Also, my job pays by the hour. So instead of clocking out early, I chill in the back for a while, steal some food, listen to music, and smoke some weed. Free money, free food, free time. Time theft is a wonderful thing.
Lol I did that all the time at my first job (despite the weed, I've got asthma). My favorite way to steal some time back was to pretend I'm constipated in the bathroom so I can play on my phone
I use half the time in my current job talking shit on Discord and WhatsApp, watching videos on TH-cam, playing on the phone, and reading news or theory. Funnily enough, I'm very productive and always please my supervisor, so he doesn't care.
The happiest time I was at any BS job was when I realized I didn't care if I quit or got fired. Then I was able to actually relax and enjoy it. Liberation through apathy, in true late Gen-X style.
Thats called hinduism. Read the book of the dead. Then explain to me how I am wrong and bad at reading, please. Because all I got from that book is happiness through apathy.
Hakim's miscellaneous questions about weird Americanisms are one of my favorite things about this podcast. To answer the query about white picket fences, a picket fence is one that is made of vertical slats whose tops are triangular (which those of us with functioning frontal lobes would probably just say "come to a point," which yes, makes them harder to climb over. Americans have always been like this). The white comes from an mosquito repellant paint coating popular back in the day (when "back in the day began and ended is not something I know, but references to it exist in Huckleberry Finn, so at least the mid-1800s, and Homer Hickam claims to have had to whitewash a fence after he blew it up with a rocket in the 1950s). The process of applying it was called "whitewashing."
I work as a copywriter, and so I’m scheduled to work on clientwork in 1 hour timeslots. Most of the time the work only takes me half an hour, maybe 40 minutes with corrections so I get to slack of for a couple hours a day. I felt guilty. My boss had these wise words for me: if you need time to have a cup of coffee and go for a walk to get a great idea, then that’s also part of the work.
Comrades, I can't tell you in words how grateful I am to you for putting this on TH-cam. Spotify was blocked in Russia, and I was afraid that I would be left without you.
As someone who's been fired from most every job she's had and the reason being "I wasn't up to snuff" trying to find work is basically impossible. And since you need work experience to find work it's a catch-22 like everything else. Especially with the "at will" employment bullshit you can be fired for literally any reason.
Or just not being put on the schedule. Ive watched that happen to others and it happened to me once. Then they never even have to have that awkward conversation with you at all.
My very first job: bakery manufacturing. Basically I was on my feet 12 to 13 hours a day, packaging baked goods and dumping those that "didn't meet the standards necessary for commercial use". Basically, everything that doesn't look "normal". Sometimes it'll be legitimate (i.e. foreign contaminants), but most of the time it's because it's too big, too small, has a crack through the middle, etc. And the worst part is, I couldn't even eat the rejects because I'm gluten intolerant.
Even better, like making VR digital mud pies, so it takes electricity and many other energy sources for absolutely no material change in the real world. Only the massive amount of energy wasted…almost as if that is the purpose? 🤔🤔🤔 I’m not being sarcastic I never considered just running utilities and the like generating profit but it does, could be a reason or way cryptocurrency is embraced by the mainstream because its such an energy sink per transaction.
@@freelance_commie Yeah, like: "we need to destroy commodities in order to keep overproducing without lowering prices, but war is too risky because nuclear weapons' mutually assured destruction; so let's make crypto then!".
I love when people say “you gotta work harder, stop being lazy”. I live in my car and have to live a transient lifestyle I own nothing but a few outfits and a ps5 I can’t use lol
One quote I really like: "Work is what you do with what you've got that makes life better". Everything I do other than my job (and possibly staying up late playing videogames instead of actually sleeping) is actually benefitting me. My job is only helping me pay the bills.
Staying up late playing videogames does benefit you, it makes your life more fun. My personal definition of a job is "a job is what you do instead of having fun". I found that being forced to do something (and under capitalism all work is forced) sucks all the fun out of it, even if it's something I would normally like when I do it of my own volition.
this hustle culture thing is getting on my nerves. I work in healthcare and there is this super toxic environment where managers, co-workers etc constantly push each other to " go back to school ' and such nonsense so they can earn more money . I am 42 years old. I literally just paid off my student loans for my fine art degree in the 90's and I have absolutely no intention of going back to school to get a higher nursing degree and go into 50,000 dollars debt AGAIN , for the second half of my life . When I tell people my 10 year goal is to paint as much as I can , get better at baking bread, maybe move somewhere I can start a garden ,continue my sci fi reading list and work as few hours as possible , I am an under achiever and am not living up to my potential. Like... I would be doing so much more to fulfill my potential if I didn't have to have a job. I could be painting, I could be more involved in my community, I could be actually using my nursing skills to help the community , I could be learning more about the world around me, I could get a pottery wheel and make pots or something ... this is potential .
Everything is different for artists. Even doing bullshit jobs or being homeles for a time works for inspiration. Nothing makes sense about artists from a normal person perspective. The most meaningful moments in my life consist of me looking at a visually clean and symmetric corner of the room (in my head i'm having an intense epiphany).
When my ex and I got married our good friends mom got us a toaster and it was the best thing ever because we didn’t have one prior to that. You don’t realize how much you need a toaster til you don’t have one.
