In 2013, an anthropologist wrote an essay claiming 40% of jobs are pointless. The internet lost its mind. A decade later, the evidence suggests he was absolutely correct.
In the spring of 2013, David Graeber published a provocative essay in Strike! magazine titled “On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs.”
His thesis was simple and shocking:
A huge percentage of modern jobs—potentially as much as 40%—serve no meaningful purpose. The people doing these jobs know they’re pointless. And we’re all collectively pretending this isn’t happening.
The essay went viral. Within weeks, it had been translated into seventeen languages and viewed over a million times. Comment sections exploded. Think pieces proliferated. People were angry.
Defenders of capitalism called it naive anarchist nonsense.
Corporate apologists said it misunderstood how organizations work.
Academics demanded quantitative proof.
But workers? Workers said: “Holy shit, he’s describing my life.”
In 2018, Graeber expanded the essay into a full book: Bullshit Jobs: A Theory. It became a bestseller. The debate continued.
Now, in 2026—a decade after the original essay and eight years after the book—we have enough data, enough anecdotes, and enough collective exhaustion to ask:
Was David Graeber right?
Spoiler: Yes. Catastrophically, depressingly, undeniably yes.
What Graeber Actually Said
Before we examine whether he was right, let’s be clear about what he claimed.
Graeber’s Definition of a Bullshit Job:
“A bullshit job is a form of paid employment that is so completely pointless, unnecessary, or pernicious that even the employee cannot justify its existence, even though they feel obligated to pretend that this is not the case.”
Key elements:
- The job serves no real purpose (not just “I don’t like it” but “this shouldn’t exist”)
- The employee knows this (the person doing the job is the expert)
- They have to pretend otherwise (admitting it would risk their livelihood)
Graeber wasn’t saying:
- “Jobs I personally find boring are bullshit”
- “Jobs in industries I don’t like are bullshit”
- “All corporate jobs are bullshit”
He was saying:
- Many jobs exist purely to maintain appearances
- Companies create work that doesn’t need to exist
- Workers spend decades doing things they know are pointless
- And we all pretend this is normal
The Five Types of Bullshit Jobs
Graeber categorized bullshit jobs into five types (which often overlap):
1. Flunkies
Jobs that exist to make someone else look or feel important.
Examples:
- Receptionists who sit at empty desks “for appearance”
- Executive assistants who schedule 3 meetings a week
- Door holders at luxury hotels
The purpose: Status signaling. “I have people.”
2. Goons
Jobs that only exist because competitors have them.
Examples:
- Corporate lobbyists
- Telemarketers
- Armies of lawyers in patent wars
The purpose: Aggressive defense. “If we don’t fight, they’ll win.”
3. Duct Tapers
Jobs that exist to fix problems that shouldn’t exist.
Examples:
- IT support for badly designed software
- “Customer success” teams for confusing products
- Administrative assistants fixing broken systems
The purpose: Patching over bad design instead of fixing it.
4. Box Tickers
Jobs that exist so organizations can claim they’re doing something.
Examples:
- Compliance officers generating reports nobody reads
- Diversity officers at companies with no intention of diversifying
- CSR roles at companies that don’t care about social responsibility
The purpose: Appearance management. “See? We care!”
5. Taskmasters
Jobs that exist to create work for other people.
Examples:
- Middle managers who invent unnecessary meetings
- Project managers for projects that don’t need managing
- “Coordinators” coordinating things that would coordinate themselves
The purpose: Self-perpetuation. Create work to justify your existence.
When Graeber published this taxonomy, critics said:
“This is too simplistic!”
“You can’t categorize all jobs this neatly!”
“Where’s your empirical evidence?”
Workers said:
“Oh my god, I’m a duct taper.”
“My entire department is box tickers.”
“I’ve worked for three taskmasters in a row.”
The Evidence: Was Graeber Right?
Graeber’s Original Claim: ~40% of Jobs Are Bullshit
How did he arrive at this number?
In 2013, a poll by YouGov asked British workers: “Does your job make a meaningful contribution to the world?”
- 37% said no
- 13% weren’t sure
Graeber rounded to 40% and said: “If people think their own jobs are meaningless, maybe we should listen to them.”
Critics screamed: “That’s not scientific! Self-reporting is unreliable! People might just be dissatisfied!”
Fair criticism. But then…
The Follow-Up Studies
Since Graeber’s essay, multiple surveys have asked similar questions:
2015 – Gallup’s “State of the Global Workplace”:
- Only 13% of workers worldwide feel “engaged” at work
- 63% are “not engaged”
- 24% are “actively disengaged”
Translation: At least 24% hate their jobs so much they’re actively undermining their workplace. That’s a quarter of all workers.
