not at all. the author, said he was getting his obligations done and making his boss's life easier. that's a win for both the employee, the boss and the company.

why do you think it's morally acceptable for an employee to negotiate as toughly as possible for his/her salary but not for their time? It's all a negotiation process. the key thing is, he's meeting his agreed upon obligations. whether or not you do it efficiently (like him) or inefficiently wasting all your time is up to you.

maybe.

i think the types of environments that foster the culture of bullshit jobs are bereft of conscience (ymmv as far as how you react to that in your own job).

additionally, many people within those environments feel that scrutiny or lack of job security even when they play by the rules.

something i've been thinking about a lot lately is that i don't feel very bad being cynical about these kinds of systems when they're helmed by people who are cynical about me. if my job is at risk due to mismanagement, restructuring, "the market" or anything else that would cause my employer to see me as a line item and not a human being with needs, i have every right to view my employment as an asset to manipulate as i see fit as well. turnabout is fair play. conversely, i've also been lucky to have had some good bosses and i don't act as ruthlessly in those situations.

Came here to say exactly this. Every interaction becomes a lie. I can bullshit with the best of them but doing it every day is not a path to satisfaction for me personally. Trying to do a side hustle at the same time only makes it worse.

Isn't this illegal actually? Unsure in the US but I would bet it is in many countries. It feels deceptive/scammy.

Yup, whenever someone asks "how many people work on your team?", I usually answer: "about one third..."

> I’m glad you finally quit and I hope you never apply for or are offered a job again.

Never is a long time. Do you not think it's possible that this person could end up in a different environment and be very successful as an employee and be a great asset to her employer? Is there a reason you personally wouldn't want this to happen at any point in the future?

There is a class of people who resent their job based purely on political motives and I can't stand them. If you don't think you're doing enough, try and pick up new work. Don't be afraid to add value to society.

There is an irony that people who tend to resent work are often the same people who proselytize about unions are despite the fact if they were offered a real union job they'd turn their nose up at it. People like this author ruin high-trust societies and hopefully she's only able to work low-trust positions now that she's published this.

[dead]

> waaaahhhhh you broke your promise!! to your employer!!

my current employer broke no fewer than two promises they had made to me within a few months of my starting there. they did this simply because they could: it was cheaper for them and they knew there was little I could do in response. so you'll forgive me if I don't give half a fuck about these people, and do as little work as i can get away with

The thing is that it’s not polar. You can actually take a wider view and learn to optimize for selfish reasons, and once you’ve figured out the program you can go back to what you’re most comfortable with having a new perspective on how to do your job more efficiently.

And if you want to divide up the world along a couple of axes into job usefulness and how much the worker cares, then the author of the article was in the “useless job and cared”, while you are in the quadrant of caring and have a useful job best I can tell — which is great. Some people have useless jobs and don’t care much about their job but are happy to get paid. If you for example are a teacher of small children who depend upon you and you basically don’t care then that’s problematic while having a BS job that you care about a lot about is probably mostly an organizational / bad management situation.