Wow! I totally agree with the commenters stating that you write well and have tremendous insight … I typically don’t comment on blogs. THANK YOU for your last paragraph! I was going to ask you to walk in the shoes of an Anesthesiologist during a typical OR day where you are supervising 4 ORs, which means at the same time seeing 4 Pre-Op patients and caring for 4+ patients in the Recovery Room. And, guess what - the ORs don’t stop for lunch or coffee breaks or anything other than one of your patients is trying to die on you. My first wife was a teacher and never understood that. Second time around I married another Anesthesiologist - she understood. Anyway, I don’t have to mention any of that because of your last paragraph 😉. (One side note - when an old fart like me retires it takes 1.3 full-time-equivalents to replace my Anesthesiologist work load. The younger generations don’t want to work as hard.)
One of the way Elon motivates his employees is he simply asks them to work as hard as he does. How many financial gurus sleep on the floor of the NYSE and hold an employee meeting at 2 am because it is needed right then! Elon does!
I totally agree that a vast majority of people don’t really work … that is why the vast majority of people won’t start their own business … too much work.
On the other hand I don't know how Elon finds the time to write so much nonsense on social media, start fights with random celebrities, or fake achievements in video games and brag about it everywhere. It seems he only works hard when the time is right.
This all comes down to a failure of leadership. I’ve seen leaders tolerate or even in some cases encourage empire-building in their organizations. All these people in the mini-empires then set about to make themselves look important, but without any clue to what CUSTOMERS care about. The result is a bloated mess of a company that stops listening to customers and focuses instead on internecine battles.
My anecdotal observation is that marketing teams are just about the worst for this. Irony.
Ever since reading Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber, I’ve been unable to unsee it: the strange machinery of the public sector where some of us are cogs grinding away furiously—and others are ornamental bolts that haven’t moved in years.
Here’s the part no one wants to say out loud: the more competent you are, the more invisible your exhaustion becomes. I’ve seen my role backfilled by two people after I moved, while others have drifted out of the org and left no ripple, no increased workload, no urgency to replace them.
It’s like a human version of Jevons Paradox: the more productive I become, the more I’m leaned on until I become infrastructure—and infrastructure doesn’t complain, right?
What we’re living through isn’t just inefficiency—it’s systemic exploitation of conscientious workers camouflaged by bureaucracy and unspoken rules. If we ever want real reform in the public sector, we need to start with this truth: the system doesn’t reward value, it consumes it.
This is why I’m trying to start my own blog - Confessions of an Invisible Contributor but I’m too damn busy with make work projects to maintain consistency.
I find you fascinating. Very smart in a bunch of ways. And totally, dumb-f*ck stupid in others. I think (meaning 'maybe wrong but happy to revise my opinion') it's that your mental model is stuck in 'economics' instead of 'society'. I've read your stuff. I know you talk about people, yourself, and how we live our lives, interact, and connect. Then you write this piece of drivel.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on small business owners. Government regulations break these people and destroy lives. They work often over 100 hrs/week. The government seems to want to shut them down. As an example, the Amish farmer that was shut down because some of his milk was contaminated with Listeria.
Something like a combo of Airbnb and Angie’s list or Yelp could help push bad businesses out or help them improve.
Keeping the torturous tax structure and the IRS because TurboTax, CPAs, tax attorneys, and H&R Block might have to find new work seems cruel and inhumane. Allowing abuse of the justice system to attack your competition or simply to win money from anyone you can, may be one of the greatest threats to this country, as it forces people to only work for large corporations. . . Where output and productivity are diminished, free will and autonomy are almost non-existent, and where good people go to die.
Problem is that those spending all their time politicking get the upper hand and are happy to keep people who are actually working hard in their lower place. So work hard and spend your life waiting for the windfall or get smart and work mediocre.
A lot of this comes down to accountability, which depends on the position. Some jobs are easy to measure, others difficult. But it could be as simple as an email to your superior of what did you do last week ;).
In my job, my annual eval was a peer review. Which translated into a popularity contest. My supervisor really didn’t know how well I did my job. Although she had a good idea that I was performing far and above.