2017 – Harvard/Yale Study on “Deaths of Despair”: Researchers found that American workers in “bullshit job” categories (administrative, clerical, middle management) showed:
- Higher rates of depression
- Higher rates of substance abuse
- Lower life expectancy
The pattern: Jobs that feel meaningless correlate with literal death.
2019 – Dutch Study on Job Meaningfulness: Researchers surveyed workers across multiple industries and found:
- 40% said their job could be eliminated without negative consequences
- 30% said at least half their work tasks were unnecessary
Graeber’s 40% was almost exactly correct.
2021 – Remote Work Surveys During COVID:
When people started working from home, something fascinating happened:
- Productivity stayed flat or increased
- Workers reported doing “real work” in 15-25 hours/week
- The remaining hours were previously spent “looking busy”
Multiple surveys found:
- 40-50% of remote workers work less than 30 hours/week (while being paid for 40)
- 25% work less than 20 hours/week
- The rest is emails, meetings, and “availability theater”
If people can do their full jobs in 20 hours, what were they doing the other 20?
Bullshit.
The Anecdotal Tsunami
Beyond surveys, the last decade produced an endless stream of workers describing their bullshit jobs:
From Reddit’s r/antiwork and r/recruitinghell:
“I work IT support. I get maybe 5 tickets a day. Each takes 10-20 minutes. I spend the rest of my 8-hour shift on Reddit. Been doing this for 3 years.”
“I’m a ‘Strategic Initiatives Coordinator.’ My job is to attend meetings about planning other meetings. I’ve never coordinated anything strategic.”
“I’m paid $85K to make PowerPoint decks that get presented once and never looked at again.”
“I’m in HR. We have 7 people in our department for a 200-person company. We could do this with 2 people. Everyone knows it. Nobody says it.”
From TikTok’s “Lazy Girl Job” trend:
“I work maybe 10 hours a week, get paid for 40. Don’t tell my boss.” (500K likes)
“My job is so fake I forget what my title is.” (1.2M views)
“I answer 3 emails a day and crochet the rest of the time.” (800K likes)
This isn’t just complaining. This is people confessing to living Graeber’s thesis.
The “Great Resignation” Evidence
Between 2021-2023, over 47 million Americans quit their jobs.
Exit interviews revealed common themes:
- “The work didn’t matter”
- “I felt like I was wasting my life”
- “I could see the job was pointless”
- “Even my boss admitted we were overstaffed”
People weren’t just quitting for higher pay. They were quitting because they couldn’t tolerate the meaninglessness anymore.
The Smoking Gun: What Happened When Bullshit Jobs Were Eliminated
The ultimate test: What happens when you eliminate jobs people claim are bullshit?
Case Study 1: Twitter Under Elon Musk (2022-2023)
Love him or hate him, Musk conducted an unintentional experiment:
- Fired ~75% of Twitter’s workforce (from 7,500 to ~2,000 employees)
- Eliminated entire departments
- Cut layers of middle management
Predicted outcome: The site would collapse.
Actual outcome:
- Twitter continued functioning (mostly)
- Some bugs, some outages, but the platform worked
- 75% of the workforce was… doing what, exactly?
Now, was this GOOD? That’s debatable. The remaining workers burned out. Culture collapsed. The product degraded in some ways.
But the fact that it was POSSIBLE to function at 25% workforce suggests Graeber’s point: A huge portion of those 5,500 jobs weren’t essential to the core product.
Case Study 2: Remote Work Revelations
During COVID, companies discovered:
- Entire job categories could work remotely with no loss of productivity
- Some jobs couldn’t work remotely… because they required physical presence to look busy
- Workers could do full-time jobs in part-time hours
Jobs that thrived remote:
- Software engineering (clear deliverables)
- Data analysis (measurable output)
- Writing/creative work (visible results)
Jobs that struggled remote:
- Middle management (“How do I manage if I can’t see people?”)
- Administrative coordination (“My job was scheduling. Everyone just… schedules themselves now.”)
- “Client-facing” roles that involved lunch meetings and handshakes
The jobs that struggled remote? Often bullshit jobs.
Case Study 3: AI Replacement Fears
In 2023-2024, AI tools like ChatGPT became mainstream.
Workers panicked: “AI will take my job!”
