Best job I've ever had: janitor. No politics, no pretending to be "important," just get it done, go home, and figure out how to play another song on a guitar. Life is good!
@@lisemartin7224 I have no idea what this has to do with Tony being a janitor. Being a janitor is a respectable and necessary job, as many are. Unfortunately, many aren't.
I have heard this from several people about janitorial work, they love it. And the fact that it is "viewed" insignificant by others helps you escape the "EGO TRAP" that we are somehow important at work... names like specialist, experts, architects, and stuff like that.
@@carlgauss1702 I understood her Carl. But I don't see how it was relevant to commending a man for doing a job which isn't glorified by the media. And in so doing, surely I am breaking the narrative you and she were talking about? If I were to have said it's a crappy job, I would have seen the need for her interjection. It isn't a crappy job though, and so I did not say that. I said it is a necessary job, which it is. And I said it might not be 'glorious', because the media do not celebrate janitorial work. Therefore, I would suggest you and Lise take that up with the media, not me.
So true, and it's like this shit is all over the world, how is this even possible? Would be interesting to know if it's the same in behind-iron-curtains like North Korea, and if so, that is hilarious (and extremely sad)
Corporate solution for every problem: hire a manager. Employees: Great! So one of us has an opportunity to advance and become a supervisor!? Corporate: LOL! No silly! We will hire someone from outside who has no idea about the process or anything we do here. We will also hire two more managers and create new positions with fancy titles. You will report to all 3 of them.
Easier to control clueless managers. In case that doesn't pan out, pay a consultancy firm to create yet again another useless report that will never be implemented. Repeat cycle.
performers shouldn't be leaders. and drill sergeant types certainly shouldn't be leaders, they should be the hands of a proper thinker. But that is not the way of humanity. If we were like an insect hive then we would be in better role allocation. Wanting results but hoping it would come from ideals lol
The management where i used to work hired an hr manager who doesn't have any ideas how an architectural firm works. She basically just kiss ass the upper management. Now we have covid, things got worse. They wouldnt implement work from home setup so you know exodus of resignation and the employees dpesnt have any moral at all. Super toxic
My job did this a year ago but with an analyst whos primary job is to monitor the other employees instead of a manager. They wanted to know why we were having a hard time keeping up with the increased workflow. So instead of hiring someone to relieve some of that workload they hired someone to help micromanage.
The principle of capitalism is whether the market think you are more valuable, not what you think you are more valuable. The factors of measuring value by your bosses or bosses' bosses are not the same as you.
I work for a municipality and im one of those guys standing there watching that single construction guy work. But that is not my primary focus. I do that only once a month on average just to perform a visual inspection of progress. The rest of the time im writing emails and reading and writing technical documents. If we are performing a function test of some type, there can be 10+ guys standing around watching 2 people perform the test with the other 10 as witnesses/stakeholders for the results of that test.
Before going to corporate know 3 things: 1. It's packed with a bunch of tools who have no personality and sense of self outside of their credentials. Who they are is what they do and that's all they are. 2. The people who confuse having a stick up their butt with being professional are just pretenders. These are the people who will never answer your questions because they don't actually know anything. 3. The people who do know things are the ones who are actually humble and friendly.
Vietnamese here. Currently working in a corporate after graduating from Monash. 1000% attest to this video: the obsession with prestige and status is just insane. Toxic culture of self-promoting and gaslighting just makes me sick 😭. Planning to quit soon enough
Meanwhile, nurses in the hospital lose their sanity to just be making ~60-70K. 12 long and stressful hours, no time to eat drink or pee, getting verbally and physically abuse and working through a pandemic or Inclement weather. 😪
I had a friend that admitted that he got paid 80K for just sitting in his office and just filling out and signing off paperwork. He was supposedly a "hospital software analyst" .....
What he was getting paid for is to be a scapegoat. That salary, office, and seemingly pointless tasking is just a retainer. The problem is that many people misunderstand the value they bring to the ones are paying them.
I started working as a security guard recently and it seems that 90% of the jobs i get could either be preformed by an alarm system or a surveillance camera. The other 10% is essentially customer service. I literally do nothing most of the time. I don't even need to write reports. I'm paid to exist.
Sounds like an opportunity man. Use your spare time to learn how to install alarm systems and cameras and then pitch to the companies hiring you how much money they would save. Then sell them the cameras and alarms and do the installations for a fee.