BTW, I worked my butt off because I wanted perfection for my patients.
My last job was in training at the Houston Airport. There was no incentive and no raises. I knew that going in, but I have this bad habit. Three times a day I like to eat. The director got a cob up his ass and decided that all the employees should consider their jobs to be the most important thing in their lives. I had trouble figuring out how to motivate a single mother to be the best and most efficient toilet scrubber in town. But everybody likes a clean restroom. I found Steven Covey to be helpful in this regard.
I agree that most companies are overstaffed and Elon Musk has proven that to be the case. My experience has been that massive layoffs are a godsend to many of the affected employees. The others manage to land on their feet anyway.
Good rant. Big personal service organizations struggle with this even where the right incentives are in place. It's hard to filter who is a self starter, uber producer and who will end up being a free loader. Honest reviews are key but most people are scared to give direct feedback. Tough problem to solve in large companies with embedded middle layer. Companies with magic money machines, v. magic people---seems like you could easily fix that with the right leadership. X is a good example.
The idiots at DOGE apparently never seen The Office and don't understand that not only do government workers not work, but private corporation people don't either.
My thinking about this is that a lot of people are in the wrong jobs. Someone wants to be say a game developer, but they are doing some other job to pay the bills. A lot of people don't know how to go about doing the thing they actually love. So apart from incentives and simply how most jobs and work environments are setup, you have a lot of people who would rather be doing something else.
In the waning days of the Soviet Union they had a saying, "We pretend to work and they pretend to pay us."
Everybody had a side hustle or two to make ends meet. Except the boss, who had a nice house, a nice car, and food from the special import store. This was still going on in Cuba when we visited last year.
Some comrades are just a lot more equal than others and people aren't stupid. They see it.
They know how it works, expect them to get more. Up to a point, past which they just don't play.
Turns out, Late Stage Capitalism has it's own version of the same disease.
Dillan has some of the best writings on Sub! Love your content, buddy!
Awesome insights.
Well done!
Wow! I totally agree with the commenters stating that you write well and have tremendous insight … I typically don’t comment on blogs. THANK YOU for your last paragraph! I was going to ask you to walk in the shoes of an Anesthesiologist during a typical OR day where you are supervising 4 ORs, which means at the same time seeing 4 Pre-Op patients and caring for 4+ patients in the Recovery Room. And, guess what - the ORs don’t stop for lunch or coffee breaks or anything other than one of your patients is trying to die on you. My first wife was a teacher and never understood that. Second time around I married another Anesthesiologist - she understood. Anyway, I don’t have to mention any of that because of your last paragraph 😉. (One side note - when an old fart like me retires it takes 1.3 full-time-equivalents to replace my Anesthesiologist work load. The younger generations don’t want to work as hard.)
One of the way Elon motivates his employees is he simply asks them to work as hard as he does. How many financial gurus sleep on the floor of the NYSE and hold an employee meeting at 2 am because it is needed right then! Elon does!
I totally agree that a vast majority of people don’t really work … that is why the vast majority of people won’t start their own business … too much work.
Great article!
On the other hand I don't know how Elon finds the time to write so much nonsense on social media, start fights with random celebrities, or fake achievements in video games and brag about it everywhere. It seems he only works hard when the time is right.
This all comes down to a failure of leadership. I’ve seen leaders tolerate or even in some cases encourage empire-building in their organizations. All these people in the mini-empires then set about to make themselves look important, but without any clue to what CUSTOMERS care about. The result is a bloated mess of a company that stops listening to customers and focuses instead on internecine battles.
My anecdotal observation is that marketing teams are just about the worst for this. Irony.
Weird that a cleaner who works hard 80 hours a day makes barely anything but a finance bro does the same and comes away with millions.
This article is just finance asshole makes finance asshole assumptions about the rest of the world.
This hit me like a freight train.
Ever since reading Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber, I’ve been unable to unsee it: the strange machinery of the public sector where some of us are cogs grinding away furiously—and others are ornamental bolts that haven’t moved in years.
