Bullshit Jobs
3/5/20261 hr
Peter and Michael discuss "Bullshit Jobs" by anarchist anthropologist David Graeber. The result: two professional podcasters debating which jobs are real and which jobs are fake.
Where to find us:
- Our Patreon
- Our merch!
- Peter's newsletter
- Peter's other podcast, 5-4
- Mike's other podcast, Maintenance Phase
Sources:
- On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs: A Work Rant
- 37% of British workers think their jobs are meaningless
- Average Annual Hours Worked by Persons Engaged for United States
- The times they are not changin’: Days and hours of work in Old and New Worlds, 1870–2000
- ‘Bullshit’ After All? Why People Consider Their Jobs Socially Useless
- Alienation Is Not ‘Bullshit’: An Empirical Critique of Graeber’s Theory of BS Jobs
- Many people feel they work in pointless ‘bullshit’ jobs, research confirms
- The Overworked American: The Unexpected Decline of Leisure
- Study: Leisure Time Declines
- USA Consumption as percent of GDP
- The Significance of Task Significance: Job Performance Effects, Relational Mechanisms, and Boundary Conditions
- Task significance and meaningful work: A longitudinal study
- Americans’ job satisfaction in 2024
Thanks to Mindseye for our theme song!
Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsMichael Hobbes· Host0:00
Uh, let's go in. Let's go in.
Peter Shamshiri· Host0:01
Let's go in.
Michael Hobbes· Host0:02
Yeah.
Peter Shamshiri· Host0:02
And we have to cut all that because last time I s- told the same story twice on Five Foreign Books To Ki- Okay [laughs] and everybody commented that I noticed that.
Michael Hobbes· Host0:08
Yeah.
Peter Shamshiri· Host0:08
I didn't even think about it. I was just telling- Hmm ... my stories to my friends, you know? [laughs] Like, it's like- It looks like someone only had one funny anecdote last week.
Michael Hobbes· Host0:13
Yeah, I saw that too.
Peter Shamshiri· Host0:14
[laughs] Yeah, how many do you fucking have every week, all right? [laughs] Fucking kings of comedy over here. They're like, "Oh, you're using your bits?"
Michael Hobbes· Host0:20
Everyone else just tells one story to one person, and it's just done.
Peter Shamshiri· Host0:22
[laughs] Done.
Michael Hobbes· Host0:22
Nobody ever repeats a funny thing that happened to them.
Peter Shamshiri· Host0:24
You know how good my stories are by the third time I'm telling them?
Michael Hobbes· Host0:27
Yes, [laughs] exactly.
Peter Shamshiri· Host0:27
Like, I'm fucking crushing it, dude.
Michael Hobbes· Host0:28
You're like workshopping it. Yes. Uh, okay, I actually... This, this one has, like, a really obvious, like, little zinger to it.
Peter Shamshiri· Host0:34
Yeah.
Michael Hobbes· Host0:35
But I don't know how to word it, but I don't know how to word it.
Peter Shamshiri· Host0:36
Michael.
Michael Hobbes· Host0:37
Peter.
Peter Shamshiri· Host0:38
What do you know about Bullshit Jobs?
Michael Hobbes· Host0:40
All I know is that I'm excited to talk about this book from the vantage point of my own.
Peter Shamshiri· Host0:44
[upbeat music] Bullshit Jobs, written by David Graeber- Mm ... came out in 2018. Graeber is an anthropologist, and he is a hardcore lefty. He considers- Yeah ... himself an anarchist.
Michael Hobbes· Host1:11
Mm-hmm.
Peter Shamshiri· Host1:11
So finally, we're do- we're doing a book by someone who's not a reactionary centrist.
Michael Hobbes· Host1:16
Also, my understanding is his work is, like, good.
Peter Shamshiri· Host1:18
It's a pretty good book. It makes some important points. It prods at some good and correct ideas. I think- Hmm ... like, my big picture criticisms of it are, one, it's, like, really meandering-