Yeah I used to work security at a office building downtown and it was mainly just saying hello to all the employees that came in. And the overnight shifts were just sitting and going for an occasional stroll. It was kind of a joke.
I left my first job, not knowing why I was even there... I really feel big corps are not for me. Indifferent & ignorant culture is something that I hate the most.
I was a bit lucky. My first company was ok. But I have friends who were not as lucky and they had to deal with all kinds of toxic colleagues and corporate politics. Some people I know opt for start-ups even though it’s more unstable.
I worked for small companies, and those were even worse.. always oversteping your boundaries and not understanding your job is just a "job" to you, and not your lifework
He he he...............ha ha ha ha........never thought that one day, i will see Vietnamese who also disagree about the obvious facts like me. Ignorant culture is everywhere
“Answering BS emails, being interrupted, defending yourself for something u didn’t do or something u did do, chasing other people, and SNACKING snacking is the best part” 🤣😭😭 me everyday 😇😇
@snowangeliquexx It's pretty simple: in a government job there is no motivation for accountability like there is in the private world. As was said above, in the corporate world, inept as it may be, there is a profit motive that at least tries to elicit competency from its employees. Government jobs don't necessarily have that same motivation. They see money as a tax-funded entitlement more than a goal to be worked for, and as a result, many times there is far less of a sense of accountability. On the other hand, oftentimes there is a sense that some in these jobs feel "untouchable" in their positions, thanks to the bloated bureaucracies that employ them, and the cushy, sometimes unearned remunerations they receive. I can give you some examples. In the education system, I know people who were hired by school systems to basically sit in an office and do far less work than their salaries indicated. Their work could have been easily filled by a part time employee, but they received some benefits that even full time teachers didn't get. I can tell you stories of employees in public service buildings who are woefully inept at their jobs, yet somehow hang onto them. Just recently, I had to report to a city building for a license registration. I had to go to FOUR different sources, three of whom directly contradicted each other, before I could get straight what procedure I was supposed to do. And if I hadn't have done it right, I would have been seriously penalized, regardless of how unprofessionally the government workers were in their lack of knowledge as to what to do. I know of public transit workers who have received eight hours pay for what has amounted to MAYBE three hours' time spent working. And these are just a few. I don't disagree that corporations can be as idiotic as they can be portrayed in shows such as The Office. But again, if you think government offices and organizations are any better, you're dreaming.
You're right. It's the whole system and some the jobs we have that paid employees could be from "the unions" doing. If there's no jobs, then there's no income. So no work means no car, no food, and etc etc.
My career as a software developer: constantly slapping band-aids on the various systems and processes the company can't be bothered to really fix or rethink, getting burnt out and frustrated, jumping over to a new company, rinse, repeat.
@@mistermarch533 Doegecoin is a joke. It's purely a fork of bitcoin. The bitcoin mining power can easily switched to Dodge to create double spending, breaking the dodgecoin's blockchain in minutes. Stay away from dodgecoin. Keep yourself in Bitcoin, even just 1 satoshi.
Yeah, the desk clerks who actually helped people were fired with digitization. The overpaid big shots who only want to steal your money are still there.
The problem I had when I was in a BS job was that steadily I was being deskilled by not doing any real work. Then I had to struggle a lot when I left because I had to relearn a lot of what I had forgotten.
This is one of my fears right now. I am working from home at the moment. I have anxiety about how I'm not really learning any transferable skills at this job. I am learning coding but this job at the moment isn't anything more than a paycheck
I’m watching this video and reading your comment while working at my job that does the same exact thing. I’m currently in grad school so I don’t have to worry about not having any future skills, but if I weren’t in school, I’d be terrified of how little I have to offer if I were to leave this job.
I'm honestly skeptical of a lot of so called "careers". Chances are, it's not even necessarily what you wanted to do in the first place (but we all like what the money buys us). And, like she said in the video, jobs and careers are not the same in the first place. One of the best solutions is to at least find work that doesn't suck and where you don't work too many hours. This way, you can at least still have time left over to just enjoy your life.
I used to love being a waiter because it left me with so much time to do other things. Of course that restaurant jobs were wiped away by the pandemic. Hoping to find a job where I have as much freedom and fun as that job, which I doubt I will ever have again.
A big deal of bosses are narcissistic. Our world really needs a spiritual transformation embracing empathy and present moment attention to destroy so much egotism, fear, ambition just for the sake of hide the global illness: human unhappiness. That's what I like Eckart Tolle mindset.
