with a bullshit job you can condition yourself to relax and enjoy the ride...

<comment><USER89> Thx. I bought his book and put it on my (long) Kindle reading list. (OT:: buying more books than I can read has always been my guilty pleasure.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER91> Maybe it's simply that companies aim for a certain aesthetic, and letting people bring random chairs in would go against it.

</comment><comment><USER92> Well, not everyone needs a meaningful job, like all the time.

</comment><comment><USER93> Keep in mind, most of tech is bullshit jobs that have no impact on product, business or customers. Tech for tech's sake.

</comment><comment><USER94> Most bullshit jobs are well paid

</comment><comment><USER95> It looks like psychiatry, especially psychotherapy, is bullshit to a far greater extent than what was discussed in this blog post:

\---

For real patients, there is no evidence that the benefits of psychotherapy are greater than those of placebo treatment.

[https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/behavioral-and- brain...](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/behavioral-and-brain- sciences/article/an-analysis-of-psychotherapy-versus-placebo- studies/08C6F3704103BE1DE8737138D61BE66B) (Prioleau 1983)

Meta-analysis shows antidepressants to be more effective than psychotherapy. No significant difference between the studies with and those without a placebo condition.

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26169475](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26169475) (Cuijpers 2015)

Negative results in phase III trials of complex interventions

[https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/the-british- journal-...](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/the-british-journal-of- psychiatry/article/negative-results-in-phase-iii-trials-of-complex- interventions-cause-for-concern-or-just-good- science/188FDEFC70880724315045EC8D773AA2) (Crawford 2016)

Therapy experience in naturalistic observational studies is associated with negative changes in personality

[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S009265661...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0092656616302410) (Philip 2016)

Does psychotherapy work? An umbrella review of meta‐analyses of randomized controlled trials finds only 7% of studies provided convincing evidence that psychotherapy is effective. These pertained to cognitive behavioural therapy (n = 6), meditation therapy (n = 1), cognitive remediation (n = 1), counselling (n = 1) and mixed types of psychotherapies (n = 7).

[https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/acps.12713?c...](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/acps.12713?campaign=wolearlyview)

More experience and training do not improve outcome of psychotherapy.

[http://psycnet.apa.org/record/2017-46640-006](http://psycnet.apa.org/record/2017-46640-006) (Erekson 2017)

Trauma and victimhood have also been way overstated, overlooking that most people recover from traumatic experiences; that duration and and frequency of trauma are uncorrelated with subsequent disorder.

[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S027273581...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272735818300539) (Küenzlen 2016)

Young children emerge from single potentially traumatic events psychologically unharmed

[https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17405629.2016.11...](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17405629.2016.1150174) (Galatzer-Levy 2018)

People with moderate life adversity have the fewest stress symptoms, are the most satisfied with life and the least affected by recent traumata.

[https://econtent.hogrefe.com/doi/abs/10.1027/2512-8442/a0000...](https://econtent.hogrefe.com/doi/abs/10.1027/2512-8442/a000011) (Höltge 2018)

How to spot hype in the field of psychotherapy: A 19-item checklist

[https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RXZ75sEnpTpqExb_KP0buaL6V2y...](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RXZ75sEnpTpqExb_KP0buaL6V2yZagvE/view)

<comment><USER96> AFAICT none of the links you give offer any support for the claim that "psychiatry is bullshit".

Several, if anything, support the exact opposite (e.g "antidepressants to be more effective than psychotherapy" \-- 'psychiatrist' is not a synonym of 'psychotherapist', a psychiatrist is a medical doctor specialising in mental illness, so is licensed to prescribe antidepressants). Most of the others are just not relevant to the claim ("Young children emerge from single potentially traumatic events psychologically unharmed" \-- how exactly is that supposed to be evidence that psychiatry is bullshit? By some kind of hidden implication that just because thing X does not cause mental illness, therefore mental illnesses don't exist?)

