College administrative staff ranked among top 7 ‘biggest BS jobs in America’

‘Hosts of new provosts, vice chancellors, deans and deanlets’

A professor of anthropology at the London School of Economics wanted to know which jobs are the most pointless, from the job-holders themselves.

David Graeber spent the past year asking people to “send me accounts of their most useless occupations,” in response to surveys that find a third or more of workers in rich countries “are secretly convinced their jobs are pointless,” he writes in The New York Post.

Among the 7 jobs most frequently submitted to Graeber, whose disappearance would “make no real difference,” according to the workers themselves: “Academic administrative staff”!

Why it this a “bullshit job,” as Graeber puts it in his new book? He explains:

Over the last several decades, university administration has ballooned insanely — even while the number of teachers and students remain pretty much the same. There are hosts of new provosts, vice chancellors, deans and deanlets and even more, who all now have to be provided with tiny armies of assistants to make them feel important. First they hire them, then they decide what they’re going to do — which is mostly, make up new paperwork to give to teachers and students. As one complained: “Every dean needs his vice dean and sub-dean, and each of them needs a management team, secretaries, admin staff; all of them only there to make it harder for us to teach, to research, to carry out the most basic functions of our jobs.”

Sounds … persuasive.

Also on the list: “Student-paper writers.” Graeber says agencies employ “thousands” of these people to write essays and term papers for college students, and he cites one who said he is “largely writing countless papers about business and marketing”:

“It’s hard for me to imagine many folks are studying to get a BA in business administration because it’s their passion. So why not hire someone else to do the work? … I can’t help but think it’s all an enormous waste of time that largely functions as a stepping stone to getting my clients bulls–t jobs of their own as administrative coordinators, strategic-marketing consultants and financial-services specialists.”

The 7 biggest BS jobs in America by @davidgraeber.
Number 7: Academic administrative staff 😏 https://t.co/ppOwmbjfUg

— Lindsay Shepherd (@NewWorldHominin) May 20, 2018