Human happiness is relative and thus a moving target. Humans will always be unhappy. I don't even think it's a goal that should be sought out. Survival is much more important.
Those same narcissists are undeniably productive for human society. There will always be different kinds of people who look for something different that leads to the experience of "happiness".
Competition is the only law of nature. Nothing human created can ever change that fact. Modern society has done a good job of shielding people of this reality for the sake of stability and thus control.
I was dealing with one. Normally I like my work. When I run into such people, it just puts me off. However I continued to work, talking only minimum with the narcissist boss. He was mad I wasn't talking much. Tomorrow, he will tell me whether we continue or part ways. I have started applying for jobs anyway.
We had a decent one, it was called Christianity. Very rare now to "Treat others as you would like to be treated". It was replaced with "Greed is good!".
@@GeneralChangFromDanang lol so my office did that in like 2013 and they cut the paper towels in half. But that did seem to be localised after director came in one day and got shamed out of the room. It got fixed the next day. But the point stands they always nickle and dime the cheap stuff but then drop half a mill on something that sits on the floor and collects dust.
This shit is even in nonprofits. My org hired an officer 2 years ago and to this day I have no idea what she did during her time there and I can generally tell you what everyone does. She forced us into these 2-hour bi-weekly meetings where we would break into small groups and talk about things that weren't relevant to the majority of people there. I really believe she forced these meetings to justify her job.
I expect much more from non-profits. All the tax incentives they get, but they have useless managers?? Would hate to have my life fall apart and reach out to your nonprofit😬
I lost my first "grown up" job last july during the pandemic as a junior projectmanager and I am very glad it happened. The title was indeed more impressive then the job itself. After I was let go I asked myself :ok, from where I stand now, what are options that I have and what seems most like me? Most fun? I had put so much pressure on myself in the past to perform, to up hold an image. I went to work at an outdoorshop and I am very happy I took that job. I love my coworkers and am surrounded with products I love and it's a beautiful shop. And I'm active and standing which I also prefer. But I think most importantly I get to look lots of people in the eye every day and I love that. I love to make the customers smile. I generally like, or don't mind going to work. I'm not sure for how long I will do this job and the pay isn't as good so I might have to figure that part out but I do know that I will let myself lead from now on by curiousity and fun rather then prestige and social pressure
May I ask, how did you find your junior project manager role? I’ve been looking into it as a potential job but I’m curious why you might have not enjoyed it as much.
@@livk1569 It was in telemarketing and I started out as a caller and then became project manager. It just wasn't for me. It was so much office work, making rapports, and the industry wasn't for me. Maybe in a different industry or company I would have liked it better, who knows, but I didn't like this job
I was hanging out with an IT colleague. And this is what I overheard his phone call when somebody called to fix the problems with their work laptop: - You log off then log on again. If it doesn’t work, take the battery out and put it in. If it again doesn’t work, then call J.(my IT colleague’s boss) I almost choke on my coffee for laughing.
I agree with 1 of the comments here regarding how B-R-0-A-D the tech industry is. Specialties like Cloud, DevOps, Data Science, Business Intelligence , UX, Automation/RPA , etc are really needed. But being a former helpdesk myself, I truly get what you're saying. :)
Yeah... my buddy got into an IT position for health care and makes 2x my salary(almost 6 figures), gets to work from home, does 8x less work than me (almost does nothing but play video games on the side) full benefits ... while I work almost the full 8 hours a day and get paid half as him lol life just be like that sometimes
This is why with remote work in my tech field I get most of my work done in the first hour. I can't imagine sitting at a desk and doing nothing all day.
@@Maria-gd4vf I think it's because Asians are the most stereotyped to be pursuing those rigid, corporate positions...? (btw I'm Asian myself, just saying so this doesn't turn into a whole unnecessary debate on race)
You just said out loud what I'm thinking every day, so thank you for this video 😊. I have 4 "superiors," all with different agendas and no industry knowledge. As a result, my work is all over the place, and when it doesn't function properly, or I didn't meet the deadline, then I'm the guilty one. Don't feel sorry; I'm just curious to hear similar stories.
And if a younger worker with or without a college degree comes and tries to prove himself by changing something to better, she or he only gets permission to do so when he is the nephew of a higher up otherwise the youngster is grinded and spit out. Where is the digference to medieval times?
