There is only one type of job: Doing something someone else doesn't want to do.

Clinicallydepressedpoochie@lemmy.world to Showerthoughts@lemmy.world – 114 points –

Edit: tell me this doesn't sound stupid

There is only two types of jobs:

Doing something someone else doesn't want to do

Or

Doing something a specific other person can't do

The only thing I can think of that someone other than myself can't do is piss my wife off to no end. Not really a job, tho.

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There's also the job someone else is unable to do.

Ok, but I'm going to stretch some logic here. If they are unable to do it, wouldn't that mean they are unwilling to learn or figure it out?

I am disabled. No amount of learning will enable me to cook my own meal. But I would sure like to do it.

Still just messing around but would it actually be a job if someone else would do it for free?

Yes, paying someone makes it a job

Paying them because they don't want to do it.

Paying them because it's time wasted they could otherwise use to feed themselves or pay their bills doing something else.

Let me just quit my day job and learn the electrical code to install that new breaker panel I need. Gotta brush up on the gas fitting code too cause my furnace needs work. Then ill drive myself to the hospital where i will be my own nurse and my own surgeon.

The ability to learn is also linked with time, energy, and accessibility to resources.

So.. that's the point. You don't want to do all that...

I would love to be able to become a master of all trades. I cant put food on my table consistently unless I stick to one.

But you don't really want to because that would be really hard.

There are so many things you want to do or know that you are incapable of knowing or doing because you are too stupid to learn it. No amount of trying will be enough. Your specific brain is incapable. Not everyone has the same abilities to do or learn, but may want to if they could.

Things, not jobs. Job's are things people have and are capable of doing.

You're sitting over here telling me you don't want to learn to be a plumber, a pipe fitter, a doctor or a lawyer. Then you're saying you're not capable. But it's not just about you. Anyone can do the job, the job exists, just no one wants to do that specific task. UNLESS, they are paid for it.

Not everyone is capable of doing every job. The tasks of a recptionist are far different than those of a roofer. Jobs like emergency services can be high stress positions, jobs like assembly work can be rather dull sometimes. Everyone and every job is different.

You're telling me a roofer could never learn to be a receptionist or receptionist could never learn to be a roofer.

I'm telling you no one wants to work 40 hrs a week diving 200ft with an oxygen tank strapped to their back and a welding torch in their hand to make underwater repairs on an oil rig.

Great, you want to weld. Great, you want scuba. You don't want that fucking job, no one does.

No, but someone with a fear of heights could become a receptionist while struggle to become a roofer

Ok, but why would they want to be a roofer then?

Either way you're not hearing me. Jobs are real things. No one wants to spend 40 hours a week climbing on roofs in the hot summer sun. They could want to know that stuff and they could want a baked in tan for all I care but they don't want to exhaust their time and effort for nothing in return.

What if it takes 100 years for you to train for the job? So if you tried and failed, does it count as "not wanting to do that"?

wheelchair bound guy isn't running power lines in your neighborhood. literally CANT.

And all he dreams about is working 40 hours a week running powerlines.

I'm realizing now there is something really wrong with everyone ITT. It's like the only thing you imagine for yourself is having some sort of job.

Don't get me wrong. Work is good. Skills are good. Except no one should be fantasizing about back breaking labor until the day they die.

well it doesn't need to be back breaking I like networking and having an accomplished, finished task or job.

but the title was literally "job", and you set a challenge saying it's for someone who doesn't want to, of course you're going to 1000 examples why you're incorrect, it's nothing personal.

It's not incorrect everyone is just playing semantics.

You might like aspects of your job but explain to me why you wouldn't do it for free.

I do it for free. I take old or unused but still good equipment, and help friends setup their home networks.

Just as a sanity check for you, I think you're right about the people who choose to post on this thread.

"Something someone can't do", is a subset of "job", because a "job" literally is something you get money for, because other people don't wanna do it for some reason.

But the antiwork community is not here, and to be honest, your user of the word "type" in "only one type of job", muddles the meaning of the sentence a bit.

Not everyone is capable of learning or figuring it out.

Think about childhood dream jobs like rock star or astronaut.

Rock star: You need musical talent and stage presence, enough to entertain lots of people with your music. Me, I can sing in the shower and play some simple tunes on an instrument, but I'd starve if I tried to make it as a simple busker.

Astronaut: NASA requires a master's degree in a STEM field, at least 1000 hours as a jet pilot, and that you pass a physical. Not everyone is capable of earning a master's degree. Not everyone will be capable of learning to fly planes. And the physical -- ever heard of a blind astronaut? Or how about conditions where your bones are brittle? Hop on the rocket - SNAP! Oops, broken legs. Etc.

No, for all jobs there is only limited supply. If more people want the job than there are jobs available, some of the people who want the job must necessarily end up not getting the job.

Sometimes it is doing something nobody else can do

In my case, I get the impression that it's both.
Once during 2020 I got a phone call out of the blue from the technical manager. "Hey, would you like to be our new ?". Turns out my predecessor was looking for greener pastures.

