
Ask HN: Will Covid-19 be the end of Bullshit Jobs? - Raed667
Do you think that confinement, social distancing and work-from-home will result in the reduction of the number of &quot;Bullshit Jobs&quot;[0]?<p>[0] https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Bullshit_Jobs
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listenallyall
The opposite. In work-from-home situations, BS jobholders (which I generally
define as managers with few actual skills other than managing) continually
need to justify their existence, which they love to do via constant and
excessive videochats with anyone and everyone. Meanwhile productive workers
are more invisible than ever, lacking the random hallway, coffee machine,
bathroom run-ins with top execs/mgmt.

People think this stuff doesn't matter, that they treat everyone fairly, but
when the hard decisions about who to cut need to be made, that frequent visual
reminder (along with all the tasks they insist they are managing, but which
other people are actually doing) is a huge advantage in remaining employed.

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JMTQp8lwXL
No, because people are irrational creatures and BS jobs exist for irrational
reasons. A pandemic doesn't fundamentally change the qualities of an
organization that permit BS jobs to exist.

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DoreenMichele
The Wikipedia page says the author of the concept is a proponent of UBI and
proposes it as a solution to this supposed problem. So you have to wonder at
his motive for writing the book.

People who are looking to support a pre-exising conclusion are generally
engaging in political manipulation, not science.

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hyfgfh
Nah, maybe will create a new category of "remote" BS jobs like "Remote culture
coach, Remote Manger, Distributed communications Director"

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iKevinShah
Going through the wiki link, some of the jobs might end (or already be at the
end of it) but it would be less due to Covid-19 and more due to some
automation (and hence cost saving to the business). That said,the following
jobs seem fine for the time, maybe the way (or the workplace) might change,
but definitely won't end soon:

* Receptionist

* Administrative Assistants

* Lobbyists

* Corporate lawyers

* Telemarketers

* Public relations specialists

* Programmers repairing shoddy code

* Middle management

* Leadership professionals

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vanniv
No, because the concept of BS jobs is largely BS.

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smarri
Yes I agree.

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austincheney
The US is heading form record low unemployment to depression era 20%
unemployment. Nobody knows just how bad it will (can) get just yet, but it
keeps getting worse. This will result in a major economic contraction. A
recession is all but guaranteed and possibly a depression.

One area that will be hard hit is corporate software development. It is
extremely unproductive and inefficient. Inefficiency is allowed when the
economy is strong because there was a perceived shortage of talent and it is
easier to hire talent than train talent. Without any kind of standing
licensing or certification standard in place there is no uniform definition of
competence and so the hiring market was largely candidate driven.

That is done. Almost no business will be profitable this year and many will
fail through the process of market correction. Business can no longer afford
to hire ineffective software developers.

As a long time web developer I have been astonished at the level of allowed
ineffectiveness of web development practices. Essentially, almost nobody knows
what they are doing or how the technology works without extensive help,
typically through developer friendly software tools.

As the economy contracts, business fail, and hiring all but stops employers
will be forced to make tough decisions in order to keep the lights on. Before
established employers simply had to exercise competitive market pressure to be
successful. Internal software development was just an internal cost of doing
business and expenses are easy to justify if the business is cash flow
positive. When the economy suddenly fails like never before and nobody is cash
flow positive everything is open to critical review. Now businesses will be
forced to consider how essential this internal software development is to
their bottom line. If they absolutely cannot afford to live without it they
will have to justify it as an essential operating expense. That line of
thinking will roll down to each individual employee.

The days of hiring 10 developers to monkey patch a giant application around a
giant framework that does most of your job for you is over. Instead employers
will be forced to justify spending any money on writing software, budgets will
shrink, and developers will be forced to justify their continued employment in
competition with their peers. This will result in many unemployed software
developers competing for employment in a market of a very few openings. Each
open position will be under greater market pressure to perform more
efficiently to the business, to justify its existence financially.

Before, when the economy was strong, talented and highly productive developers
were rare and hiring top talent was expensive. Many employers would settle on
the average developer in the middle of the bell curve because that would be
perceived as lower risk and lower expense. You get what you pay for in that
talent was sacrificed to lower financial risks of hiring and so you are now
staffed by less productive people with less productive business practices.
When there are suddenly very few software developer positions left and each
developer is more directly connected to the financial health of their
employers the nature and definition of performance will change.

