By Adrian Furnham
Meaningless work can undermine motivation, wellbeing and purpose, leaving workers questioning the value of what they do every day.
Not all jobs provide the sense of purpose, autonomy and achievement that make work fulfilling. In fact, some roles can leave employees questioning why they exist at all. Adrian Furnham explores the idea of “bullshit jobs,” examining why meaningless work persists, how poorly designed roles can affect workers, and what psychological research tells us about good and bad jobs. His central argument is clear: while employment can provide structure, social connection and identity, work is most valuable when it also gives people a genuine sense of purpose.
While employment can provide structure, social connection and identity, work is most valuable when it also gives people a genuine sense of purpose.
Have you ever wondered what people, often in big public institutions, are employed to do? Why are they being paid to perform meaningless, trivial, and redundant jobs? Is their only function to carry out pointless bureaucratic procedures that have to be slavishly followed for no reason? Surely the employees in these jobs know this and must be pretty unhappy? Do people in these jobs pretend they are important, even essential, when they are the precise opposite? And who is paying the bill?
In 2018, Graeber developed a theory about the Bullshit Job, “which is a form of paid employment that is so completely pointless, unnecessary, or pernicious that even the employee cannot justify its existence even though, as part of the conditions of employment, the employee feels obliged to pretend that this is not the case” (p. 9- 10).
He proposed five types:
- Flunkies: these are jobs that exist only or primarily to make someone else look or feel important. It is about assistants and aides who may not do much (or anything) but make their boss seem more senior and important. These might be personal assistants, doormen, receptionists, concierges.
- Goons: these are people whose jobs have an aggressive element: to sell to people things they don’t want, need, or can afford; lobbyists. Their job is to assert the interests of their employers against others’ interests.
- Duct Tapers: these are employees whose job exists only because of errors, faults, and glitches in the organization; jobs that ought not to exist in the first place.
- Box Tickers: these are bureaucrats who exist solely to be able to claim the organisation is doing something that it is usually not doing.
- Taskmasters: there are two groups: those whose role consists entirely of assigning work to others that they could do themselves; and those whose primary role is to “create bullshit tasks for others to do, to supervise bullshit, or even to create entirely new bullshit jobs” (Graeber, 2018, 51).
He seemed particularly down on bullshit manager jobs because some are simply not needed: they may assign work and supervise others, but nothing would change if they did not exist. Others are not only unnecessary but actively and enthusiastically generate more socially useless work for others. A Ponzi scheme of expensive pointlessness.
Graeber suggested that there were sectors where there seemed to be particularly high numbers of bullshit jobs: business consultancy, finance, human resources, law, and public relations. He thought they were mainly in the private sector, but that is not everyone’s experience. He might have included local government and large nationalised industries.
He also pointed out that politicians are interested in the number of jobs (quantity) rather than the meaningfulness (quality) of the work. Some ideas like this can be found in old-fashioned Marxist arguments about “alienating work”.
The central thesis was that a very large (and of course contested) number of people believe their jobs are pointless and their work meaningless and, therefore, they hate their work. These jobs contribute nothing to society, but worse, they cause psychological damage to the job holders.
Gautheir (2025) summarised the ideas thus: “An important aspect of bullshit jobs is that they can be well compensated and require an education; Bullshit jobs may be detrimental to society at large, but they are also detrimental to the company itself because of their uselessness; The majority of employees do not enjoy being in bullshit jobs, and suffer from job dissatisfaction; Management is involved in bullshit jobs, because managers create them; The share of bullshit jobs may be significant, but it is not the majority.”
These bullshit jobs supposedly exist for various reasons: increased complexity, multiple interests and conflicting agendas of workers in predominantly large organisations. It is difficult and debatable as to how many of these jobs exist in a sector or country, and estimates have ranged from 10 to 40%. Equally, it is possible that a percentage of many jobs have a bullshit component.
Some have tested the argument that socially useless jobs are primarily found in specific occupations. Walo (2023) found that working in certain occupations significantly increases the probability that workers perceive their job as socially useless (compared with all others). This is true for administrative support occupations, sales occupations, business and finance occupations, and managers.