<comment><USER95> Yes, I predominately mean psychotherapy. The links I've listed mostly just provide hints of excessive psychologizing and quackery, but it is indeed awkward when >90% of psychotherapy methods do not perform better than placebo. There seems to be quackery in the medical side of psychiatry as well, but to a lesser extent.

Here it is straight from the horse's mouth:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0Fi32LbXHA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0Fi32LbXHA)

</comment></comment></comment><comment> village-idiot I actually hold the view that we no longer live in a capitalistic society per se, but a neofeudal one. A lot of modern companies, especially the really big ones, seem to be less interested in competing in the open market and more interested in rent extraction.

</comment><comment><USER97> So for example, with regards to startups growing rapidly on VC funding:

What is the lowest acceptable number of employees that a company that's planning to go public can have? Sometimes I wonder if this rapid inflation phase is just a check boxing exercise, and thus create a lot of bullshit jobs.

</comment><comment><USER98> I've always wondered if my various general practitioners had primarily bullshit jobs following the rise of the internet.

<comment><USER99> Having gone to the Internet for advice (and I don't mean just Googling symptoms and taking a guess, I mean those actual pay for medical advice sites), I have a handle on what your GP is for - they provide some sort of accountability and responsibility.

Once, at my wits end with a problem with my child I went to one such site even though I knew it was a bad idea - it's basically a stackoverflow but staffed by real doctors (apparently) and you pay per answer. It's not terribly expensive, but literally any advice you have will be totally vague and contain the instruction to "see your GP". No reputable professional would put their nuts on the line for a remote diagnosis.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What communities are there for discussing good books? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> For fiction books (and some nonfiction) there is good "rotten tomato for books" [https://bookmarks.reviews/](https://bookmarks.reviews/)

there is not a lot of discussions there, but maybe it satisfies your need.

I wish there was something like this for business books

</comment><comment><USER3> On reddit there are a couple of great subreddits where people discuss and present excellent books

[https://www.reddit.com/r/books/?st=JRYREWUL&sh=3e5709bc](https://www.reddit.com/r/books/?st=JRYREWUL&sh=3e5709bc)

</comment><comment><USER4> I'd definitely recommend checking out Goodreads. There's a lot of great niche groups, as well as following other people with similar interests you can discuss books with them in your feed.</comment>


Show HN: Trophus, a new way to experience food with people around you - <AUTHOR> http://trophus.com

<comment><AUTHOR> Hello Hacker News! I've lurked for a while but finally decided to show off what I'm working on. There's still a lot t o be done - mobile is still not really on point, search does not work on mobile, the 'discovery' component is severely lacking... I'm actively working on all these components but as I learned in my CMSC 435 course "Software Engineering" you move a whole hell of a lot slower without a team that you can delegate tasks to. I'm working on this alone. My ex suggested that a system similar to Airbnb or Uber in its simplicity but for food would be extremely useful when youre in a rush or just wanna socialize a bit, and so finally after months of procrastination I decided to take the plunge and build it out. It was extremely enlightening and I learned a lot and I am now pursuing it full time.

I noticed that the idea was proposed before: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2379797](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2379797) The problems with Emile's submission was the lack of search (this is already supported. If you are on laptop you can start typing into the search bar and you will see all listing and users within 15 miles of you), the poor UI, the lack of forethought in how users will interact with the product.

I admit right off the bat the product isnt the best but I wanted to satisfy the critical components and just run with it.