I worked a bullshit job for my university. I worked at the school’s gym, and all I ever did was walk around in circles or sit in a chair and watch as people check in. I did nothing but exist in the building walking my pathways.
Another aspect of job bullshittery is how much time and energy is wasted on marketing, trying to get people to buy things they don't need or to buy one brand over another. All of that could just go away under socialism, not just dramatically reducing unnecessary work but making life so much better for everyone. I am so sick of ads on everything, junk mail, robocalls, etc.
David Graeber's book is amazing, I highly recommend it. One of the best Anarchist theoretical economic books in a long time (and I'm not even an Anarchist). The fact that capitalism has to create useless jobs just to avoid automation and productivity rendering the labour force in developed countries into chronically unemployed (and potentially rebellious) masses who can't afford the commodities they themselves produce is so dystopian, I don't think it was conceived even beforehand on history. By the way, just a clarification: Graeber's concept of "bullshit job" doesn't apply to jobs who are unpleasant or hateful but have a meaningful purpose in a capitalist society, even if just a reproductive one in a Marxist sense (ex.: a corporate lawyer or a risk analyst aren't bullshit jobs), but one job position which is so useless and meaningless *EVEN* under a purely capitalist reproductive process (ex.: a human resources supervisor in an automated factory). I think, in this sense, that the assistant salesperson job JT had isn't so much "bullshit job" in Graeber's sense, but more kind of a redundant position (having dozens of assistant salespeople for each brand and product on an aisle/department, instead of one assistant salesperson per aisle/department).
Warehouses are always asking for 10 to 12 hours shifts from Monday to Friday and some overtime. And your weekend has to be free just in case. It f*ckin sucks and grueling.
Anytime someone asks me “what do you do?” I always answer “I put out fires, but really I’m in crisis management” most of the time people just respond “ok, sounds cool”. But there is always that one person that demands clarity and wants more so they keep going and I answer “You remember that incident downtown with the toxic waste spill?” They say no and I respond “exactly, ugly mess that was “.
Ah good memories. I listened to these while disassembling thousands of dusty old server boxes. I hate server dust. Its the super fine stuff that makes it though the filters. All the boxes are cheap and have sharp edges and annoying fucking 2 prong fork security bits and ugh. Man do I not miss that job.
In high school, way back in the early 2000s, my friends and I were walking around near a friends house and we noticed a house with a picket fence that was black, dark blue but it was night time, so we thought we should be a band called "Gothic American Dream."
this episode gave me to much anxiety lmao. thinking about my last job i had were I helped clean out a stable every day and the only thing i got was not getting thrown out of my appartment
How did Kim Kardashian become the authority to say people don't work because they're just lazy. The only reason I know her name is because I saw her getting pounded by Ray Jay on Spankwire.
A “picket” is the shorter, more top slanted cuts of treated wood at deck wood thickness, and they’re usually built having a picket of space in between the planks as to give a “half-accessible view” which can actually be mirrored on the other side using the same cutting measurements and get full privacy ☺️ then a “plank” is that piece of deck wood thickness with a usual overall length of 6 ft give or take some inches to accommodate your grounds grading, leveling, or “amount of slope.” These are nailed in connecting, and surrounded by one another. Also pickets are typically painted white when originally used around and after the Eisenhower era when suburbs were starting to become a more practiced way of living. So best way to describe this with infeasible accuracy, the style of fences you see in the original twilight zone. By no means a professional carpenter but I’ve done my fair share of roofing and fencing work. Love the podcast btw! It’s perfect for background music type vibes except I actually listen.
Whenever I hear this message about bullshit jobs and shortening the workweek I totally agree but am always frustrated by how the most talked about experience is office work. I have never worked in an office, most of my jobs involved retail, being on the clock as a cashier, or stocking shelves till the truck was done. Is there a way to have a shorter week and still get the same pay in that form of work?
In a way, I think education has a lot to contribute to how we just swallow the bullshit our employer feeds us rather critically think about what they are saying.
every time i watch this podcast, i get mid rolls from this very specific personal injury attorney who’s current ad jingle is “MORE MONEY! MORE MONEY! MORE MONEY!” 😭
Very familiar with medical admin bloat, used to do data entry for medical billing, all I did was verify patient data, addresses, social security numbers for 8 hours a day,
i also wanted to say when it comes to work and jobs, alongside what you already mentioned and always say - it's good to be friendly with your coworkers. start slowly with chats and stuff and then see what they're like and then organize yourselves to improve your position in the company. it doesn't have to be called a union and you don't have to call yourselves comrades as likely your coworkers aren't commies esp in the us but you can still have each other's backs and make your life on the job easier. for example, that is what i did at my company with my coworker. we are content writers and we have like 4 managers and another one for the 2 of us who are disorganized and oftentimes give us different directions as to how to do something. so we bash them secretly and it gives us great pleasure and we also have each other's back and support one another at meetings and so on so they look inwards when looking for faults and we also discuss salaries (not allowed) and plan on how to ask for more money and such stuff. they (the managers and the owner) don't even know we know each other as we are remote so our claims have more standing and we can get us out of trouble and get shit done for ourselves, it's good.
