A Conspiracy of Inefficiency - The Ultimate Taboo

Included are three YouTube videos of the (almost) subversive Mike Judge film Office Space...I highly recommend you watch them in order

I have recently finished reading David Graeber's Bullsh*t Jobs: The Rise of Pointless Work and What to Do About It and it has brought to mind many of my previous positions.

I have personally caused myself a lot of trouble at work by trying too hard to do my job efficiently, particularly when I have been given positions of privilege in places such as the Australian Bureau of Statistics.Now, I know it sounds counter-intuitive that an efficient worker might be always causing trouble for himself by working too hard...but hear me out.

Once you have finished reading this post, I highly recommend you take a look at one of my older posts Art Which Sensors Itself, which I wrote around this time last year...I think it's time for a more serious update.

Click image to see Peter having trouble with his TPS Reports...and his 8 bosses

Peter has some trouble with his "TPS Reports"

I was reading about the privatisation of public services, and have had a few revelations. I encourage you to take a seat...this is going to be a bumpy ride...

People who get grants often pay themselves fat salaries.

The people on those salaries often don't do a whole lot of work, and the work they do is often done inneficiently (I've also noticed this applies to a lot of the private charities where I have been eating my meals recently). It's one of the problems with privatising public services.

The idea that privatised services are necessarily more efficient than government services is a joke. One of the big cons of modern economics.

The reason they say that is that transactions conducted within the private sector cannot grow the sector. Once the few have bled all they can from the many within the private sector, the only option to keep making a profit is to grow the sector.

That requires acquiring wealth from external sources, like government.

Click on image to see the "meeting with the bobs"

A meeting with 'The Bobs'

One way they can do that is by privatising government services.

But after writing Bullsh*t Jobs: The Rise of Pointless Work and What to Do About It David Graeber was inundated with stories of inefficient private AND public sector jobs.

Whether public or private is more efficient has to be assessed on a case by case basis - neither are more efficient by default. There are efficient and inefficient examples of both.

Click on image to see "Bill Lumbergh and "the Bobs"

Lumbergh's time is up

Making your job more efficient is a good way of talking yourself out of a job.

And while people are at work, no-one is allowed to say it - it's the ultimate taboo...and it's crazy making.

I came to learn that this is exactly what they mean by "are you a team player". I and guess what...I'm not (surprise, surprise!).

It's one of the reasons I've always landed myself in so much trouble at work....over and over again.

David Graeber's Bullsh*t Jobs: The Rise of Pointless Work and What to Do About It

If you are in Hobart, Tasmania, you can find a copy of David Graeber's Bullsh*t Jobs: The Rise of Pointless Work and What to Do About It in the Town Hall reading room.


David Graeber is an American anthropologist, anarchist activist and author known for his 2011 Debt: The First 5000 Years, 2015 The Utopia of Rules and 2018 Bullshit Jobs: The Rise of Pointless Work and What to Do About It. He is a professor of anthropology at the London School of Economics.