Here, though, I want to focus on what students forced into these make-work jobs actually learn from them—lessons that they do not learn from more traditional student occupations and pursuits such as studying for tests, planning parties, and so on. Even judging by Brendan’s and Patrick’s accounts (and I could easily reference many others), I think we can conclude that from these jobs, students learn at least five things:
- how to operate under others’ direct supervision;
- how to pretend to work even when nothing needs to be done;
- that one is not paid money to do things, however useful or important, that one actually enjoys;
- that one is paid money to do things that are in no way useful or important and that one does not enjoy; and
- that at least in jobs requiring interaction with the public, even when one is being paid to carry out tasks that one does not enjoy, one also has to pretend to be enjoying it.
…
Yet at the same time, it is precisely the make-believe aspect of their work that student workers like Patrick and Brendan find the most infuriating—indeed, that just about anyone who’s ever had a wage-labor job that was closely supervised finds the most maddening aspect of the job. Working serves a purpose, or is meant to do so. Being forced to pretend to work just for the sake of working is an indignity, since the demand is perceived—rightly—as the pure exercise of power for its own sake. If make-believe play is the purest expression of human freedom, make-believe work imposed by others is the purest expression of lack of freedom. It’s not entirely surprising, then, that the first historical evidence we have for the notion that certain categories of people really ought to be working at all times, even if there’s nothing to do, and that work needs to be made to fill their time, even if there’s nothing that really needs doing, refers to people who are not free: prisoners and slaves, two categories that historically have largely overlapped.
…
Of course, we learned our lesson: if you’re on the clock, do not be too efficient. You will not be rewarded, not even by a gruff nod of acknowledgement (which is all we were really expecting). Instead, you’ll be punished with meaningless busywork. And being forced to pretend to work, we discovered, was the most absolute indignity—because it was impossible to pretend it was anything but what it was: pure degradation, a sheer exercise of the boss’s power for its own sake. It didn’t matter that we were only pretending to scrub the baseboard. Every moment spent pretending to scour the baseboard felt like some schoolyard bully gloating at us over our shoulders—except, of course, this time, the bully had the full force of law and custom on his side.
Graeber, David. Bullshit Jobs : A Theory. New York : Simon & Schuster, 2018. p. 86, 92, 99