My last job: 6 people in team, and I did half of the work of the whole team. And it took me 3-5 hours per day. I started at 10 am and finished at 3 pm/ 4 pm. And had many breaks... And I wanted to make it more efficient and wanted to improve processes and was not allowed. Finally I quit as it was so pointless and team members were so simple and slow to learn or finish anything.... and team lead was happy to get rid of me so they can happily continue their BS team with 0% productivity.
This is my case. I think jobs are bullshit since I ever started. I try find the meaming many where. And i always stuck same problem ...just like yoy have described. Now it is 4th time i have this same situation myself in.
I was literally in a position where people liked me and liked my work, but I felt as if what I was doing was meaningless. I left 4 months ago and am still looking for something that is meaningful to me.
@@rayjones9819 sure, HR is there to ultimately protect the company, not the employee. Now do they have policies & procedures to protect the employee? Sure! So does OSHA - but please don’t get me started on OSHA. I’d have to start my own channel - & I hate cameras 😁. Anywhoo, say an employee comes in w an HR issue - any issue - & they file a report. At the same time it’s being investigated on behalf of the employee- it’s also being investigated from the EMPLOYER’S legal liability position, which, when you think about it, is reasonable. They want to protect themselves. too. However, in right to work states (I’m in one) if the employer decides the investigation, for any reason, isn’t “worthy” (even if it is - examples: verbal or sexual harassment, other types of bullying, etc) - They’ll then fire said employee for another, usually extremely insignificant, reason. In most right to work states the employee has no recourse at that point but to sue- bc the Labor Boards in said states are a JOKE. You’ll be lucky to ever get an investigation out of them - or it’ll take years. Meanwhile, said employee, usually a “worker bee” - has no time for that, in a nutshell. They need a job, like yesterday. And the employer- and I suspect the state too bc of previous personal and professional experiences as well as fellow colleagues experiences in said field (anectotal, I know, sigh) not only LET it happen this way - they WANT it this way - for the “workers bees” ONLY, of course. Bc if they didn’t - they’d change the laws/policies and enforce the new laws/policies. Hope that helped!
My company outsources some services for Walmart...we have 3 team leads, supervising me and my colleague (2 of us), during day shift, which is busiest.The night shift has more people in it and are less under supervision, which means they can get away with some mistakes, or just avoid doing some things without getting caught, while earning more.I feel so much pressure right now, and we are just entering busiest season of year, and while my TLs were drilling me about some mistakes, they announced there would be days when I'll have to do an entire shift alone.I dread this, and I think it's really not fair since the customer is such a big company...I won't get any increase in pay or benefits for all this.. I'm sending out CV, to find anything else, before everything implodes, and I have a sinking feeling it will
people should watch office space. I worked at motorola late 90s a true dilbert environment with so much fraudulent work. Three years was enough. I have never went back to the corporate plantation,
Agreed! And as an engineer I am always disturbed with management’s wtf requests that’s very frustrating. I’m slowly losing my mind at my current job, mental health dropping 😔
HR handles more of Mental labour and is likely the better position to get hated. Since they don't do any physical stuff just settling interpersonal issues and hunt for potential candidate to promote or hire. The worst one IMO is the consultant contractors. They don't know shit about your company and yet you pay them for getting shitty advice and not really know the name of the JANITOR. A good JANITOR gives comfortable bathroom and if your poop ain't comfortable your day isn't going to be much so.
The need for elevated social status is so deeply engrained in us that we happily play a game of pretend as long as it suits our needs and serves us a purpose. In this way we are all potentially corruptible. No matter if you are pro or con UBI, this is a problem that it actually does address to a certain extent, even if it brings up many new questions in different areas.
Oh god, I knew a guy who was a scrum consultant. I was only 12 at the time, and I already could tell that his career was pointless. But he was so passionate about it for some reason.
To me the whole "pretentious-and-unnecessarily-long-job-titles"-thing sort of reminds me of noble titles in countries like Great Britain and Germany by the end of the 19th/beginning of the 20th century. You could not just be Sir Robert. No, to show how rich and influential you really were you would have to call yourself something like "Lord Robert, Chancellor of the Duchy of Gloucestershire-upon the Thames, 1st Earl of Bournemouth." Seems to me that somewhere in the centuries before there must have been a wave of "title inflation". Anyway, it's very funny to me how we switched over from inflated nobility titles to inflated corporate job titles. At least more people get them now, so... progress, I guess??
why do you have to use acient examples when you can use current ones in government like minster of bullshit, comissoner, chief exective, senator, mayor or whatever other bullshit they come up with to order ranking of monkeys.
