Page 1-3: What Is a Bullshit Job?
Let us begin with what might be considered a paradigmatic example of a bullshit job.
Kurt works for a subcontractor for the German military. Or…actually, he is employed by a subcontractor of a subcontractor of a subcontractor for the German military. Here is how he describes his work:
The German military has a subcontractor that does their IT work.
The IT firm has a subcontractor that does their logistics.
The logistics firm has a subcontractor that does their personnel management, and I work for that company.
Let's say soldier A moves to an office two rooms farther down the hall. Instead of just carrying his computer over there, he has to fill out a form.
The IT contractor will get the form, people will read it and approve it, and forward it to the logistics firm.
The logistics firm will have to approve the moving down the hall and will request personnel from us.
The office people in my company will do whatever they do, and now I come in.
I get an email: "Be at barracks B at time C." Usually, these barracks are one hundred to five hundred kilometers away from my home, so I will get a rental car. I take the car, drive to the barracks, let the dispatch know that I arrived, fill out a form, unhook the computer, load the computer into a box, seal the box, have a guy from he logistics firm carry the box to the next room, where I unseal the box, fill out another form, hook up the computer, call dispatch to tell them how long I took, get a couple of signatures, take my rental car back home, send dispatch a letter with all of the paperwork and then get paid.
So instead of the soldier carrying his computer for five meters, two people drive for a combined six to ten hours, fill out around fifteen pages of paperwork, and waste a good four hundred euros of taxpayers' money. (ref.)
This might sound like a classic example of ridiculous military red tape of the sort Joseph Heller made famous in his 1961 novel Catch-22, except for one key element: almost nobody in this story actually works for the military, they're all part of the private sector. There was a time, of course, when any national army also had its own communications, logistics, and personnel departments, but nowadays it all has to be done through multiple layers of private outsourcing.
Kurt's job might be onsidered a paradigmatic example of a bullshit job or one simple reson: if the position were eliminated, it would make no discernible difference in the world. Likely as not, things would improve, since German military bases would presumably have to come up with a more reasonable way to move equipment. Crucially, not only is Kurt's job absurd, but Kurt himself is perfectly well aware of this. (In fact, on the blog where he posted the story, he ended up defending the claimthat the job served no purpose against a host of free market enthusiasts who poppee up instantly—as free market enthusiasts tend to do on internet forums—to insist that since the job was created by the private sector, it by definition had to serve a legitimate purpose.)
This I consider the defining feature of a bullshit job: one so completely pointless that even the person who has to perform it every day cannot onvince himself there's a good reason for him to being doing it. He might not be able to admit this to his coworkers—often there are very good reasons not to do so. But he is convinced the job is pointless nonetheless.
So let this stand as a provisional definition:
Provisional Definition: a bullshit job is a form of employment that is so completely pointless, unnecessary, or pernicious that even the employee cannot justify its existence.
Some jobs are so pointless that no one even notices if the person who has the job vanishes. This usually happens in the public sector: