The Myth of Meaningful Work: Are You Stuck in a Bull Shit Job

In the ever-evolving landscape of the corporate world, it’s challenging to navigate the constant rebranding of old concepts or the lifeless amplification of buzzwords like ‘innovation,’ ‘transformation,’ and ‘agility.’ These terms echo in every C-suite discussion and company mission statement, creating an illusion of meaningful work.

Yet, beneath these trendy terms, many HR professionals grapple with the reality that their roles lack purpose. If your day can be summed up as a collection of meetings with no outcomes, then you might have what David Graeber calls a Bullshit (BS) Job.

Now, before you throw stones at my glass house, remember that those who hate the idea of BS Jobs often come from HR. So, tread carefully.

Today, I’m diving into what a BS Job might be and how to transform out of it. But first, we need to assess if you even have a BS job in the first place. To help with that, I’ve created a 1980s teenager magazine quiz (complete with next-level clip art). Click the image below titled “BS Quiz” to download and get your BS Score. Go do the quiz and come back; don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere.

BS Role Quiz

So, you’re back. You’re either feeling great, or you’re browsing job sites. Either way, let’s add some context to that score. Let’s look at what a BS job tends to look like on a day-to-day basis.

A Day In The Life of a BS Job

7:00 AM - Wake Up: A jolt to the system as your alarm (Apple iPhone alarms are the worst) wakes you up. You have a sinking feeling, knowing that the day ahead will be filled with tasks and meetings that seem to lack any real purpose. On the commute, you frantically try to use this golden hour to do something meaningful because your working hours are accounted for by other people’s demands.

8:00 AM - Arrival at the Office: You walk into the office, grab a cup of coffee, and settle in. The day’s schedule is already packed, but not with tasks that feel meaningful or impactful. Instead, you have meetings with a leader or peer whose whole mission is self-brand protection. They often lack self-awareness and can’t see why their team is constantly in meetings or why everyone sits quietly like sheep around them.

9:00 AM - Team Meeting: The first of many meetings for the day. The agenda is vague if it exists at all. The discussion meanders from one topic to another without any clear direction. Decisions are deferred, action items remain ambiguous, and everyone is no better off.

10:30 AM - Email & Teams Overload: You spend the next hour sifting through a barrage of emails, most of which are CCs on threads that have little to do with your actual role. The few that are relevant involve bureaucratic processes or approvals that seem unnecessary.

Noon - Lunch: Lunchtime conversations with colleagues often revolve around shared frustrations. There’s a clear sense of disappointment as many feel they’re not utilizing their skills or making a difference. Occasionally, this tends to be where some valuable work happens due to the safe space for sharing frustrations.

1:00 PM - Back-to-Back Meetings: The afternoon is a blur of meetings. There’s a project update, a “fun” quiz meeting, and an Ops meeting, where a leader asks the team why their employee listening results are so low. The leadership team doesn’t dare flag the problem for fear of career repercussions. Everyone leaves talking quietly about how someone in that position could have such a high role and not get beyond their problem blindness. The result: time used up with no actions, not to mention lengthy presentations, politics, and discussions that don’t lead to concrete actions.

4:00 PM - Paperwork and Admin Tasks: The few hours of “free” time are spent navigating the company’s internal systems, filling out forms, and handling administrative tasks. You check in on the team who, let’s be honest, are the engine of the business. They come to you asking for the direction of the function, but you can’t tell them because your leader’s direction changes like the wind. Instead, you reassure them and do everything you can to future-proof them. However, you know in the back of your mind that over time, they will become a flight risk because, like you, they are now struggling to find purpose and feel like a sharp sword going blunt.

5:30 PM - Reflection: As the day winds down, there’s a sense of exhaustion, but not the fulfilling kind that comes from a day of productive work. Instead, it’s the fatigue of feeling like a cog in a machine, doing tasks, and being paid for the word count used in meetings. As you commute back home, you decide to just have a quick scan on LinkedIn Jobs—it’s not like you’re actively looking or anything.

The Underlying Issues:

A day in a BS job is characterized by a lack of tangible outcomes, endless bureaucracy, office politics, and a feeling of being trapped in a cycle of meaningless tasks. The absence of clear communication, the hold of redundant processes, and the lack of empowerment to make decisions amplify the feeling of purposelessness. Over time, this can lead to burnout, low morale, and high turnover.

The corporate world is not without its complexities. The rise of expansive organizational structures and the push for specialization have led to roles that, while specific in their tasks, might lack a broader purpose. Bureaucracy, redundancies, and the often overwhelming emphasis on appeasing egos, directionless leaders, and the dreaded Peter Principle can make you question the real value you can bring.

The Rub

Chances are, we all have elements of our job that are BS. Unfortunately, that’s just how it is. However, if you map out your day-to-day and start to notice that your whole day, day after day, is just a list of BS elements, then you may want to start asking yourself some tricky questions about the purpose it provides and the shelf life of your role.

94% of employee interaction with HR is now done through AI and automation, speeding up the completion of many HR tasks by up to 75%.

Now, perhaps you didn’t take the quiz; that’s fine. Here is a simple, yet grounding, truth:

If nurses and doctors stopped working tomorrow, the whole place would fall apart within hours and days. If the bin men decided enough was enough, the impact would be seen within days and weeks.

Now apply that question to your role: would the team fall apart if you disappeared? Would that project never get delivered? If your instant answer to these questions is yes, then you haven’t thought about the question long enough.