I am glad youtube recommended me this. Your video format was quite chill but it was also direct and filled with enough info to be interesting. I think it is great that someone decided to share their thoughts like this. In terms of bs time management in jobs, I think that if the company structure was made so as to reward automating they might be able to break free of this trap and actually make works try to make it more efficient.
Haha I’m glad I’m not the only one find ‘time management talk’ bs. From my experience, many of my colleagues are afraid of experiment new things. They just stick to whatever they are told to do and however the people before them do it. Let’s take Excel as an example, they perceive being good at Excel is something extremely hard, which is not the case at all. I learn how to automate stuff from googling. When I first got the job, I didn’t even know how to filter shit lol.
When I was a graduate, my reporting manager requested a sales report every month. I would send it to my my manager, who was the contracts manager, who he sent to his manager, the Sales Manager, who sent it to his manager, the Regional Manager, who then sent it to his manager, the GM who then sent it to his manager, the CEO. The CEO will need two figures of information on the report to do his monthly update (email) to the business. It was such a BS report. I questioned why I needed to do the full report and just provide the figures the CEO used, but my manager was adamant that other "stakeholders" of the business looked at the report, which of course no one didnt. It just getting forwarded on, to make themselves look like their were "doing" their jobs.
Then, CEO of hedge fund looks at the report and sends "press the buy button" to the VP. VP sends "press the buy button" to the director. Director sends "press the buy button" to the manager. Manager sends "press the buy button" to the lead investor. Lead investor sends "press the buy button" to the senior investor. Senor investor sends "press the buy button to the investor. Investor sends the "press the buy button" to the intern. Intern presses the buy button. Buys the tip.
I love how 'stakeholders' is thrown around like steak holders 😂. Companies love to think the more tedious and complicated something is the better. The idea is moronic, esp since management isn't doing said work. My bad...that's the definition of corporate.
I have been working in the service industry for 7 years but currently switched to an entry level corporate job, I usually can finish work around 4 to 5 hours but I always panicked that I had to maximize my 8 hours of work, feeling like I am not doing enough. But yeah, it just feels better to get the job done faster and more chill time for me. Haha
After being a corporate employee for many years and a couple of redundancies, I turned to being a contractor. It's like having the perks of corporate but not having to care about the bullshit politics much and the fear of being stuck. If you're not scared of the lack of security, it's an option to consider.
Now I’m still working in a big corporate & my department has many toxic colleagues especially the management that has a mindset of holding wasteful meetings/discussions. I am bombarded with many un-urgent requests even out of my working hours. Hence I’m slowly tapping into growing my other life path that offers me back my own life with my family 😔
This oddly reminds me of an episode in SpongeBob where Patrick had a "job" but all he does is go back to his home and watch TV ,complete with briefcase full of snacks.
Thank you for this I had not come across this book before. I used to think my workplace was something out of a television satire but I now realize this is a reasonably widespread phenomena
I worked as a waiter for 15 years while I finished school. It took me that long but I enjoyed it and took out no loans. Anyway, the movie Waiting " with Ryan Reynolds is satirical, but it couldn't be closer to the reality of restaurant bs and culture. Usually, most satire on TV is the reality of the world, sadly.
Sometimes, you just feel it is better to leave your work unfinished and not giving 100%. Just wait til your boss ask you to finish up the remaining 20%, to give your boss a participation feeling. Else, you work so fast, they will just assume you can take more jobs and dont care that you actually sacrifice some of your health and time to reach 100%
they can but its really not that simple. The actual work being done is deeply tied into the BS work thats being invented. Decoupling the two things is a massive endeavor. So in the end, we're all essentially duct tapers since we're all at least partially responsible for perpetuating the BS side of our work.
Several weeks before lay-off, I was scheduled for a meeting to discuss how to decrease numbers of meetings. I didn’t go, too much schitt to do! (btw, my bs job title was Associate Manager)
I feel like jobs in big corporate companies are like "gang members" as if like I need to always prove them that I know my job and that I deserve to be there and sacrifice things in name of the operation and most people are in search of approval from their leaders and colleagues... it´s crazy.
The fancy title is something I noticed right away when I started working many years ago. Now I have a bachelors in healthcare admin only to find I can’t get any leadership jobs or even ones for training because I lack experience. Plus, a lot of titles like “executive assistant” is just a glorified receptionist.
