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BS jobs?

Deprecator

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As a person who works in a semi-similar field I must say that I really can't relate to the criticisms mentioned in this video. Like I love meetings and downtime and browsing the web and trying to achieve a number's goal and replying to emails. Also, an "account manager" with my company is a highly sought after salaried position that is not at all like the one she described. So is she just being a drama queen or do some people think her points are warranted?
 

Coriolis

Si vis pacem, para bellum
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As a person who works in a semi-similar field I must say that I really can't relate to the criticisms mentioned in this video. Like I love meetings and downtime and browsing the web and trying to achieve a number's goal and replying to emails. Also, an "account manager" with my company is a highly sought after salaried position that is not at all like the one she described. So is she just being a drama queen or do some people think her points are warranted?
Her basic claim is accurate, from what I have seen, but I disagree with how she breaks it down, and don't think she used the best examples, e.g. doormen or executive secretaries/assistants. Much of what I do all day is BS. I will give an example below. First, though, is how I would define a BS job. Usually these are jobs that come about through the creation of a bureaucratic system. They address problems of our own making, or simply "make-work", rather than the real work of the company or organization.

The real work is the fundamental purpose or mission: what does the company or organization exist to do? Produce a product? Provide a service? Study a problem or issue? You can take any job in that organization and ask: in what way does this help produce refrigerators, or style hair, or build home additions, or educate children - whatever the goal is.The more convoluted the answer is, the more likely the job, or at least those job duties, have nothing to do with that real end goal and result just from bureaucratic tail-chasing. To the extent that those tasks take up resources (time, money, energy), it is like hiring a taxi to drive you to a destination, but having the driver spend a significant part of the drive going in the wrong direction. You might argue that the driver needs to take the long way around due to road closures or other traffic obstacles, but in the business world, I find those obstacles are often of our own making. Better to clear them once and for all than to keep spending the extra time and taxi fare driving around them.

Now my example. Many things in my organization must be approved. One of these is purchases. When I first started at this workplace, the only approval needed was that of the project manager (PM), the one who had been put in charge of the project budget by management, and entrusted to spend it responsibly to accomplish the project. Since then, three additional layers of approval have been added - I am one of them. For the past 2 years, I have spent several hours each week doing this. I have NEVER had to disapprove a purchase, nor have the other two new approvers. Our time spent thus adds nothing to the process. The PM already reports regularly to a supervisor, who can make sure the PM is acting responsibly in managing the project, to include handling the funds. We have a similar situation regarding approval for travel, publication, and various computer issues.

So yes: the modern office world has alot of "make-work" that really doesn't help the organization reach its goals. This is what I would call BS.
 
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