> It took 6 months of being stuck after reaching a local maxima in my career. I was working on menial, meaningless, tasks that I knew amounted to nothing while I was doing them. That caused my burnout.
This idea I think about a lot, and I believe another way to describe it is "alienation from labor," or, in the doing of labor, alienation from purpose or meaning. Marx wrote about alienation from labor:
> “If the product of labor is alien to me, if it confronts me as an alien power, to whom, then, does it belong? To a being other than myself.” (Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844)
> "Labour power is...a commodity which its possessor, the wage-worker, sells to capital. Why does he sell it? In order to live...the worker, who for twelve hours weaves, spins, drills, turns, builds, shovels, breaks stones, carries loads, etc.--does he consider this twelve hoursí weaving, spinning, drilling, turning, building, shovelling, stone breaking as a manifestation of his life? On the contrary, life begins for him where this activity ceases, at table, in the public house, in bed. The twelve hoursí labour...has no meaning for him...but as earnings, which bring him to the table, to the public house, into bed...." (Wage Labour and Capital, 1847)
Imo though I agree with Graeber that we've gone beyond just alienation from the product of labor and into alienation from all purpose, in a world where a huge swath of labor and productive energy is put towards genuinely useless things.
> "...a bullshit job is a form of employment that is so completely pointless, unnecessary, or pernicious that even the employee cannot justify its existence even though the employee feels obliged to pretend that this is not the case." Bullshit Jobs, a Theory
I once worked for a start up that got taken over. In the process all retained staff lost their options.
I don’t think the options were really worth that much so I guess we were supposed to just be happy we still had our jobs.
The pettiness of it though just sucked the life out of the work for me. I found it very hard to concentrate and very hard to give a shit about anything after that.
It’s a massive indicator that it’s time to move on.
> It took 6 months of being stuck after reaching a local maxima in my career. I was working on menial, meaningless, tasks that I knew amounted to nothing while I was doing them. That caused my burnout.
This idea I think about a lot, and I believe another way to describe it is "alienation from labor," or, in the doing of labor, alienation from purpose or meaning. Marx wrote about alienation from labor:
> “If the product of labor is alien to me, if it confronts me as an alien power, to whom, then, does it belong? To a being other than myself.” (Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844)
> "Labour power is...a commodity which its possessor, the wage-worker, sells to capital. Why does he sell it? In order to live...the worker, who for twelve hours weaves, spins, drills, turns, builds, shovels, breaks stones, carries loads, etc.--does he consider this twelve hoursí weaving, spinning, drilling, turning, building, shovelling, stone breaking as a manifestation of his life? On the contrary, life begins for him where this activity ceases, at table, in the public house, in bed. The twelve hoursí labour...has no meaning for him...but as earnings, which bring him to the table, to the public house, into bed...." (Wage Labour and Capital, 1847)
Imo though I agree with Graeber that we've gone beyond just alienation from the product of labor and into alienation from all purpose, in a world where a huge swath of labor and productive energy is put towards genuinely useless things.
> "...a bullshit job is a form of employment that is so completely pointless, unnecessary, or pernicious that even the employee cannot justify its existence even though the employee feels obliged to pretend that this is not the case." Bullshit Jobs, a Theory