The pandemic actually increased business for my VP, and because of that, my job has recently gone through a hiring spree for new people to work my position with me. Because of the increased business, the company I work for has already drawn up contracts with our clients promising so many people being here to assist them. Business has slowed down to roughly pre-pandemic speeds, so now I sit around for most of the day listening to you guys or flipping through the news trying to look busy. If only I could go home when it isn’t busy my boss would realize that we don’t need this many people to do this job and reconsider structuring the job differently.
Oklahoma commie here :) if y’all are in need of any topics, I’d like to hear what you guys think about current socialist projects. Is China actually working towards communism? How about Vietnam? How well do these places uphold their communist values?
Yes, now I get to listen to these episode minimum of three times. First on patreon, then on podcast and finally here on TH-cam. The boys wonder why someone would listen to them in the first -and here’s me, just gonna listen on repeat. Lol
Second time yall talk about my hometown, whooooooooo Housing prices have gone up to 1000/month for a place that's looks like it's falling apart on the outside in a rough area according to zillow. If yall ever do come by, I'll pay to see yall live.
The 60-40 administrative labor split you talk about around the halfway mark I can explain with customer service and debt collection centers. For every medical practitioner at a for profit clinic, there is a call center worker who collects debt for their labor, a complaints line, and an accountant to record the expense of each aspirin, and report the highest quarterly revenue to entice investors. Not to mention all the managers and secretaries and officers to fill out the offices where all these number jockeys work. Great podcast, I’m happy to listen to you at my newest bullshit job.
listening at work & yugopnik talking about bullshit reporting at work reminded me that i need to do my weekly reports that i have to do 'just in case' 😭❤️
I know we're socialists, but we live within capitalism. Investing is now the only way to comfortably retire. Investing can also help make it easier to become self employed/owning your means of production.
Admin bloat in healthcare here (quality assurance for mental health). I do what I can to cut bloat from the inside. It's helpful to protect clients but most of it is BS.
It amazes me why many companies haven't made work from home a norm for people who have jobs that can be done primarily on a computer. People like the software engineer mentioned are getting paid for the quality of his work not necessarily for the number of hours working so as long as shit gets done then there shouldn't be a problem. My company does this and it works.
I'm one of those managers Yugopnik was talking about. The only way I can make a living is through food service and the only way I can do that is to run a store. I've found that when my team is happy then we run amazing sales and numbers. I bang my head against the wall everytime the people above me are so dead set on profits. I will try to meet their metrics as best as I can so I don't get fired But I could give a fuck about their metrics they still make money
The distinction is that you three aren’t ‘hustlers’ telling people not to make more money so they’re socially mobile or whatever, you’re three dudes who’s incomes wouldn’t even be enough to subsist without a second then third grasp at a living wage - warning vulnerable people against the normalisation of that process.
JT here! I may have switched NZ and Iceland. NZ has done a 4-day workweek trial that was a resounding success, but the country has yet to make the practice commonplace.
when i worked at best buy i met my GM for the first time months into the position I literally had no idea who he was and why he kept asking me to do stuff i thought he was a random older seasonal
Yep, they're JT's :) The entire set design was discussed/explained in one of the episodes - maybe the recent live episode? Or maybe the first one? Not sure, sorry!
Parrots actually evolved the ability to screech really loudly as a defence mechanism. Bigger birdies are louder but are often far better pets than their stupider and crazier and more kulak parakeet brethren.
So parrots that are massive evolved alongside monkeys, and new world parrots had to fight monkeys for life and death, since you know they share similar diets and environments. And a monkey can easy cripple a parrot, and parrots are really careful around monkeys. So the screech that they can do can be heard a kilometer away in good conditions for transmission like non-windy humid days. Imagine up close, these parrots can screech at the loudness of gunshots. And monkeys, no matter what is on their plate, don't want a creature that can alert predators of their presence. And trust me, eagles can definitely combo those monkeys.
I do software engineering for a living in Mexico, I get paid very handsomely since I work for one of the big one's tech companies, but I have been so destroyed by the concepts of productivity to the point I ended up creating a small store of what I considered to be my hobby, it is really stressful and it is pretty darn hard to keep my work and all the work of the store just in order to feel productive, I dont need more money strictly speaking but I feel bad just lazing around enjoying life without earning big bucks :(, I'm a fkin prisioner of this ideology. It is obviously a not so bad problem, I dont want to insult anyone out there with real hard problems but I feel like corporate tries really hard to label me as a winner but when I see how much Neoliberalism has destroyed my country it infuriates me, and even though I'm in a pretty good spot I want socialism in order to help other people not lucky, the fact I'm doing well is not a merit thing, it is just probabilistic thing. Thanks for the podcast it is pretty cool.
That would be communism which requires a socialist system to birth as we can't get to "each according to their need" without abundance. Which technically we have right now but because of capitalism it is instead thrown out and wasted.
JD! This is off topic, but a while back, you mentioned a website that you get images and short videos for your ST videos that is reasonably priced. What was it, if I may beg your indulgence? New subscriber to The Deprogrammed and subscriber and fan boy of ST!
What is this idealist nonsense? Slaves existed everywhere because who doesn't want free labor, amirite? But the soil in the North was not conducive to growing the sorts of cash crops that greatly benefited from slave labor (cotton, tobacco, indigo). So slavery never became economically important there, meaning that the slaveholders did not have the same sort of influence that they had in the South so abolition movements were able to pick up more steam earlier on, with most Northern states ending slavery before the Civil War. Plus, who do you think it was that colonized the South? Catholics?
@@ballz4kidz Catholics and everyone else. There weren't large colonies of quakers in the south, for example. And go read a history book. The north freed their last slaves like 6 years after the civil war was over. Also, go take a history of American economics class in college like I did. The south was richer than the north by a lot but lost that advantage due to blockades. And the north industrialized faster and had significantly fewer slaves. Your argument that the northern slave owners not having the same economic power proves my point. I am from Texas, live here now, and grew up in Georgia. I know all the bullshit propaganda.
Career fetishism has manifested out of the vast wealth inequality gap where people feel so lost they have to justify for themselves why they have to go to their jobs. If you hustle hard enough you must be able to change your situation right? Otherwise, what’s the point?
I fucking hate going into best buy soley because of the amount of people working everywhere. I cant stand being asked a million times if I'm okay or being watched.
1:09:15 this is actually a point that really needs to be discussed. The entire idea is based on the premise that everyone needs to have a job and be working in a factory type setting. We should be asking why most of the jobs that we have even exists for one as you have already talked about jobs that did not exist and are just complete BS. But under real socialism and in a real society, you should not need a job to live. At the very least jobs that people would not want to do to serve the community. Like if we still have some bad sewage plant jobs then that would be seen more as community service that a lot of people would do but only do a couple hours a week or something like that.
I worked catering for charity auctions. At an auction to benefit child cancer research I had a rich weirdo demanding he get chicken nuggets that were reserved for the children with cancer
Also, my job pays by the hour. So instead of clocking out early, I chill in the back for a while, steal some food, listen to music, and smoke some weed. Free money, free food, free time. Time theft is a wonderful thing.
Absolutely, and needs to be normalized because even with us “stealing” our earned value back they still steal so much more from us.
Lol I did that all the time at my first job (despite the weed, I've got asthma). My favorite way to steal some time back was to pretend I'm constipated in the bathroom so I can play on my phone
I use half the time in my current job talking shit on Discord and WhatsApp, watching videos on TH-cam, playing on the phone, and reading news or theory.
Funnily enough, I'm very productive and always please my supervisor, so he doesn't care.
Whenever I’m done for the day I can go and still get paid in full. My boss understands.
Have fun asking "Why am I an unskilled 42 years-old earning half of the median annual income working at a convenience store?" when the time comes.
The happiest time I was at any BS job was when I realized I didn't care if I quit or got fired. Then I was able to actually relax and enjoy it. Liberation through apathy, in true late Gen-X style.
It really is liberating to not care about your job.
It always makes me think of the movie office space.
Thats called hinduism. Read the book of the dead. Then explain to me how I am wrong and bad at reading, please. Because all I got from that book is happiness through apathy.
@@mashadarii .... uh... what?
I am currently in that type of job
Hakim's miscellaneous questions about weird Americanisms are one of my favorite things about this podcast. To answer the query about white picket fences, a picket fence is one that is made of vertical slats whose tops are triangular (which those of us with functioning frontal lobes would probably just say "come to a point," which yes, makes them harder to climb over. Americans have always been like this). The white comes from an mosquito repellant paint coating popular back in the day (when "back in the day began and ended is not something I know, but references to it exist in Huckleberry Finn, so at least the mid-1800s, and Homer Hickam claims to have had to whitewash a fence after he blew it up with a rocket in the 1950s). The process of applying it was called "whitewashing."
I think it also references older television shows such as Leave It to Beaver, shows that portray the “ideal” American family
I work as a copywriter, and so I’m scheduled to work on clientwork in 1 hour timeslots. Most of the time the work only takes me half an hour, maybe 40 minutes with corrections so I get to slack of for a couple hours a day. I felt guilty. My boss had these wise words for me: if you need time to have a cup of coffee and go for a walk to get a great idea, then that’s also part of the work.
A reasonable boss? Excellent, he will be rewarded when the revolution comes.
Comrades, I can't tell you in words how grateful I am to you for putting this on TH-cam. Spotify was blocked in Russia, and I was afraid that I would be left without you.
Take care over there. ❤️
You’re doing okay, yeah?
Удачи, товарищ
I luv ur ancestors
Btw use vpn comrade
As someone who's been fired from most every job she's had and the reason being "I wasn't up to snuff" trying to find work is basically impossible. And since you need work experience to find work it's a catch-22 like everything else. Especially with the "at will" employment bullshit you can be fired for literally any reason.
US labour laws are a dystopian shit.
I get fired regularly for no reason
I'm lucky to have never been fired, but always end up being the guy blamed for all sorts of shit unfortunately
Or just not being put on the schedule. Ive watched that happen to others and it happened to me once. Then they never even have to have that awkward conversation with you at all.
@Armament Armed Arm in the U.S. if they say it's illegal, they mean it's illegal for non rich people.