Could you explain why executives has very high salaries and bonuses while their salary could hire 10-30 specialist who could create much more better buissnes models and better strategies for the company. Look, if I was company owner I would hire only specialists to manage the company with managers learning how to be a group leader/mentor, not being a boss by bossing around and shifting around responsibilities. Managers should be strong group leaders who could work together with their employees and understand their hardships and able to think like a group to solve the problems. I worked mostly in manufacture and I know that real value to society mostly brought by people who create things.
Good point! i think the main purpose of having executives with very high salaries is to have a central point of responsibility (aka know who to blame). Plus, 10 smart specialists still need to be a middle man to negotiate and plan out things in a more coherent picture. When the size of the company grows, the hierarchy tends to add more layers of management. I totally agree with you about the value of competent managers/leaders. I understand the burden of their responbility and I think their high salary totally justify their values. Having said that, I've also seen many more people who climb corporate ladders by being good at 'talking' not necessarily doing anything.
@@confusedavocado5787 Could you explain me does company CEO-s get paid in bonuses and company stoks? Or like every manager paycheck with company stocks as bonuses.
@@Gaga682 I'm not so much of an expert but among other things, stock performance is indicative of the company's performance. So getting paycheck with stocks is a way to give CEOs incentives to make the company perform well. CEOs would also want to maximize the stock price so they have more money. Paying with only salary/bonuses would not solve the conflict of interest between CEOs (want to receive as much salary as possible - salary is expenses) and shareholders (want to minimise expenses).
Specialists aren't enough: 50 uncoordinated specialists don't produce as much as 20 well-coordinated ones. You also can't expect a technical specialist to be a good group leader: those are very different skills, and among the reasons why so many leaders end up being incompetent. For example, perhaps I'm the best floor cleaner in the planet, so I get promoted... And I stop cleaning floors, having instead to manage people who clean floors. That's a very different jobs, and it requires different skills. We have this idea that you 'level up' in a job by becoming a manager, when an increase in salary or a new role that's still in your skillset would be better for everyone. People get promoted until they find a place where stop being good at what they do. Not to say there aren't too many managers who know nothing about their stuff and don't know how to manage either.
@@confusedavocado5787 Actually stock payments for CEOs are used to dodge taxes. They take loopholes that were intentionally put there by corrupt politicians to avoid paying the normal income tax rate and instead pay a capital gains rate which is much lower.
The whole afterpay thing - I was (am) in a situation where I had to move out suddenly, and thus needed to get a desk and chair for work, mattress, kitchen stuff, etc., and those are all not-cheap, individually or added up. I also didn’t want to buy cheap stuff I knew I would be throwing out straight away. So the three-month interest free came in very handy.
Well said ! Nowadays it's like jobs are created for the sake of creating jobs. So the statistics of unemployment is low and looks good for the political party.
I worked in corporate for many years until the pandemic happened and I got laid off. Now after more than a year at home doing what I love, I realized I’ve wasted so much of my life in crammed cubicles doing as you said, “bullshit tasks.” I’ve lived more than I had in those five years in corporate in one year I was at quarantined at home doing what I love.