But here’s what’s interesting:
Jobs AI can’t easily replace:
- Nurses, teachers, electricians, plumbers, therapists
- Jobs requiring physical presence, human touch, or real-world problem-solving
Jobs AI can easily replace:
- Report generation
- Basic data analysis
- Meeting summarization
- Email composition
- Compliance documentation
In other words: AI can do the bullshit jobs.
And you know what happened?
Workers in bullshit jobs started using AI to automate their work… and discovered they only needed to work 5-10 hours a week.
Multiple news stories:
- “I use ChatGPT to do my job in 2 hours a day”
- “AI writes all my reports, I just edit them”
- “My entire job was email responses. Now a bot does it.”
If AI can do your entire job and nobody notices… was it ever a real job?
The Most Damning Evidence: Workers Agree
Here’s the thing that makes Graeber impossible to refute:
He wasn’t making a theoretical argument. He was listening to workers.
When critics said “Prove these jobs are pointless,” Graeber said:
“The people doing the jobs say they’re pointless. Why don’t you believe them?”
The people who actually do the work are telling us:
- “My job doesn’t need to exist”
- “I could be replaced by a spreadsheet”
- “Nobody would notice if I disappeared”
- “I spend 6 hours a day pretending to work”
And we respond:
“You’re just ungrateful.”
“You don’t understand how organizations work.”
“Every job serves a purpose.”
“You’re being dramatic.”
But what if they’re right?
What if the person sitting at the desk for 40 hours a week knows better than management whether their work matters?
Where Critics Say Graeber Was Wrong
To be fair, Graeber’s thesis has legitimate criticisms:
Criticism 1: “Self-Reporting Is Unreliable”
The argument: Just because someone thinks their job is meaningless doesn’t mean it is. They might not see the broader value.
The counter: True in some cases (cleaning crews think their work is invisible, but it’s essential). But when thousands of middle managers, coordinators, and administrators say “my job is pointless,” maybe we should listen.
Criticism 2: “He Oversimplifies Complex Organizations”
The argument: Large organizations need coordination, compliance, and management. These jobs aren’t “bullshit,” they’re overhead necessary for scale.
The counter: Then why can startups of 20 people be more productive than departments of 200? Why did Twitter function at 25% workforce? Graeber isn’t saying ALL coordination is bullshit—he’s saying MUCH of it is make-work created to justify other jobs.
Criticism 3: “The 40% Number Is Made Up”
The argument: Graeber based this on one YouGov poll and extrapolated wildly.
The counter: Multiple subsequent studies found similar numbers (30-40% of workers say their job is partially or fully unnecessary). The number holds up.
Criticism 4: “He Romanticizes Manual Labor”
The argument: Graeber implies “real work” (nursing, teaching, building things) is noble while office work is bullshit. This is classist.
The counter: Graeber isn’t saying office work = bullshit. He’s saying SOME office work is bullshit. Plenty of office jobs are essential (accounting, actual strategic planning, systems engineering). But he IS pointing out that manual/care work is undervalued while bullshit work is overvalued.
Criticism 5: “He Offers No Solution”
The argument: Okay, bullshit jobs exist. Now what? Graeber proposes UBI and “valuing creative work” which is utopian nonsense.
The counter: This is fair. Graeber identifies the problem brilliantly but the solution is unclear. But does the lack of an easy solution mean we should pretend the problem doesn’t exist?
The Question Nobody Wants to Answer
If Graeber is right—if 40% of jobs are bullshit—why do they exist?
This is where it gets uncomfortable.
Theory 1: Capitalism Broke
Graeber’s argument:
Modern capitalism isn’t about efficiency anymore. It’s about:
- Financial manipulation (moving money around without producing anything)
- Rent-seeking (extracting value without creating it)
- Metrics gaming (hitting KPIs that don’t measure real outcomes)
This creates jobs that:
- Serve the financial system, not the real economy
- Exist to generate reports for investors
- Optimize numbers that don’t matter
Example: A “Customer Success Analyst” whose job is to generate charts showing “engagement is up 15%” even though the product is failing. The chart goes in the quarterly report to shareholders. The job serves the financial performance theater, not customers.
Theory 2: Managerialism Run Amok
The belief: Every problem needs a manager. Every team needs oversight. Every process needs documentation.
This creates layers of management managing managers managing workers who could manage themselves.
Example:
- Workers doing the actual work (5 people)
- Team lead managing them (1 person)
- Manager managing team leads (1 person)
- Senior manager managing managers (1 person)
- Director managing senior managers (1 person)
- VP managing directors (1 person)
That’s 9 people to manage 5 workers. Are those 4 layers of management all necessary? Or is this managerialism creating bullshit jobs?