If you zoom out and look around Maryland and click on the users you'll see what an "established cluster" looks like. I am running Stripe on test mode as I continue to iterate on the core features, and am eager to hear what you folks have as thoughts regarding the app. :)

Thanks again, this is my third Rails app and I really think it's a cool idea.</comment>


Another broadband merger: CenturyLink gets FCC approval to buy Level 3 - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/10/another-broadband-merger-centurylink-gets-fcc-approval-to-buy-level-3/ <comment><USER2> And this my friends is how we got Big Green, joining Big Blue and Big Red in a dominant position in communications. RIP Level3.</comment>


Patterns and anti-patterns in company values - <AUTHOR> https://mux.com/blog/patterns-and-anti-patterns-in-company-values/ <comment><AUTHOR> Author here. Would love to hear other people's experience with company values, good and bad.</comment>


China was on its way to becoming more democratic. What happened? - <AUTHOR> https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/02/can-anything-stop-xi-jinpings-power-grab-in-china.html <comment><USER2> It sure is on its way to become capitalist. It's just that capitalism works a lot better without democracy.</comment>


Facebook Chat API bot for mentions in group chats - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/webfreak7/AbhiBot <comment><USER2> The second Facebook chat bot in the last days. What is it about Facebook? Are you guys actually using it in a professional matter?</comment>


Ask HN: How to structure an LLC for giving out equity - <AUTHOR>

I have a project (content site - http://itleaderstoday.com) I've been working on for about a year and its time to recruit (writers, marketers). However I can only offer equity.
So I thought about forming an LLC but not sure what would be the next step? How would I offer a percentage of ownership, what is the right percentage to offer a head writer, editor, etc; how do I offer stake without dilution, etc.
Right now, I pay writers a minimal amount per article. But I could get better writers with a more ownership type of incentive. <comment><USER2> I recently did some fundraising and employee grants with an LLC and it was more complicated than you'd think...

You should make sure your grants have a "distribution hurdle." If you don't have a distribution hurdle, the options you're granting may be taxed as income immediately upon receipt. This would leave your employees with a big tax bill.

You should put everyone on a reasonable vesting schedule. With vesting, everyone is in it for the long-term and the shares given directly correlate to the work performed and the value provided to the company.

You should talk with your employees and agree in advance to the work being performed in exchange for shares granted during the vesting period. There is no clean way to include this in the operating agreement or grant notice, so communication is crucial. If either party is ever dissatisfied with their side of the arrangement, however, they can always leave. And if you've set up vesting appropriately, both sides should still be happy even if you don't reach the end of the vesting period.

Why would you want to prevent employee grants from diluting in the future? It breaks the alignment of incentives. If everyone dilutes equally, everyone has the same incentives regarding future investments. An investment would only be accepted if everyone thought the trade-off of money for equity was worth it based on the current valuation.

But if you DO want to prevent dilution, it's a fairly straight-forward clause you can add to the operating agreement. I'd suggest setting a ceiling or an expiry date for the dilution prevention clause. This ensures that if things change dramatically in the future, you won't be handicapped by your non- diluted employee grants.

Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer. This is for entertainment purposes only. Don't sue me etc.

</comment><comment><USER3> As Terretta mentions, you'll be offering "membership interests" and as far as I remember from our experience with an LLC, you don't offer shares but "units".

You'll have to detail unit interests in your operating agreements and set up unit subscription agreements with your employees. Most of it is akin to what you'd do with a C-corp but the terminology is a bit different.

One note: If you're contemplating raising outside investment in the future from angels or VCs, a C-corp may be preferable as it appears to be their preferred structure (not a hard and fast rule but a preference). I've heard LLC to C corp "conversions" can be less than pleasant.

<comment><USER4> Any of the VC names you read about on this site or others like it will not fund you without transitioning to a C-Corp.

As far as converting from an LLC is concerned, you just form a Delaware C-Corp, which acquires the LLC.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I would also suggest using an S-Corp instead of an LLC. It gives you the same benefits and flexibility as an LLC with pass thru profits and such but you can create shares more easily.

As far as paying your writers with equity, I like this approach defined in this article: [http://www.readwriteweb.com/start/2009/05/building-your- team...](http://www.readwriteweb.com/start/2009/05/building-your-team-pre- financing.php)

It talks about forming a contract where you will pay them double there hourly rate which they can then buy equity with it once the business gets it's first valuation.

<comment><USER6> Agreed - Granting or selling shares is much more straightforward than an LLC. Plus converting an LLC to an S or C-Corp takes a lot of billable hours.