This video speaks to me on so many levels. Spent three years in Beijing doing a bullshit job 8 hours a day when it could be easily be done in 2 hours max. Add toxic overwork culture on top of that, when people don't actually do any work they just browse online shopping and play games on the phone while present, and you get a truly terrifying experience. That's why I work freelance now, 10000000% more efficient money wise and I actually feel like I'm building something. Would never go back to a corporate job even for 100k
@Giovanni Picariello - Learning and Other Stuff I was doing international business development for a private K-12 school. Nowadays I'm a freelance translator
@@dingleberry4234 There's so much to unpack here I don't even know where to start. You are probably more familiar with Japanese work culture, if that's the case I would say these are very similar although I still think the Chinese version is even worse. For starters, the rule of law in China is basically the will of the government/rich people and there are no unions whatsoever, which means your contract is basically a guideline paper and not a legally binding agreement between two parties, especially if you are a foreigner. This leads to all kinds of problems, mainly HR or the big boss arbitrarily changing your contract or adding enforcement policies. The worse of which would be the "tardiness policy" which means, if you are late 5 minutes they would deduct 1 dollar from your payroll, 10 minutes 5 dollars, 30 minutes, 20 dollars, more than 1 hour would slash off a whole day's work (mind you I never agreed to this, they just added this later), however, there was no overtime pay at all, so you could arrive 30 minutes late but if you overworked 3 hours, you would still lose money. Overwork is absolutely ridiculous since you are expected to overwork or you would otherwise be labeled as the selfish guy who doesn't think about his coworkers. The thing is, people do fuck all day and are extremely inefficient. People work for 10-20 minutes and then just buzz off to wherever/play 斗地主 on their phones/browse 淘宝 (Chinese amazon) or straight up just sleep. And the boss is generally okay with that you know? It doesn't matter what you do, you just need to be there a show your face and this applies to overwork as well, you don't need to be doing anything but as long as you are there you are contributing to the face of the company. This absolutely sucks because I'm a strong believer in efficient work but eventually devolved to doing things as slow as possible because there was no point in doing them fast. Last but not least, the boss-employee gap is ABSOLUTELY MASSIVE in China. I don't know about the US, but in Europe, although bosses/CEO's are obviously in a higher position, there is a degree of mutual respect between the boss and worker since both have a degree of power over the other. In China? Just forget about it, if the boss says anything that is the maximum true and no one dares to challenge it even though it's the stupidest idea ever. There is no bottom-top incentive nor innovation, bosses are too busy protecting their 面子 (face, reputation) because they are control freaks and power-hungry people with superiority-complexes. I just want to add that I loved Beijing and the people I met there, and not every job is as bleak as the ones I had, but this is definitely the norm and not the exception. If anyone is working there just be aware of these things.
Had a manager once tell me he and his colleagues were concerned that I would be distracted from work as I had “a lot going on…” when I asked WTF he meant he revealed that they had been looking at my Instagram page… amazing how pathetic and insecure people are. Yes, I happen to have a personal life, forgive me for being human… I created many ‘firsts’ for this company, but all they could focus on was gaslighting and being creeps. What I do with my free time is non of your business!!!! Crazy how these people can try to get you fired based on being envious. GET A LIFE!!! And LOVE your point about toxic colleagues.
I am a "Business Solutions Architect" which is a very fancy title for a senior level business analyst. A lot of people think business analysis is a bullshit job, although I do feel I add value to the company and take on a lot of tasks that nobody else knows how to do. I agree too much time is spent in meetings discussing how much progress people did or didn't make and why instead of actually getting things done. .
I had an internship a few months back where my role was to create videos. One day I was assigned to make a video and I finished it on time. The boss asked me to edit some parts of the video and I did it. This boss, however, kept adding what I had to edit after finishing one cycle of editing (instead of telling me all the things I have to edit at once). I ended up having three editing cycles that could've been done in just one cycle. I was thinking a way of how I would not be assigned any more task to edit the video. I ended up submitting the third edited video on the last day of my internship. And guess what? The boss still had the audacity to ask me for some editing after my internship contract expired. I straight away ignored them. Workplace is a weird place. It really is. 🤔
As someone trying to break the glass ceiling, there's little I can do other than accept the corporate bs until I have the authority to change my job content. I'm optimistic about the progression though!
Excellent video! Very much true! We live in an age of BS. I recall a case in a consulting outfit: somebody warned management not to hire a PhD we knew of because he was BS (a guy who learnt to beat up the system from the start). The response was: "no, no, we also need BS."
So true. 80% of what I did assisting my supervisor in leveraged finance as a lawyer was BS. Often I’d redline documents from 10am until after midnight with long periods doing NOTHING...
My wife did the same all the time, working late till 2am reading pages and pages of standard legal documents that she often says has no relevance to the purpose of the transaction or agreement. Only lest than 10% of the effort was actually used in structuring the contract, the rest is just eyeballing a bunch of meaningless words.
Companies don’t care about employee productivity, they are only interested in working you like a slave. I’ve had this happen and this is why some people just do the bare minimum because when you point out a way to be more productive in less time or can achieve the same productivity in less time instead of rewarding you they break your back with more work for the same or less pay. Like how dare you figure out how NOT to slave! Like let people leave early or pay them more for more work. Wtf. And those jobs where they tell you that you’re responsibilities can change at any moment. WHAT THE FUUUUCCKKKK.
What my company does is have bs positions for people just to keep them as backups incase the people who do the important stuff quit. Then the bs job employee can more easily switch to the position since they'll at least have gained the necessary knowledge.