My very first job: bakery manufacturing. Basically I was on my feet 12 to 13 hours a day, packaging baked goods and dumping those that "didn't meet the standards necessary for commercial use". Basically, everything that doesn't look "normal". Sometimes it'll be legitimate (i.e. foreign contaminants), but most of the time it's because it's too big, too small, has a crack through the middle, etc. And the worst part is, I couldn't even eat the rejects because I'm gluten intolerant.
And they can't be donated because the company needs their profits... ugh
Aren't they so much fun? Jobs to justify having jobs for more jobs. Greeeaattt idea, totally meaningful. Like making mud pies.
Shoving a hole today, to fill it tomorrow. And repeat the same processes the next two day.
Wow. Very genius. So progress. Much job.
Even better, like making VR digital mud pies, so it takes electricity and many other energy sources for absolutely no material change in the real world. Only the massive amount of energy wasted…almost as if that is the purpose? 🤔🤔🤔 I’m not being sarcastic I never considered just running utilities and the like generating profit but it does, could be a reason or way cryptocurrency is embraced by the mainstream because its such an energy sink per transaction.
And to think Marxists use mud pies as an example of valueless commodity to explain the labour theory of value. Checkmate commies ! /s
@@freelance_commie Yeah, like: "we need to destroy commodities in order to keep overproducing without lowering prices, but war is too risky because nuclear weapons' mutually assured destruction; so let's make crypto then!".
@Armament Armed Arm Yeah dude, if line goes up, good. 👌🏻 (/s)
I love when people say “you gotta work harder, stop being lazy”. I live in my car and have to live a transient lifestyle I own nothing but a few outfits and a ps5 I can’t use lol
Working harder in low-wage labor jobs just leads to repetitive stress injuries. Just saying.
How’s that working out?
One quote I really like: "Work is what you do with what you've got that makes life better". Everything I do other than my job (and possibly staying up late playing videogames instead of actually sleeping) is actually benefitting me. My job is only helping me pay the bills.
"Work is what you do when you'd rather be doing anything else." - Somebody
Staying up late playing videogames does benefit you, it makes your life more fun. My personal definition of a job is "a job is what you do instead of having fun". I found that being forced to do something (and under capitalism all work is forced) sucks all the fun out of it, even if it's something I would normally like when I do it of my own volition.
@@Tetragrammaton22 I think you're confusing work with job
I love seeing this podcast grow
this hustle culture thing is getting on my nerves. I work in healthcare and there is this super toxic environment where managers, co-workers etc constantly push each other to " go back to school ' and such nonsense so they can earn more money . I am 42 years old. I literally just paid off my student loans for my fine art degree in the 90's and I have absolutely no intention of going back to school to get a higher nursing degree and go into 50,000 dollars debt AGAIN , for the second half of my life . When I tell people my 10 year goal is to paint as much as I can , get better at baking bread, maybe move somewhere I can start a garden ,continue my sci fi reading list and work as few hours as possible , I am an under achiever and am not living up to my potential. Like... I would be doing so much more to fulfill my potential if I didn't have to have a job. I could be painting, I could be more involved in my community, I could be actually using my nursing skills to help the community , I could be learning more about the world around me, I could get a pottery wheel and make pots or something ... this is potential .
Everything is different for artists. Even doing bullshit jobs or being homeles for a time works for inspiration. Nothing makes sense about artists from a normal person perspective. The most meaningful moments in my life consist of me looking at a visually clean and symmetric corner of the room (in my head i'm having an intense epiphany).
I dont dream of labor
When my ex and I got married our good friends mom got us a toaster and it was the best thing ever because we didn’t have one prior to that. You don’t realize how much you need a toaster til you don’t have one.
I worked a bullshit job for my university. I worked at the school’s gym, and all I ever did was walk around in circles or sit in a chair and watch as people check in. I did nothing but exist in the building walking my pathways.
Hope you wrote your magnum opus while doing nothing
@Armament Armed Arm or hear me out. Cameras with an AI that can alert a human being if something needs intervention.
@@ANTH0NY.VII. let's not do a 1984
Another aspect of job bullshittery is how much time and energy is wasted on marketing, trying to get people to buy things they don't need or to buy one brand over another. All of that could just go away under socialism, not just dramatically reducing unnecessary work but making life so much better for everyone. I am so sick of ads on everything, junk mail, robocalls, etc.
David Graeber's book is amazing, I highly recommend it. One of the best Anarchist theoretical economic books in a long time (and I'm not even an Anarchist).
The fact that capitalism has to create useless jobs just to avoid automation and productivity rendering the labour force in developed countries into chronically unemployed (and potentially rebellious) masses who can't afford the commodities they themselves produce is so dystopian, I don't think it was conceived even beforehand on history.
By the way, just a clarification: Graeber's concept of "bullshit job" doesn't apply to jobs who are unpleasant or hateful but have a meaningful purpose in a capitalist society, even if just a reproductive one in a Marxist sense (ex.: a corporate lawyer or a risk analyst aren't bullshit jobs), but one job position which is so useless and meaningless *EVEN* under a purely capitalist reproductive process (ex.: a human resources supervisor in an automated factory). I think, in this sense, that the assistant salesperson job JT had isn't so much "bullshit job" in Graeber's sense, but more kind of a redundant position (having dozens of assistant salespeople for each brand and product on an aisle/department, instead of one assistant salesperson per aisle/department).