Here’s the part no one wants to say out loud: the more competent you are, the more invisible your exhaustion becomes. I’ve seen my role backfilled by two people after I moved, while others have drifted out of the org and left no ripple, no increased workload, no urgency to replace them.
It’s like a human version of Jevons Paradox: the more productive I become, the more I’m leaned on until I become infrastructure—and infrastructure doesn’t complain, right?
What we’re living through isn’t just inefficiency—it’s systemic exploitation of conscientious workers camouflaged by bureaucracy and unspoken rules. If we ever want real reform in the public sector, we need to start with this truth: the system doesn’t reward value, it consumes it.
This is why I’m trying to start my own blog - Confessions of an Invisible Contributor but I’m too damn busy with make work projects to maintain consistency.
I find you fascinating. Very smart in a bunch of ways. And totally, dumb-f*ck stupid in others. I think (meaning 'maybe wrong but happy to revise my opinion') it's that your mental model is stuck in 'economics' instead of 'society'. I've read your stuff. I know you talk about people, yourself, and how we live our lives, interact, and connect. Then you write this piece of drivel.
Jared,
I’d love to hear your thoughts on small business owners. Government regulations break these people and destroy lives. They work often over 100 hrs/week. The government seems to want to shut them down. As an example, the Amish farmer that was shut down because some of his milk was contaminated with Listeria.
Something like a combo of Airbnb and Angie’s list or Yelp could help push bad businesses out or help them improve.
Keeping the torturous tax structure and the IRS because TurboTax, CPAs, tax attorneys, and H&R Block might have to find new work seems cruel and inhumane. Allowing abuse of the justice system to attack your competition or simply to win money from anyone you can, may be one of the greatest threats to this country, as it forces people to only work for large corporations. . . Where output and productivity are diminished, free will and autonomy are almost non-existent, and where good people go to die.
Problem is that those spending all their time politicking get the upper hand and are happy to keep people who are actually working hard in their lower place. So work hard and spend your life waiting for the windfall or get smart and work mediocre.
A lot of this comes down to accountability, which depends on the position. Some jobs are easy to measure, others difficult. But it could be as simple as an email to your superior of what did you do last week ;).
In my job, my annual eval was a peer review. Which translated into a popularity contest. My supervisor really didn’t know how well I did my job. Although she had a good idea that I was performing far and above.
BTW, I worked my butt off because I wanted perfection for my patients.
My last job was in training at the Houston Airport. There was no incentive and no raises. I knew that going in, but I have this bad habit. Three times a day I like to eat. The director got a cob up his ass and decided that all the employees should consider their jobs to be the most important thing in their lives. I had trouble figuring out how to motivate a single mother to be the best and most efficient toilet scrubber in town. But everybody likes a clean restroom. I found Steven Covey to be helpful in this regard.
I agree that most companies are overstaffed and Elon Musk has proven that to be the case. My experience has been that massive layoffs are a godsend to many of the affected employees. The others manage to land on their feet anyway.
Good rant. Big personal service organizations struggle with this even where the right incentives are in place. It's hard to filter who is a self starter, uber producer and who will end up being a free loader. Honest reviews are key but most people are scared to give direct feedback. Tough problem to solve in large companies with embedded middle layer. Companies with magic money machines, v. magic people---seems like you could easily fix that with the right leadership. X is a good example.
The idiots at DOGE apparently never seen The Office and don't understand that not only do government workers not work, but private corporation people don't either.
My thinking about this is that a lot of people are in the wrong jobs. Someone wants to be say a game developer, but they are doing some other job to pay the bills. A lot of people don't know how to go about doing the thing they actually love. So apart from incentives and simply how most jobs and work environments are setup, you have a lot of people who would rather be doing something else.
In the waning days of the Soviet Union they had a saying, "We pretend to work and they pretend to pay us."
Everybody had a side hustle or two to make ends meet. Except the boss, who had a nice house, a nice car, and food from the special import store. This was still going on in Cuba when we visited last year.
Some comrades are just a lot more equal than others and people aren't stupid. They see it.
They know how it works, expect them to get more. Up to a point, past which they just don't play.
Turns out, Late Stage Capitalism has it's own version of the same disease.