Good article.
Most "consultants" have jobs that could be described as bullshit. I imagine that some of the growth of bullshit jobs is due to the ability of people to bullshit each other about the need for constant improvement. In the case of consultants, they convince a company that they can fix their problem, and the company agrees and the consultants go to work. Whether or not they solve the problem is secondary to the fact that the company management can now say "We've got someone working on the problem."
Lobbyist is also a bullshit job, but unlike consultants, their bullshit job is a creation of regulations and government. The lobbyist exists solely to get companies or groups favorable treatment by the government. That is it. It is a indirect way of paying a bribe since instead of paying politicians directly, you pay a lobbyist and he or she gets politicians to give you a favorable hearing.
Another bullshit job is that done by corporate lawyers. They exist in such great numbers because of regulations and laws that are designed to be arcane and hard to interpret. Most young corporate lawyers are nothing more than glorified clerks, doing a bunch of mundane tasks and trying to bill as many hours as possible for these mundane tasks.
Hell, even I used to work in a sort-of bullshit job. I used to work as a financial statement auditor for a large accounting firm. The work I did was largely useless since all I ever did was re-perform the work of the accounting department on a test or analytical basis to make sure the financials were prepared correctly. I imagine in the future an independent third-party computer application (with weak AI) will do this work by continuously auditing the entries and financials that are created by the accounting department.
Most "consultants" have jobs that could be described as bullshit. I imagine that some of the growth of bullshit jobs is due to the ability of people to bullshit each other about the need for constant improvement. In the case of consultants, they convince a company that they can fix their problem, and the company agrees and the consultants go to work. Whether or not they solve the problem is secondary to the fact that the company management can now say "We've got someone working on the problem."
Lobbyist is also a bullshit job, but unlike consultants, their bullshit job is a creation of regulations and government. The lobbyist exists solely to get companies or groups favorable treatment by the government. That is it. It is a indirect way of paying a bribe since instead of paying politicians directly, you pay a lobbyist and he or she gets politicians to give you a favorable hearing.
Another bullshit job is that done by corporate lawyers. They exist in such great numbers because of regulations and laws that are designed to be arcane and hard to interpret. Most young corporate lawyers are nothing more than glorified clerks, doing a bunch of mundane tasks and trying to bill as many hours as possible for these mundane tasks.
Hell, even I used to work in a sort-of bullshit job. I used to work as a financial statement auditor for a large accounting firm. The work I did was largely useless since all I ever did was re-perform the work of the accounting department on a test or analytical basis to make sure the financials were prepared correctly. I imagine in the future an independent third-party computer application (with weak AI) will do this work by continuously auditing the entries and financials that are created by the accounting department.