When I told some coworkers about this, their reaction was "And you said yes??"

It's been four years now. Changed to a new employer last month, but I'm doing the exact same stuff, and I enjoy it.

Greener pa$ture$, I take it?

I think he wanted a different type of job. I, on the other hand, recently moved on to 30% greener pa$ture$, as the competition successfully poached me. Same type of job, exactly the same area of responsibility (networks and server clusters running in weird/hostile environments (no, not the Hamas installation under that hospital)), but with even more freedom and higher budget.

My workplace has heaps of cool jobs. No one person can do them all. So we have more people, doing cool jobs. The world is not all doom and gloom.

But really…. Do you, or annyone else, really want to be doing it? If you had the resources not to be and could do anything else like travel, spending time with loved ones, or even just sitting in your own filth, would you choose to do it?

I've done that - frankly I'm not wired for 100% leisure/do what you want. Motivation slips away when there's no meaning behind doing something.

He is still drunk on that koolaid, it takes sometime to figure it out.

What if you’re a professional burglar? Then, you’re doing something other people don’t want to do themselves, nor do they want you to do it either. The society doesn’t need burglars, but some people do it anyway.

If you're a professional burglar, then you have bills to pay so you'll be taking on jobs for clients or a fence. Therefore, you're doing the job your client/fence doesn't want to do themselves.

Also, while society might not need burglars, it sure is good at creating them.

I think then the secret to happiness would be to remain an amateur burglar, motivated by your passion for crime.

Do the job that needs to be done. That is how a lot of businesses get started, keeping an eye out for a need to fill. I used to go to my job and avoid doing work but eventually the boss tracked me down and gives me the shit job nobody wants to do. As I've grown wiser I realized if I take the initiative I can pick the job I want and some other sap gets stuck with the shit job.

This is categorically untrue. Jobs exist because one person can't do all the jobs.

1 person doesn't want to clean toilets; but 50 other people are okay with it.

Perhaps but someone's going to have to clean that toilet one way or the other.

The primary issue here is that there is a societal disparity between the toilet cleaner and let's say a CEO or a doctor or something along those lines. But there shouldn't be the doctor/ceo and toilet cleaner should get paid the same or there abouts in any case.

Cleaning a toilet should be just as important as heart surgery or running a multinational business.

There isn't one person tho.

If you have the owner of the business he can only perform so many tasks at once therefore that person must hire other people to perform more tasks.

Wanting or not wanting has nothing to do with performing jobs.

If there are jobs that people don't want to do therefore there must be jobs that people do want to do... What about those people? How do they fit in with your paradigm?

If someone wanted to do it why pay them? Why even call it a job?

Because we live in a faith-based monetary system. We need money to eat and sleep inside of a house. Desire and wanting to do jobs have nothing to do with that. It necessitates.

If we lived in a Star Trek utopian society where money was no longer the driving force of employment, there would still be jobs. There would even still be jobs that people don't want to do and they would still do them out of a sense of responsibility or even necessity.

The entirety of your original statement in this post is a non-sequitur.

I can love what I do as much as I want. But I'm going to become homeless and die if I don't get paid.

Lots of businesses use your logic to underpay people, like in the games industry and with Zoo Keepers, but at the end of the day they need something to stop them from dying

If you're not spending your employment trying to do what you want to do vs what your boss wants you to do... What are you even doing with your life!?

There is a big lesson in there folks...

Obviously, there a lot of limits on it but that's the right idea. The higher you go, the more freedom you can get.

But at the end of the day, it is the same shiti regime.

Doing something that requires more time than is available to one person.

I worked as an Outsource Manager at a couple of game companies (in addition to working for many years as a game artist). I outsourced mostly art asset creation, mostly to cheaper countries. It was kind of bittersweet, since it was clear to me and the artists at our studio that we were outsourcing really enjoyable work, work that our internal artists would rather have done than spend some of their time reviewing the cool art stuff these outsource artists created. But doing this allowed the studio to make a bigger, better game than our limited size team could do on their own.

So basically, I disagree with your premise. There are many sorts of jobs, for many reasons.

If that were the case, there wouldn't be an application and interview process.

There are often multiple candidates for a given position.

Edit: I read this as "no one" rather than "someone."

I understand that someone on earth might not want any given job.

Nah, some people need the money. It just happens to mainly come from jobs.

It's not even about the task. I sure there is some one who would like to do the task but it's never just that simple. You can't just be an astronaut, you have to; goto school; be exceptional; etc.

Scene from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine where Rom, the Ferengi, is telling his brother Quark "Workers of the world unite." Subtitles are visible in the image.

(Edit: Looks like... my Firefox is blocking this image from just loading (it thinks it's a "tracker", I guess... which maybe it is) even though it's a valid image tag. Not sure how many viewers are affected. I'll just link to the image instead.)

I think you've cracked the case. Good job. I'm being serious.