So - find a lawyer local to you, and have him set up the S-Corp in your state. Don't worry about it being in Delaware. Making that change later, or even going to a C-corp is easy (for a lawyer)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Don't know about the LLC/S-Corp end of things, but on the 'how should I split it?' stuff I think Joel Spolsky's response here makes a _lot_ of sense:

[http://answers.onstartups.com/questions/6949/forming-a- new-s...](http://answers.onstartups.com/questions/6949/forming-a-new-software- startup-how-do-i-allocate-ownership-fairly/23326#23326)

</comment><comment><USER8> These percentages of ownership are called "membership interests", and they can be for operating or non-operating partners or investors. Both people and corporations can be members in an LLC.

Many of the biggest companies use LLCs for their advantages. Check the return label on your next package from Amazon.

<comment><USER9> Yeah, and you have to detail how all of that works in your operating agreement and spend thousands of dollars to do so. An S-corp takes care of everything for you due to the huge body of law around corporate share treatment, you get all of that free of charge with a corp.

<comment><USER8> That "body of law" is also a box. It significantly constrains your options.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The issue with LLC ownership is that it becomes much harder to kick out someone later on [or to transfer ownership interests], especially if you are onboarding some unsavory characters.

As far as ownership is concerned, with an LLC the payments do not have to be proportional to the ownership percentage. This is one way in which the LLC differs from the S-corp, because the S-corp requires that payouts are proportional to ownership stake. Hence, a small ownership stake in an LLC can mean diddly squat.

</comment><comment><USER11> I would guess that the pass-through taxation of an LLC would complicate granting equity to employees.

</comment><comment><USER9> LLC's are ripoffs. Use an S-Corp instead. They are far cheaper and easier, are FAR more flexible, and you get the same tax benefits.

LLC's are for people who don't know any better (and this includes myself, several times now in the past, having only been fully educated in this area fairly recently).

<comment><USER12> In Michigan you can form a LLC for $50. It's super simple.

EDIT: I am also an attorney, but have never practiced. In most cases a LLC is the best way to incorporate your startup. (Unless, you know you are getting funding ASAP)

<comment><USER9> Ok, how much is the yearly filing fee? How are profits taxed? How do you distribute ownership interest?

Super simple to set up, complex as hell to use.</comment></comment></comment>


404 Side Denmark's Radio - <AUTHOR> https://www.dr.dk/17ecf9cc-f2e1-d743-9186-ebad27f3c104 <comment><AUTHOR> Silly, but I thought it was a pretty nice 404 page. Also is in Danish so the little stories are probably not that interesting without translating.</comment>


You can now customize and order the new XPS 15 - <AUTHOR> http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/xps-15-9560-laptop/pd <comment><USER2> It's seems so, but you can't...</comment>


Ask HN: Is GraphQL only for getting data? - <AUTHOR> If we transition our APIs from REST to GraphQL. How are going to transition the create, update, delete endpoints? Do we still use rest for that matter? <comment><AUTHOR> In GraphQL, those operations are called "mutations". You can find out more at [http://graphql.org/learn/queries/#mutations](http://graphql.org/learn/queries/#mutations) and [https://learngraphql.com/basics/invoking- mutations](https://learngraphql.com/basics/invoking-mutations)

</comment><comment><USER2> We are not going to transition from REST to GraphQL. It's vaporware..

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for answering my question</comment></comment>


Silicon Valley's Prison Call Center - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2010/0628/companies-televerde-hitachi-netapp-cisco-salvation-at-center.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Ahh, I thought my title was better and referenced a specific portion of the article about crack dealers...</comment>


CCleaner Disregarding Settings and Forcing Update to Latest 5.46 Version - <AUTHOR> https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/software/ccleaner-disregarding-settings-and-forcing-update-to-latest-546-version/ <comment><USER2> I good alternative Maximum PC turned me on to is Privazer.

[https://privazer.com/](https://privazer.com/)</comment>