I translate for a living, and sometimes I’m forced to translate marketing. Lately there’s a shift in the bullshit copy I receive to work on. Slogans 6 months ago were all ‘Use AI or your company goes broke!’ and now it’s ‘Use our product to make your AI agents more efficient and reduce token use!’. It’s hilarious, I’m half ashamed to have to participate in perpetuating this garbage, and fascinated that any decision maker in any organization would keep adding layers of bullshit on top of their tech stack to stay ahead of the competition. I wonder how many layers of bullshit they can still squeeze between reality and profit before it all comes down.
I am currently reading bullshit jobs, and have a feeling you will like the book if you haven’t read it already.
I have read it, but it’s time for a re-read. Most of the words I write are bullshit and do not make the world a better place and I found the book (as well as Graeber’s other books) incredibly enlightening. I spend a non-zero amount of time grieving that the man cannot write more books. ‘Bullshit jobs’ motivates me to work as little as I can (by living frugally and recycling, reusing, repairing, DIYing everything and growing my own food). It also motivates me to be creative in my free time, to use words and other artistic expression for less idiotic stuff. Maybe one day I can make the shift to be a fully functional member of society. They are advertising a job for the maintenance of local shit treatment stations currently, and I am quite tempted to apply. If only there were part-time options for out-in-the-world jobs, my autistic ass doesn’t handle full time.
My friend it sounds like you are doing great, not abiding by current social norms in no meter for usefulness.