Warehouses are always asking for 10 to 12 hours shifts from Monday to Friday and some overtime. And your weekend has to be free just in case. It f*ckin sucks and grueling.
Anytime someone asks me “what do you do?” I always answer “I put out fires, but really I’m in crisis management” most of the time people just respond “ok, sounds cool”. But there is always that one person that demands clarity and wants more so they keep going and I answer “You remember that incident downtown with the toxic waste spill?” They say no and I respond “exactly, ugly mess that was “.
I love when yugopnik goes on crazy rants for no reason and just rambles
Ah good memories. I listened to these while disassembling thousands of dusty old server boxes.
I hate server dust. Its the super fine stuff that makes it though the filters. All the boxes are cheap and have sharp edges and annoying fucking 2 prong fork security bits and ugh. Man do I not miss that job.
In high school, way back in the early 2000s, my friends and I were walking around near a friends house and we noticed a house with a picket fence that was black, dark blue but it was night time, so we thought we should be a band called "Gothic American Dream."
this episode gave me to much anxiety lmao. thinking about my last job i had were I helped clean out a stable every day and the only thing i got was not getting thrown out of my appartment
That's more 💩 than I had to deal with before. That's hard work.
@@grmpEqweer worked with good people there though. a lot of solidarity
How did Kim Kardashian become the authority to say people don't work because they're just lazy. The only reason I know her name is because I saw her getting pounded by Ray Jay on Spankwire.
U guys are fckn awesome! Such level of adequacy I never saw in my live , listening deprograming episodes is honey to my ears 🌝🤌🏻
A “picket” is the shorter, more top slanted cuts of treated wood at deck wood thickness, and they’re usually built having a picket of space in between the planks as to give a “half-accessible view” which can actually be mirrored on the other side using the same cutting measurements and get full privacy ☺️ then a “plank” is that piece of deck wood thickness with a usual overall length of 6 ft give or take some inches to accommodate your grounds grading, leveling, or “amount of slope.” These are nailed in connecting, and surrounded by one another.
Also pickets are typically painted white when originally used around and after the Eisenhower era when suburbs were starting to become a more practiced way of living. So best way to describe this with infeasible accuracy, the style of fences you see in the original twilight zone.
By no means a professional carpenter but I’ve done my fair share of roofing and fencing work.
Love the podcast btw! It’s perfect for background music type vibes except I actually listen.
Whenever I hear this message about bullshit jobs and shortening the workweek I totally agree but am always frustrated by how the most talked about experience is office work. I have never worked in an office, most of my jobs involved retail, being on the clock as a cashier, or stocking shelves till the truck was done. Is there a way to have a shorter week and still get the same pay in that form of work?
I don't think so unless they hire more people to do the work..... which probably won't happen because of how capitalism is structured.
Not under capitalism.
@@Ajente02 thought as much
In a way, I think education has a lot to contribute to how we just swallow the bullshit our employer feeds us rather critically think about what they are saying.
I love when ads cut in going "The easiest way to make money..."
every time i watch this podcast, i get mid rolls from this very specific personal injury attorney who’s current ad jingle is “MORE MONEY! MORE MONEY! MORE MONEY!” 😭
Very familiar with medical admin bloat, used to do data entry for medical billing, all I did was verify patient data, addresses, social security numbers for 8 hours a day,
i also wanted to say when it comes to work and jobs, alongside what you already mentioned and always say - it's good to be friendly with your coworkers. start slowly with chats and stuff and then see what they're like and then organize yourselves to improve your position in the company.
it doesn't have to be called a union and you don't have to call yourselves comrades as likely your coworkers aren't commies esp in the us but you can still have each other's backs and make your life on the job easier.
for example, that is what i did at my company with my coworker. we are content writers and we have like 4 managers and another one for the 2 of us who are disorganized and oftentimes give us different directions as to how to do something. so we bash them secretly and it gives us great pleasure and we also have each other's back and support one another at meetings and so on so they look inwards when looking for faults and we also discuss salaries (not allowed) and plan on how to ask for more money and such stuff. they (the managers and the owner) don't even know we know each other as we are remote so our claims have more standing and we can get us out of trouble and get shit done for ourselves, it's good.
Bloody hell! Just 30 minutes in and I have already identified myself like 20 times!! Nice insight fellas, keep it going!! 🙌✊
3:18 exactly I woke up at 1am and it was all over TH-cam I was surprised the Oscars was going on also Will Smith perfected the Turkish/ ottoman slap
Standing 8 to 9 hours a day is HELL
The pandemic actually increased business for my VP, and because of that, my job has recently gone through a hiring spree for new people to work my position with me. Because of the increased business, the company I work for has already drawn up contracts with our clients promising so many people being here to assist them. Business has slowed down to roughly pre-pandemic speeds, so now I sit around for most of the day listening to you guys or flipping through the news trying to look busy. If only I could go home when it isn’t busy my boss would realize that we don’t need this many people to do this job and reconsider structuring the job differently.