Biggest BS job? Pharmaceutical Quality Control. As a former Manager of a lab, there was massive pressure to 'test into compliance' so that everything would be sold, even product that should have been discarded.
ah! so true about automation, knowing how to do coding is the key. they have no clue how tf i could be so super efficient (and they look down on me at the beggining too. so funny). quit that job, join PhD. still automate everything with codings, even the supervisor and peers were surprised. (most of them never worked in the industry and dont have much job experience) this is my guess. some people are made to do bullshit job and some arent. getting job experience is the most important factor for this, it helps out in gaining EQ.
Damn , I guess that’s the blessing & curse of being somewhat “smart” enough to get into some corporate career field jobs. You can make good money but feel useless. I worked a corporate job a few times when I was young. I wasn’t super smart so it was a basic corporate job such as an assistant etc. But I knew I wasn’t going to be able to make it far in that corporate culture after those few experiences. It just wasn’t for me. I noticed a lot of those negative things you mentioned about the corporate culture. It’s different strokes for different folks, so I’m sure it will work out and has worked out for many. I eventually started working blue collar jobs, manual labor jobs, and got into some entrepreneurship. Also served in the military with a more physical labor career field in there as well. I realized that those type of job fields felt more meaningful and rewarding to me. I actually felt like I could see my work contributing to the greater whole. No matter how simple the job task or how much money I made. And there are great paying blue collar jobs as well. 👍🏾
Very intresting, i am an MBA that worked in audit for 6 years and changed career as i felt my job did not add value. Working in IT now and sure theres some meaningless stuff still but much less then previous.
Awesome topic Young Lady and O so true. I spent over 18 years as a Software Engineer working for many different companies over the years and this Topic has been true everywhere I have been. I am prior Military and Military Brat and have been trained to always be working or find some work somewhere. I used to hate working at some Contracts where I would have to create my own tasks throughout the day to stay busy. Employer didn't want my Contract to end, so they kept me around as they needed me. My attitude about the situation was to find some things where I could benefit the organization and provide more value to justify collecting my checks. Unfortunately, a majority of people Milk The System and don't mind getting paid not to work. Thank you for sharing and I hope your experiences are much better in your future. Take Care....
Great video! I ve li ed all this on my own skin a decade ago. As soon as I could afford ir, I left the corporate bs World and never loomed back. Now I m a way poorer but infinitely happier.
Very true. Love your video. I quit the corporate world because all of the reasons mentioned, it is a waste of time and life, the hardest people working in a company are usually the cleaning stuff. I am a funded trader now with assets under management and work on my own terms from home. Left you a subscription for the nice content and honest words ;)
a colleague who was behind on one of his term papers for his MSc. wrote the introduction and conclusion and padded the middle with some technical documentation on a system we were developing - totally unrelated to the paper. he passed 😂😂😂
@@GenerationX1984 in many cases I would completely agree. I have never gone after a degree without checking the R.O.I. I don’t think people should pick a degree just for the money, but you shouldn’t remove yourself from reality either lol
I genuienly dont know what i am doing at work. I just collect my Paycheck, have a few meeting with my boss, write like 10lines of Code a week and the rest of the time i spend doing stuff i actually care about ;) Life is good :)
The BS job title part is so true i work as a "Senior Financial Advisor II" so fancy to say but in reality i just collect credit card and loan debts and obviously i hate my meaningless job.
This was in my recommended... now I want to read the book... seems incredible, but seems that there are many jobs that are not adding value more than ego.
Thank you for speaking truth. For Being a woman willing not to settle, not to be quiet, and not to fall in line, thank you for putting yourself out there. You are amazing and smart. Keep it coming!
One tip that I’ve grown to reduce bs work is ask the question what is the purpose of it and what would happen if it is not done. If nobody can give a good justification, I’ll often deprioritised it to the point of not doing it at all.
It's an ego thing. Corporate execs make their rounds to divisions and stores to see what's going on? They can look at the numbers on the computer at the touch of a button.
It seems that with advancing tech and A.I., the clash and contrast between sociopolitical class and utilitarian pragmatism will cause people to rethink what is a "good" job or perhaps what the concept of "getting a job" is. What will never happen is respect and genuine regard for service people: Cleaners, child care workers, nursing home staff, landscape workers, field workers, truckers etc. Just because you help maintain modern life doesn't mean upon consideration you're welfare will cause momentous societal changes. Why do "upper class" high income earners not hire English nannies from the best training programs in the U.K?...Cz required salaries will be on par with theirs. These are ever persistent "FIRST-WORLD PROBLEMS".