A couple of weekends ago I was with a group of friends and one mentioned they were currently reading ‘Bullshit Jobs’ by David Graeber. I said it sounded great and his reply was:
“Careful Becca, you’re a middle manager, you’ll probably realise you, like me, have a bullshit job.”
I was willing to take the risk so downloaded the book that evening and a couple of hours in, as predicted, stumbled across an uncomfortable portion of my job description:
“I normally act as a ‘task gatekeeper’. Requests come to me through Jira (a bureaucratic online tool for managing tasks), and I pass them on to the relevant person. Other than that, I’m in charge of sending periodic reports to my manager, who, in turn, will incorporate them into ‘more important’ reports to be sent to the CEO.”
To make matters worse, I then started thinking about all the times I’m hauled into Kafkaesque weekly meetings with our content department where they insist adding the blue version of a red book to our app represents the height of intellectual complexity, requiring months of arduous planning and paperwork.
What turned this thought process around for me though was thinking about all the ways I do add value to the business, and the reassurance that the business itself is no less worthwhile than any other in our western capitalist ecosystem.
While there is no denying that these days I’m more a planner than a producer, happily I was able to come up with some key areas of value added by the existence of my role.
For every product, there are always more opportunities than any team can meaningfully respond to. Part of my job is to understand each of these, assess their potential and weigh this up against the effort it would take to deliver. This is often a complex process with multiple moving parts in an environment of constant change.
Then there’s delivery which, on the face of it, might not appear to require much of my involvement but in reality tends to make up the majority of my day to day activity. In fact I only need to go on holiday for a week to be reminded how little people are really paying attention to the big picture and how easy it is for everything to glide spectacularly off the rails.
Then there’s my team’s position within the wider organisation. This isn’t a role I’m really measured on and perhaps nobody even realises I’m doing it but it’s important to me that my team are well regarded around the company and seen as the capable and efficient value drivers I know them to be. I see this as essential to our ability to continue taking on the most interesting projects, which in turn keeps good people wanting to stay, give their best and enjoy what we’re building together.
David Graeber defined a bullshit job as:
“A form of paid employment that is so completely pointless, unnecessary or pernicious that even the employee cannot justify its existence.”
Fortunately and upon careful reflection, I’m pleased to report that I don’t believe I have a bullshit job after all and I’m now off to the pub to celebrate!
Digital Becca 