There is a lot more wrong with the situation but the rest of it is more like ‘Well, it’s Capitalism!’
As a previous lg tv expert for best buy, this was very cathartic. Smallest brand, least support, impossible goals, still gotta get that bp too
Oklahoma commie here :) if y’all are in need of any topics, I’d like to hear what you guys think about current socialist projects. Is China actually working towards communism? How about Vietnam? How well do these places uphold their communist values?
I know hakim has a video on his channel about China and market socialism and his opinions on it
Patreon supporter boosting this video for the almighty algorithm
also jt is like a teacher trying to get the class to get orderly :D
I really want to know more about yugopniks corporate history...
you guys talking bout not smoking weed while im literally rolling up a blunt listening to this 🤣
Yes, now I get to listen to these episode minimum of three times. First on patreon, then on podcast and finally here on TH-cam. The boys wonder why someone would listen to them in the first -and here’s me, just gonna listen on repeat. Lol
Second time yall talk about my hometown, whooooooooo
Housing prices have gone up to 1000/month for a place that's looks like it's falling apart on the outside in a rough area according to zillow.
If yall ever do come by, I'll pay to see yall live.
really cool episode, I was listening to it while browsing Lenin's bust 3d models online
"Lenin's bust" 😳
@@blackshirts_and_breads Lenin makes me bust ong frfr
That "What do you do?" first question is serious programming.
The 60-40 administrative labor split you talk about around the halfway mark I can explain with customer service and debt collection centers. For every medical practitioner at a for profit clinic, there is a call center worker who collects debt for their labor, a complaints line, and an accountant to record the expense of each aspirin, and report the highest quarterly revenue to entice investors. Not to mention all the managers and secretaries and officers to fill out the offices where all these number jockeys work. Great podcast, I’m happy to listen to you at my newest bullshit job.
listening at work & yugopnik talking about bullshit reporting at work reminded me that i need to do my weekly reports that i have to do 'just in case' 😭❤️
I know we're socialists, but we live within capitalism. Investing is now the only way to comfortably retire. Investing can also help make it easier to become self employed/owning your means of production.
We use an app to track time at my job so I spoof my location and clock in and out from home.
This video is my #1 Fav fo all the videos on this channel 💎🌟🏆📈💝
Wow. Hakim went full shitposter this episode. Lol keep it up.
Admin bloat in healthcare here (quality assurance for mental health). I do what I can to cut bloat from the inside. It's helpful to protect clients but most of it is BS.
This has gotta be one of my favorite episodes lol so goddamn good
It surprised me the podcast has so many other local listeners! We chatt people should get together sometime in town.
I'm not from the noog but I'm from the ville, can I come?
@@Comuniity_ heck yeah you can'
@@UnrequitedFriday People's Republic of Tennessee let's fucking go
@@Comuniity_ with the NWGA reserves!
It amazes me why many companies haven't made work from home a norm for people who have jobs that can be done primarily on a computer. People like the software engineer mentioned are getting paid for the quality of his work not necessarily for the number of hours working so as long as shit gets done then there shouldn't be a problem.
My company does this and it works.
I'm one of those managers Yugopnik was talking about.
The only way I can make a living is through food service and the only way I can do that is to run a store.
I've found that when my team is happy then we run amazing sales and numbers. I bang my head against the wall everytime the people above me are so dead set on profits.
I will try to meet their metrics as best as I can so I don't get fired
But I could give a fuck about their metrics they still make money
Excellent episode, as per usual.
Also, piggy, piggy!
The distinction is that you three aren’t ‘hustlers’ telling people not to make more money so they’re socially mobile or whatever, you’re three dudes who’s incomes wouldn’t even be enough to subsist without a second then third grasp at a living wage - warning vulnerable people against the normalisation of that process.
Quick note JT, New Zealand didn't do a 4 day work week thing, think you're confused
JT here! I may have switched NZ and Iceland. NZ has done a 4-day workweek trial that was a resounding success, but the country has yet to make the practice commonplace.
Anyone have a source on the 15% work of the 8 hour work day situation? Would be great to have on hand. Thanks in advance.
I second this.
We need a source, and Google unsurprisingly does not want to tell us.
the most well paid job requires the least amount of work.
As someone who wants to start a t shirt business who was going to put random dumb words on them JT saying that was a painful look in the mirror moment
53:40 I can confirm that is what the kids say
when i worked at best buy i met my GM for the first time months into the position I literally had no idea who he was and why he kept asking me to do stuff i thought he was a random older seasonal
I have to remind myself at times that no shill for supply side economics is worth a trip to jail.
This reminds me my father after work talking with us.
"wAlLaHi I dOn'T sMoKe"
wait..... was someone playing MTG (magic the gathering) on the table?
Yep, they're JT's :)
The entire set design was discussed/explained in one of the episodes - maybe the recent live episode? Or maybe the first one? Not sure, sorry!
When do we see a parakeet in the background?
Time theft isn't theft. It's harm reduction.
Parrots actually evolved the ability to screech really loudly as a defence mechanism. Bigger birdies are louder but are often far better pets than their stupider and crazier and more kulak parakeet brethren.