Theory 3: Political Employment
Governments pressure companies to “create jobs.”
Politicians can’t say: “Let’s give people money even if they don’t work.”
So they say: “Let’s create jobs! Any jobs! Employment numbers must go up!”
This incentivizes:
- Hiring people even if there’s no work for them
- Creating roles to inflate headcount
- Keeping unnecessary positions to avoid layoff headlines
Nobody cares if the jobs are meaningful. Just that they exist.
Theory 4: The Protestant Work Ethic
The cultural belief:
- Work = virtue
- Leisure = sin
- Suffering at work = moral goodness
- You SHOULD be miserable at work (it builds character)
This creates bullshit jobs because:
If we admitted most work isn’t necessary, we’d have to admit people could work 15-hour weeks and be fine.
But our culture says: “People MUST work 40+ hours or they’ll become lazy/immoral.”
So we create meaningless work to fill those hours, because the suffering is the point.
Theory 5: The Status Game
Rich people need poor people to feel superior to.
If everyone had UBI and only worked 20 hours a week on meaningful projects:
- How would you signal status?
- How would you prove you’re “better” than others?
- What would separate the “deserving” from the “undeserving”?
Bullshit jobs maintain hierarchy:
- Corporate lawyer (prestigious bullshit) > nurse (actual work but “lower status”)
- Management consultant (prestigious bullshit) > teacher (actual work but “lower status”)
The system isn’t broken. It’s working exactly as designed—to maintain class distinctions.
The Psychological Toll: Hell Is Real, and It’s Your Office
Remember Graeber’s most highlighted quote:
“Hell is a collection of individuals who are spending the bulk of their time working on a task they don’t like and are not especially good at.”
This isn’t hyperbole. This is literally what workers in bullshit jobs report:
Symptom 1: Existential Dread
“I wake up every morning and think: Is this it? Is this what I’m doing with my one life?”
Workers in meaningful jobs (even hard ones) rarely feel this.
Nurses, teachers, builders—they’re exhausted, underpaid, often frustrated—but they don’t feel their life is meaningless.
Workers in bullshit jobs feel soul-crushing futility.
Symptom 2: Imposter Syndrome on Steroids
“I feel like I’m stealing. Someone’s going to realize I don’t do anything and fire me.”
But they never do. Because the job isn’t about doing things. It’s about appearing to do things.
Symptom 3: Performance Exhaustion
“Pretending to work is more tiring than actual work.”
Working 6 hours while looking busy for 40 is mentally draining:
- Constantly checking Slack to look available
- Writing emails that could be avoided
- Attending meetings that accomplish nothing
- Creating documents nobody reads
Theater is exhausting. Especially when you know it’s theater.
Symptom 4: Moral Injury
“I’m paid $80K to do nothing while teachers making $45K work 60-hour weeks. It’s not fair. And I’m complicit.”
The inverse pay relationship creates shame:
- You know your work is pointless
- You know other people do real work for less money
- You can’t admit this without risking your livelihood
- So you keep pretending
This is psychological torture.
The “Lazy Girl Job” Trend: Cope or Rebellion?
In 2023-2024, TikTok exploded with “lazy girl job” content:
“Get a job where you work 10 hours a week but get paid for 40!”
“Corporate life hacks: Find a role with no oversight!”
“How to get paid to do nothing!”
Was this:
A) Workers discovering work-life balance?
B) Workers coping with meaningless employment by gamifying it?
C) Workers unconsciously proving Graeber’s thesis?
Answer: Mostly B and C.
The “lazy girl job” trend is young workers saying:
“If the system is bullshit anyway, I might as well get paid to do nothing instead of killing myself for a company that doesn’t care.”
It’s not laziness. It’s rational self-interest in an irrational system.
But here’s the dark side:
Those “lazy girl jobs” pay $40K-$60K. Not enough to live independently in most cities. Not enough to save for the future. Not enough to build wealth.
So workers are:
- Trading their time for poverty wages
- Developing no skills
- Going nowhere
- Pretending this is “winning”
They’re not escaping bullshit jobs. They’re trapped in comfortable prisons.
