this post was submitted on 29 Apr 2024
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Work Reform

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 7 months ago (3 children)

I've been reading Graeber's Bullshit Jobs and evidently they don't fire people in Japan. If they want rid of you, they just give you less and less to do until you're sitting in the office all day getting paid to do nothing, and the cultural expectation is that you quit out of shame rather than just accepting money for nothing.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 7 months ago (3 children)

How do I get one of those jobs as a WFH employee in the United States? I'll gladly accept my shame.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Oh I'm so ashamed. Whatever will I do. Please don't pay me MORE money that would make the shame even greater!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago

Oh no, not a bonus! The shame, it burns!

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago

It only works for cultures where individuals have to sepukku if they bring shame on family.

In the USA, bringing shame upon family is considered a rite of passage so it doesn't quite have the same effect

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I wouldn't recommend anyone become a software engineer but its worked for me

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Heh. I already am that, but I do have to work. It's not as hard as when I was digging ditches for a living, but it's definitely still work. Sometimes it's slow, sometimes there's a million things to do.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I'll be honest, I don't know if I have to work. I do, because I like the work and I like the company I work for a lot, but I'm fairly confident that I could just show up to meetings twice a week and fudge paperwork for quite a while before anyone caught on that I'm just a hole they're dumping money into.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

That's a pretty sweet gig then.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

yeah, I've been really fortunate.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 7 months ago

Where do I sign up?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I wonder if this also has something to do with the company itself avoiding shame too. Like firing an employee is a sign of weakness, that you hired someone like that in the first place? Or potentially a difference in benefits or a pension that they have to pay?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

That's a thought I had as well, and based on my extremely limited knowledge and research I think it's the conflict that's being avoided. Rather than dealing with the person directly, you use indirect actions that signal the expected result when taken in that social context and then let the pressure of those expectations generate the result you need without you ever directly doing anything. My understanding is that the pressure is pretty enormous, your coworkers will basically shun you out of fear of being targeted themselves and resentment for all the work you're not doing that they have to pick up instead.