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In 2018, David Graeber made the term ‘bullshit jobs’ famous, arguing that over half of societal work is pointless and becomes psychologically destructive when paired with a work ethic that associates productivity with self-worth. Now with the advent of AI and quantum computing, the need for human labour and, in fact, human cognition in the workplace, is in rapid decline. If this decline led to more freedom for humans to pursue their passions and talents and learn and grow without fear of the bottom rung of Maslow’s hierarchy being forsaken, then this could be an evolution not only for society but a spiritual enlightenment. A levelling up of human consciousness, fuelled by our newfound availability to ponder and philosophise. The reality is that we are still trapped within the old systems of scarcity, having to make ends meet, whilst being fed the lie that suffering through labour makes one virtuous. We’re at a crossroads, lacking clear direction and understanding of the future.
Recently, tech startup Artisan caused a stir with an ad campaign that made it very clear how inhumane the workplace has become. To push their AI assistant SaaS, the group published billboards and outdoor advertising all over San Francisco, using slogans such as, “Artisans (their AI personal assistants) won’t come into work hungover.’ ‘Artisans won’t complain about work-life balance,’ which could all just be replaced with, ‘Robots have zero human needs and can be exploited 24/7 without complaint,’ but that would be saying the quiet part out loud.
History demonstrates the perpetual struggle between employer and employee. The power of employers is exerted through the exploitation of employees; they feed their endless greediness with increased profits soaked up from cost-cutting initiatives (no, you’re not being fired; we are “right-sizing” our labour force in a transitory streamlining of operations). If it wasn’t for the unions, workers rights wouldn’t even be a concept. However, the distinction between employer and employee has become far more hazy over time with the rise of the white-collar worker and the growth of corporations needing a large labour force of varying management tiers and teams to operate. As a result, the middle class boomed and developed a peculiar set of values, distinguishing themselves as superior in intelligence to the classes below and superior in ethics to the myopic, profit-driven, wealth hoarders above, despite idolising numerous en vogue billionaires and craving some semblance of such a lifestyle.
It is these pseudo-erudite halfwits that become inadvertent arbiters for the insidious agendas of the elite. Smart enough to perform well enough to help maintain corporate profit for shareholders, but not smart enough to question what the point of any of this is truly for and why these spreadsheets take up such a sizable chunk of their existence. For many, the salary benefits and perceived prestige are enough. They adopt personas more robotic than a cyborg because the corporation likes efficiency and frowns upon emotion. The irony that those hiding their human needs, desires, feelings, and flaws to stand the best chance of promotion are now being replaced by actual AI with even fewer glitches, like the need to sleep, is lost on them. Indoctrinated from early childhood thanks to state education to believe in objective success criteria, convinced that the bigger the corporation worked for, the more successful one is as a person.
Pitching self-worth to a career further amplifies the necessary fission between the laptop class and the common man. Being perpetually embedded with the notion that the most intelligent amongst us will go to university and then work for big business, making this path inherently superior to school leavers that set up their own businesses or have less “prestigious” jobs, creates a pretentious and patronising tier of society. Whilst historically there may have been some minuscule rationality to this claim, it no longer holds weight except in the minds of those in management positions in FTSE 500s that need to believe it. With access to campus education now virtually impossible for low-income households, the plummeting quality of degrees, and the ability to learn new skills via online courses, this snobbery of essentially educated morons should be mocked in both its audacity and ludicrousness.
Having attended a private school as an allegedly gifted child from a working-class town, it became quite apparent that the children primed as the future leaders of tomorrow were no more brilliant than the average state school pupil. The key differences being that they had private tutors to inflate their grades, networks and resources to gain access to internships and be financially supported through them, and a superiority complex driven into them throughout adolescence, that they’re better than those from poorer areas. There’s an overarching belief that those in more menial career roles are inferior, which, given the servile nature of these corporate drones to their managers, is as hilarious as it is appalling.
The problem with this attitude is that it leads to hive-mind thinking and behaviours. Information is dismissed unless it’s in correlation with what is already believed to be true, because these people are far too smart to be duped, earning 6 figures, with poncey job titles, having right-think embedded into them through DEI training and corporate media. Even those with critical thinking skills, sensing that certain things aren’t adding up, are unable to speak out for fear of social rejection by the rest of the corporate set, ignorantly doing the bidding of Satan. The child labour, the sweatshops, the suicide-stopping nets in Chinese factories—all done to minimise costs and drive profits for these corporations that really care. That’s why they provide well-being afternoons and put beanbags in offices. Encouraging employees to engage in sponsored charity fun runs, putting pennies into community projects, and greenwashing initiatives purely for their marketing arm to drive more profits whilst continuing exploitation.
Whilst it’s neither fair nor accurate to assess all corporate climbers in this way, there’s an overall haughtiness to justify this argument. Drinking Chateauneuf du Pape to numb the void of bullshit jobs and a miserable life instead of special brew doesn’t make one man superior to another. It’s the same sense of lack of fulfilment as the sad sack sat on the park bench; it’s just their bench is inside a designer home full of material crap that temporarily eases the pain of emptiness through the vanity of believing other people will be impressed by the possessions accumulated to fill the vacuity of pointless corporate existence. How ironic, how replaceable these people are, like a pitiful cog in an evil machine. Loss mourned, seat filled within 48 hours, meaning nothing to the company they dedicated their lives to. Smelling of Chanel No. 5 instead of cat piss doesn’t make these people any less lost than the man on the bench. In fact, it’s almost worse because at least the man on the bench has some semblance of a soul left. That’s why he’s there and not in an ill-fitting suit waxing lyrical about “web3,” “deep diving,” and “blue sky thinking,” to avoid “circling back” because he didn’t “drink the Kool-Aid” and become a sycophantic dingleberry for reptiles whose only concern is accumulating more wealth and power for themselves.
So here we are. Staring at the wreckage of a world designed to divide humanity and redirect any defiance towards one another, pacified in our relationship to power, neutered, leaving us grinning like lobotomised fools in the glow of our black mirrors. A curated little hellscape cubicle, wrapped in dopamine hits and corporate platitudes, as if “mindfulness breaks” and “team-building exercises” are anything more than shackles made of softer metal.
But let’s be clear: knowing all this, raging against it, isn’t enough. Screaming into the void is just another way to waste breath. You want out? You want to break the loop? Then stop feeding it. Walk away. Rip the needle out of your arm and quit mainlining their distractions. Unplug from the endless cycle of consumption and actually build something. Make, don’t take. Create, don’t critique. Find a skill that isn’t just another line on a resume designed to impress people who wouldn’t notice if you dropped dead tomorrow. Grow your own food. Learn to fix what’s broken instead of replacing it with plastic garbage. Teach yourself how to fight, not just with words, but with action.
You are not powerless without your job title, without your career, without them. That’s the great con, the lie they spoon-feed you from birth—that you are no more than your labour value, that you are small, that the machine is too big. But even the biggest fire starts with a spark. So burn. Not with mindless rage, not with impotent screaming into the abyss, but with purpose. With intent. With the quiet, unstoppable force of someone who has woken up and refuses to go back to sleep.
