One of the biggest challenges that workers face is the proliferation of go-nowhere, dead-end jobs. People need to commute long distances to go into a sterile office building and spend their days doing what feels like meaningless tasks that add little or no value to the company or society.
During the Great Resignation up until fairly recently, there have been numerous waves of workplace memes, such as acting your wage, bare minimum Mondays and quiet quitting. The sentiment behind those viral catchphrases was that the boss and company are oppressors, and workers should find any means to shirk responsibilities and do their best to coast and cyberloaf throughout the day.
While many people will roll their eyes at the TikTok-influenced trends, it captured the zeitgeist of workers who feel trapped in a job that lacks any inner fulfillment or benefits to the company, people or society.
Lack Of Purpose
Deep down, workers know that their job lacks purpose. It’s shuffling papers around, sending out emails and going on back-to-back video calls, but nothing of substance comes from these activities. The employee works all day knowing they’re not accomplishing anything.
Former Meta recruiter Madelyn Machado disclosed in a March viral TikTok video that she was paid $190k to do “nothing.” Machado said that her bosses at the social media company told her not to hire anyone. “We weren’t expected to hire anybody for the first six months, even the first year,” she said. “This is something they tell you when you start.”
It’s like Sisyphus pushing a boulder up a hill. It rolls down, and he pushes it up again all day, every day, until the end of time—except this Sisyphus needs to inform their boss of their accomplishments when there aren’t any. This existential action can slowly make you miserably unhappy and feel disconnected.
Bosses Know Your Job Is Pointless, But It’s Part Of The Game
You may wonder why companies allow this to happen. It’s about incentives. The department head has a budget for the unit. It’s common knowledge in corporate America that if you don’t spend your budget, it will be cut the following year.
The bosses fight for more money to hire additional staff. They do this to build a fiefdom. The bigger the team, the more bragging rights the manager has. It also makes others within the organization believe that the division is important because so many people are working in it.
Supervisors knowingly overlook the people doing inconsequential make-work because they need the bodies in the chair to push for more funding and burnish their reputation and résumé by overseeing so many people. When they switch jobs, they can earn money by telling their future employer about the many people they manage.
The Negative Impact
The proliferation of dead-end, busy-work jobs has adverse psychological effects on individual workers. It leads to frustration, boredom and a lack of fulfillment. Workers become disconnected and disengaged, as they lack purpose. Instead of achieving great things, they contribute to inefficiencies and waste their time and potential.
Suffering Through Endless Interviews To Get An Inconsequential Job
Even though many jobs are performative, people still need to work to earn a living. It’s a vicious circle—people take on pointless jobs just to earn a steady paycheck, yet remain unhappy. They are forced to endure painful job searches only to land a position they’re not excited about.
Lately, we’ve reframed the disconnect and disengagement of workers, largely due to the battle between bosses and workers over remote work. There is also a stealthy, growing white-collar job recession, as fewer opportunities are available compared to blue-collar roles. The turnaround for hiring is taking significantly longer, making people hesitant and nervous about ever finding a new job.
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