the Zealous

In his 2018 book, Bullshit Jobs: A Theory, David Graebe, anthropologist and an early founder of the Occupy Wall Street movement, recounts the rise in the last century of “bullshit jobs”: occupations that serve no socially useful function, and instead cause soul-crushing psychological suffering to those forced to take on such work. Graebe contends that as much as forty percent of all jobs in the world are bullshit, which he defines as:

a form of paid employment that is so completely pointless, unnecessary, or pernicious that even the employee cannot justify its existence even though, as part of the conditions of employment, the employee feels obliged to pretend that this is not the case.

Graeber catalogs five different species of bullshit jobs: flunkies, goons, duct tapers, box tickers, and taskmasters. He indicts all “corporate lawyers” as falling into the “goons” category.

Big companies have procurement departments that use supplier contracts that contain clauses like this (from an actual big company supplier agreement (presented as "non-negotiable") for the purchase of off-site services, and one that already imposes robust confidentiality obligations on the supplier):

Supplier will: (a) designate one employee to be in charge of Supplier’s information security program; (b) maintain adequate physical security of all premises in which BIGCO Information will be processed and/or stored including that physical media containing such records is stored in locked facilities, storage areas or containers; (c) implement reasonable precautions with respect to the employment of, and access given to, Supplier personnel and contractors, including background checks; screening; security clearances that assign specific access privileges to individuals; training and security awareness programs for personnel and contractors; monito

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I recently took a major personal and professional leap: I switched to Windows from Mac, after nearly 20 years of being a dedicated Apple fan-boy.

I have been a Mac-addict since 2002, when my then-new employer at the time allowed me to acquire whatever new computer I wanted. MacOS X had just been released, with much buzz and hoopla. I chose Mac as an act of defiance, a repudiation of what I perceived to be an oppressively conformist Windows environment. It was also a nod to my past; my first ever home computer was an Apple II+, purchased by my father when I was fourteen.