It has been suggested that Graeber’s theory is based on the idea of “managerial feudalism”, which is a consequence of “financialization”, which in turn leads to the appropriation of goods rather than a focus on making them or distributing them.
Of course, the Bullshit job hypothesis was contested. Some challenged the numbers and suggested that these jobs were actually declining, not increasing. Others argued that so many people feeling their jobs are meaningless is primarily due to bad management or toxic corporate cultures, rather than the nature of the job. But the term and the thesis touched a nerve, and the theme still reverberates a decade later.
Cheats at Work
There are observers of bad work of another kind: morally bad. In a series of books and papers, the anthropologist Gerald Mars showed that much cheating at work was a consequence of how jobs were organised. His initial focus was on the sorts of rewards people receive at work. These he divided into three categories: official, formal rewards, both legal (wages, overtime) and illegal (prostitution, selling drugs); unofficial, informal, legal (perks, tips) and illegal (pilfering, short-changing) rewards; and alternative, legal, social economy rewards (barter) and illegal rewards (moonlighting).
Mars noted four types of cheats at work:
First, Hawks, who thrive in occupations that emphasise individuality, autonomy, and competition. Occupations for hawks emphasise entrepreneurial behaviour, where the individual’s freedom to transact on his own terms is highly valued. Hawks are individualists, inventors, small businessmen. They are hungrily “on the make”. Hawks are typically entrepreneurial managers, owner-businessmen, successful academics, pundits, the prima donnas among salesmen and the more independent professionals and journalists. Hawkish entrepreneurial activity is also found in waiters, fairground buskers and owner-taxi drivers. They are loners, individualists. They are not on very good terms with the Inland Revenue!
Second, Donkeys are characterised by both isolation and subordination. Donkeys are in the paradoxical position of being either or both powerless and powerful. They are powerless if they passively accept the constraints they face. They can also be extremely disruptive, at least for a time. Resentment at the job’s impositions on the employee is common, and the most typical response is to change jobs. Other forms of ‘withdrawal from work’, such as sickness and absenteeism, are also higher than normal. They are time thieves.
Third, Wolves, who thrive in those ‘traditional’, rapidly disappearing working-class occupations, such as mining. Wolves are found in occupations based on groups with interdependent and stratified roles, for example garbage collection crews, aeroplane crews and stratified groups who both live and work in ‘total institutions’ such as prisons, hospitals, oil rigs and some hotels. Where workers do live in, or close to, the premises in which they work, group activities in one area are reinforced by cohesion in others. Such groups then come to possess considerable control over the resources of their individual members. Once they join such groups, individuals tend to stay as members.
Fourth, Vultures. Vultures are found in jobs that offer autonomy and freedom to transact, but this freedom is subject to an overarching bureaucratic control that treats workers collectively and employs them in units. Workers in these occupations are members of a group of co-workers for some purposes only, and they can act individually and competitively for others. They are not as free from constraint as hawks, but neither are they as constrained as donkeys. The group is also not as intrusive and controlling as the wolf packs.
It is no secret that certain jobs attract dodgy characters who cheat their colleagues and customers. Some clearly really enjoy the thrill, but it is probably true to say they are pretty unhappy and unfulfilled.
Good Jobs/Bad Jobs
Graeber argued that Bullshit jobs were psychologically destructive. Psychologists have long distinguished between good and bad jobs: good, desirable jobs that are psychologically satisfying and fulfilling. Their question is about the psychological benefits of good jobs and, by implication, the disadvantages of bad jobs. Interestingly, they got their best insights through studying those without jobs: the unemployed. Early researchers like Marie Johoda noted the psychological benefits of work:
Work structures time. We are creatures of habit. Some of us are morning people and some evening people. Having a routine is what most people seek, with, of course, the option to change it if they so wish. Work structures the day, the week, and even longer periods. The loss of a time structure can be very disorientating. A predictable pattern of work, with well-planned “rhythms”, is what most people seek. To have flexitime and to be able to work at times when it most suits your personal circumstances and rhythms is terribly important. You notice this most when going on holiday or starting retirement. The best option is where you have control over which hours you work.