Was Graeber Right? Let’s Review the Evidence
Graeber’s Claims:
- ~40% of jobs serve no meaningful purpose
✅ Multiple surveys confirm 30-40% of workers say their job is unnecessary - Workers in these jobs know they’re pointless
✅ Workers consistently describe their own jobs as bullshit - They have to pretend otherwise
✅ “Lazy girl job” trend, remote work theater, performance of busyness - These jobs fall into five categories
✅ Workers identify themselves in these categories - This creates psychological harm
✅ Depression, anxiety, substance abuse correlate with bullshit job categories - The system perpetuates itself
✅ Even knowing this, companies create more bullshit jobs - We collectively pretend this is normal
✅ Still happening. You’re probably in a bullshit job right now and can’t admit it
The verdict: Graeber was catastrophically, depressingly, undeniably correct.
What Changed After Graeber (Nothing)
Here’s the most damning evidence that Graeber was right:
Since 2013, we’ve:
- Read his essay (millions of views)
- Bought his book (bestseller)
- Agreed with his thesis (surveys confirm it)
- Shared our own bullshit job stories (internet full of them)
And we’ve done… nothing.
Companies still create bullshit jobs.
Workers still take them.
We still pretend they’re necessary.
Why?
Because admitting Graeber was right means admitting:
- The system is fundamentally broken
- Millions of people are wasting their lives
- We could reorganize society but choose not to
- The cruelty might be intentional
That’s too uncomfortable. So we pretend.
The Question Graeber Forces Us to Ask
If bullshit jobs are real and we know they’re real… why do we keep creating them?
Possible answers:
1. We don’t know how to stop
The system is too complex. Unwinding it would cause chaos.
2. We benefit from them
Keeping people employed (even in bullshit jobs) maintains social order. Unemployed people revolt. Employed people endure.
3. We’re afraid of the alternative
If we admitted work isn’t necessary, we’d have to rethink our entire value system. That’s terrifying.
4. We’re trapped by sunk costs
We’ve built entire economies around bullshit jobs. Admitting they’re bullshit means admitting massive waste.
5. The powerful benefit
Workers trapped in bullshit jobs are desperate, compliant, and controllable. Why would the powerful want to free them?
Graeber’s Death (2020) and What It Means
David Graeber died suddenly in September 2020, at age 59.
He never lived to see:
- The Great Resignation (workers quitting en masse)
- The “lazy girl job” trend (workers openly admitting their jobs are easy/pointless)
- AI replacing bullshit jobs (proving they could have been automated all along)
- Remote work revealing how much work is theater
All of these confirmed his thesis.
His death makes this question even more urgent:
He saw the problem. He named it. He described it.
When will we fix it?
What Happens Next?
Three possible futures:
Future 1: Nothing Changes (Most Likely)
- Bullshit jobs continue
- Workers continue suffering quietly
- We continue pretending
- Graeber’s work becomes a curiosity, not a catalyst
- In 2050, someone writes: “Was Graeber right? (Yes, and we still did nothing)”
Future 2: AI Forces Change
- AI automates bullshit jobs
- Companies realize they don’t need most workers
- Mass unemployment forces UBI discussion
- We’re forced to rethink work because the system breaks
This is already starting to happen.
Future 3: Workers Revolt
- Enough workers refuse bullshit jobs
- Companies can’t fill roles
- Great Resignation becomes Great Refusal
- System forced to adapt
This requires collective action. Which is hard.
The Uncomfortable Conclusion
Was Graeber right about bullshit jobs?
Yes.
Does that mean anything will change?
Probably not.
Because admitting he was right means admitting:
We’ve organized our entire society around forcing people to waste their lives doing things that don’t need to be done, because we’re too afraid to admit that work ≠ virtue, and that maybe—just maybe—humans could be happy and productive working 15-hour weeks on things that actually matter.
That would require questioning capitalism, managerialism, the Protestant work ethic, and the entire social structure we’ve built.
So instead, we’ll:
- Read this article
- Nod along
- Share it on LinkedIn
- Go back to our bullshit jobs
- Pretend everything is fine
Just like Graeber predicted we would.
The Last Word
From Bullshit Jobs, the most highlighted quote on Kindle:
“We have come to believe that men and women who do not work harder than they wish at jobs they do not particularly enjoy are bad people unworthy of love, care, or assistance from their communities. It is as if we have collectively acquiesced to our own enslavement.”
Graeber saw the bars of our cage.
He described them in detail.
He explained how we built them ourselves.
And we’re still sitting here, insisting the cage doesn’t exist.
Was Graeber right?
Ask yourself:
- How much of your workday is actual productive labor?
- How much is performance?
- If you could automate your job, would anyone notice?
- If your position was eliminated tomorrow, would the company actually suffer?
If the answer makes you uncomfortable…
Then yes. Graeber was right.
And you already knew that.
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