So parrots that are massive evolved alongside monkeys, and new world parrots had to fight monkeys for life and death, since you know they share similar diets and environments. And a monkey can easy cripple a parrot, and parrots are really careful around monkeys. So the screech that they can do can be heard a kilometer away in good conditions for transmission like non-windy humid days. Imagine up close, these parrots can screech at the loudness of gunshots. And monkeys, no matter what is on their plate, don't want a creature that can alert predators of their presence. And trust me, eagles can definitely combo those monkeys.
Can you talk about wage compression some time
"Read fanfiction of Batman fucking robin" 👀👀👀 how did they know?!
Can confirm, best buy is a box
Very nice loved the episode
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I do software engineering for a living in Mexico, I get paid very handsomely since I work for one of the big one's tech companies, but I have been so destroyed by the concepts of productivity to the point I ended up creating a small store of what I considered to be my hobby, it is really stressful and it is pretty darn hard to keep my work and all the work of the store just in order to feel productive, I dont need more money strictly speaking but I feel bad just lazing around enjoying life without earning big bucks :(, I'm a fkin prisioner of this ideology.
It is obviously a not so bad problem, I dont want to insult anyone out there with real hard problems but I feel like corporate tries really hard to label me as a winner but when I see how much Neoliberalism has destroyed my country it infuriates me, and even though I'm in a pretty good spot I want socialism in order to help other people not lucky, the fact I'm doing well is not a merit thing, it is just probabilistic thing.
Thanks for the podcast it is pretty cool.
Whatever happened to "from each according to their ability, to each according to their need."
That would be communism which requires a socialist system to birth as we can't get to "each according to their need" without abundance. Which technically we have right now but because of capitalism it is instead thrown out and wasted.
16:38 Roll Credits *ding*
JD! This is off topic, but a while back, you mentioned a website that you get images and short videos for your ST videos that is reasonably priced. What was it, if I may beg your indulgence?
New subscriber to The Deprogrammed and subscriber and fan boy of ST!
Nah man from now I'll refer to 1987 instead of 1984. We gotta pay homage to the famous bite.
When I bought into capitalism, it was easier to be happy with working.
You bought in? I'm ready to cash out. 👋
Yea no shit
I be listening to this in this shitty mailroom clerk job
nz actually still has 8 hour days and 5 day weeks
Ghiaccio from JoJo would be best friends with Hakim in that they both hate idioms that don't make sense
I would love to work for that.
51:26 I mean, he's not wrong, Although my mom's explanation was roughly, "Well, if it's good enough for the Jews."
It just hit me, yugopnik sounds incredibly similar to Srečko Horvat, co-founder of DiEM25🤔
It is almost like they are both Yugoslavian
@11:50 the protestants and their work ethic were in the north east, mostly, and not the south. So they didn't really have slaves up there so much.
What is this idealist nonsense? Slaves existed everywhere because who doesn't want free labor, amirite? But the soil in the North was not conducive to growing the sorts of cash crops that greatly benefited from slave labor (cotton, tobacco, indigo). So slavery never became economically important there, meaning that the slaveholders did not have the same sort of influence that they had in the South so abolition movements were able to pick up more steam earlier on, with most Northern states ending slavery before the Civil War.
Plus, who do you think it was that colonized the South? Catholics?
@@ballz4kidz Catholics and everyone else. There weren't large colonies of quakers in the south, for example.
And go read a history book. The north freed their last slaves like 6 years after the civil war was over.
Also, go take a history of American economics class in college like I did. The south was richer than the north by a lot but lost that advantage due to blockades. And the north industrialized faster and had significantly fewer slaves.
Your argument that the northern slave owners not having the same economic power proves my point.
I am from Texas, live here now, and grew up in Georgia. I know all the bullshit propaganda.
greeeaaaattttt
Career fetishism has manifested out of the vast wealth inequality gap where people feel so lost they have to justify for themselves why they have to go to their jobs. If you hustle hard enough you must be able to change your situation right? Otherwise, what’s the point?
When is spooky scary socialist gonna get a guest apppearace?
I fucking hate going into best buy soley because of the amount of people working everywhere. I cant stand being asked a million times if I'm okay or being watched.
I have listened to all of your episodes (on company time of course) and at this point I'm positive I could convert to Islam for Hakim.
Same, girl, same ❤️
1:09:15 this is actually a point that really needs to be discussed. The entire idea is based on the premise that everyone needs to have a job and be working in a factory type setting. We should be asking why most of the jobs that we have even exists for one as you have already talked about jobs that did not exist and are just complete BS. But under real socialism and in a real society, you should not need a job to live. At the very least jobs that people would not want to do to serve the community. Like if we still have some bad sewage plant jobs then that would be seen more as community service that a lot of people would do but only do a couple hours a week or something like that.
No sound?????????
EDIT: i have sound now
@akito777 . ok thx it works now
You see this job? You see this job? Numbar vun bullsheet job
plesus
0:28 signs Hakim is getting old :(
I worked catering for charity auctions. At an auction to benefit child cancer research I had a rich weirdo demanding he get chicken nuggets that were reserved for the children with cancer
I would like to practice my English with some comrade. If you would enjoy to talk about politics and politics or and other stuff let's chat.