Work provides regularly shared experiences. Most people’s friendship network comes from the world of work. Most of us spend more time with people at work than outside work. We are now more likely to marry a work colleague than a neighbour. Regular contact with non-family members provides an important source of social interaction. Social isolation is related to disturbed mental states: indeed, solitary confinement is a serious punishment. The social support hypothesis in psychology suggests that social support from family and friends buffers the major causes of stress and increases coping ability, thereby reducing illness. If one’s primary source of friends and contacts is work colleagues, then the benefits of social support are denied precisely when they are most needed. One of the most frequently cited sources of job satisfaction is contact with other people. We are, in short, social animals who benefit from meeting like-minded people in the workplace.
Work provides experience of creativity, mastery, and a sense of purpose. Both the organization and the product of work imply the interdependence of human beings. Take away some sense of relying on others, and them on you, and the unemployed are left with a sense of uselessness. Work, even not particularly satisfying work, gives some sense of mastery or achievement. Creative activities stimulate people and provide a sense of satisfaction. A person’s contribution to producing goods or providing services forges a link between the individual and the society of which he or she is a part. Work roles are not the only roles that offer the individual the opportunity of being useful and contributing to the community. Jobs help us to feel useful and have a sense of purpose. By definition, bullshit jobs do not.
Work roles are not the only roles that offer the individual the opportunity of being useful and contributing to the community.
Work is a source of personal status and identity. A person’s job is an important indicator of personal status in society, hence the often amusing debates over job titles, such as “sanitary engineer” for street cleaner. Bullshits jobs often have wonderfully imaginative, inaccurate and misleading titles. Furthermore, it is not only to employed people that jobs give a certain status, but also to their families. The employed person therefore is a link between two important social systems – family and work. Unemployed people have lost their employment status and hence identity. Not unnaturally, there is a marked drop in self-esteem during unemployment.
As noted above, not all work is good for you. Later, Peter Warr (1982) distinguished between good and bad jobs.
| Job Characteristics | ‘Good’ jobs have | ‘Bad’ jobs have |
| Money (remuneration, pay) | more | less |
| Variety (different tasks) | more | less |
| Goals/traction (ability to set own targets) | more | less |
| Decision latitude (choice in how/when/where to work) | more | less |
| Skill use and development (using and improving) | more | less |
| Psychological threat (lack of safety at work) | less | more |
| Security (of all kinds, particularly job security) | more | less |
| Interpersonal contact (quality and quantity) | more | less |
| Valued social position (respect for the position) | more | less |
Of course, these components need further explanation. For most, there is an optimal rather than a maximal amount for each factor. We know that many of these factors are asymptotic: thus, as salary increases, people get systematically happier, but once a certain financial level has been attained, the level of happiness/satisfaction does not increase dramatically. It is essentially about the concept of “enough”, or more specifically “optimal”. Also, some of these factors are more important than others for particular individuals.
What the psychological research suggests is that we can clearly define good and bad jobs. Bullshit jobs are bad jobs for various reasons. There is rarely any skill development and some are despised. They are, as the accountant wanting to be a lion tamer in the famous Monty Python skit said: “dull, dull, dull”.
So:
Freud said the essentials of human happiness were Arbeit und Leben: Love and work. The quality of our interpersonal relationships and the meaningfulness of our work. He was surely right on this one. Jobs are alas, for many, a major source of boredom, humiliation and stress. Is a bullshit job better than no job at all? Probably. Do some people thrive in bullshit jobs and they actively seek them out? Possibly. But nearly all of us want jobs with meaning.
As psychologists have pointed out, we all have an innate need to direct our own lives (autonomy), to learn and create new things (mastery), and to do better by ourselves and our world (purpose). Bullshit jobs offer none of these: they have no real purpose, they test and improve no skills, and mean one is at the total behest of others and has no autonomy.
About the Author
Adrian Furnham has always had a deeply fulfilling job and, as a result, feels blessed. He is currently at the Norwegian Business School.
