From Quiet Quitting to Leadership
Breaking The Myth of Bullshit Jobs
Guest Post by Tom N. Ianova
We recently published a pair of essays written by Gen Z writers exploring the concept of Bullshit Jobs. You can read them here and here. We recently received a response to these essays that pushes back against the entire idea of Bullshit Jobs. Tom N. Ianova (pseudonym) is a friend of The Savage Collective and thoroughly Gen X. Tom is a serial entrepreneur, operator, venture investor, and a keen writer and thinker about the ways that private enterprise contributes to human flourishing. Tom and Grant have been sparring intellectually about the nature and limitations of modern capitalism for over a decade. Tom shares some of Grant's concerns about the nature of Machine Capitalism, but unlike Grant, has actually hired people, designed job descriptions, and run successful businesses. We think that this a valuable contribution to this discussion. Again, if you are interested in writing a piece for the Savage Collective, please drop us a line. We've been greatly edified by this conversation.
“He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much.” Luke 16:10
At the Savage Collective, the discussion about “bullshit jobs” and the phenomenon of quiet quitting has taken on new life, thanks to the recent essays by Anthony Scholle and Amelia Buzzard. Scholle’s thoughtful exploration of the role work plays in human flourishing, alongside Buzzard’s candid account of her disillusionment with bureaucratic inertia, invites us to grapple with the deeper questions of what makes work meaningful and how we respond when it’s not.
While I share their concerns about the disconnect many feel in their work, I’d like to offer a different perspective. Specifically, I question the concept of “bullshit jobs” and suggest that quiet quitting, rather than being a liberating response, may ultimately harm both the individual and the workplace.
Why “Bullshit Jobs” Are a Myth
Scholle’s and Buzzard’s discussions of job dissatisfaction resonate deeply, but the idea of “bullshit jobs,” as popularized by David Graeber, merits a closer look. Graeber argued that many jobs in modern economies serve no real purpose, existing only to sustain the machinery of capitalism. But this is not how market economies actually operate.
In a competitive marketplace, jobs are created to enable companies to meet real needs or solve real problems. Companies only hire people when they need them. Take a company that hires someone for a task no one really needs—soon enough, that job will be trimmed. In a competitive environment, if you’re not providing real value, you don’t survive. Efficiency is the market’s regulator, and inefficiency is not just wasteful but fatal.
Of course, inefficiency can creep in—particularly in highly profitable organizations or those experiencing rapid growth. Large, successful companies may tolerate inefficiencies because their financial strength allows it, as we’ve seen at Twitter prior to Elon Musk’s restructuring. You have to be incredibly successful to be able to afford to pay people who are just punching the clock. However, this inefficiency isn’t evidence of systemic “bullshit jobs”; rather, it reflects the challenges in aligning capacity with demand. And contrary to Graeber’s assertion, a company can only be successful if it is actually meeting someone’s needs.
Admittedly, in non-market environments free from competitive pressures—such as government agencies, state-sponsored monopolies, or nonprofits—misaligned incentives often lead to inefficiencies. For instance, a friend of mine successfully spun out a major defense research program from a university into a commercial startup. In the process, they reduced staff by 60% while simultaneously improving service times by 93%. This stark improvement highlights how a lack of market pressure can lead to bloat.
Take Amelia’s experience with an overstaffed university department. Her role wasn’t without value—university administrators are essential to keeping operations running smoothly. But she found herself in a system that over-hired, unable to align its workforce with actual demand. Misaligned incentives can create inefficiencies that frustrate both workers and stakeholders.
Why Some Jobs Feel Crappy
Scholle identifies a key challenge: even jobs that provide real value can feel disconnected, monotonous, or overly demanding.
Just like the experience captured at the Paris zoo in Rainer Maria Rilke’s poem “The Panther” many people report feeling trapped.
His vision, from the constantly passing bars,
has grown so weary that it cannot hold
anything else. It seems to him there are
a thousand bars; and behind the bars, no world.
His critique, however, points to poor job design as a root cause, a point supported by decades of research.
Industrial psychologists J. Richard Hackman and Greg Oldham’s Job Characteristics Model highlights factors that make work meaningful: task significance, autonomy, feedback, and skill variety. When these elements are absent, jobs can feel stifling, regardless of their broader societal value.
A building can only be as good as its blueprint. If the design is flawed - heavy loads on weak supports, poor airflow or utilization of space can result in a structure that is uncomfortable and unsafe no matter how skilled the builders are. A thoughtful blueprint ensures everything works for practical function as well as aesthetic form. The design of a job matters.
This isn’t a flaw inherent to capitalism but factors of the division of labor and working at scale. That said, same design issues are at play even on a family farm. Just as a skilled mechanic can fine-tune an engine, thoughtful managers can redesign jobs to foster engagement and satisfaction.
Quiet Quitting: A Dead End
Buzzard’s exploration of quiet quitting captures a growing sentiment among workers who feel disillusioned by their roles. Her framing of the choices faced—conforming, resisting through excellence, or leaving—offers a valuable framework for navigating dissatisfaction. Yet quiet quitting, which involves doing the bare minimum while remaining employed, deserves closer scrutiny.
Quiet quitting may seem like a reasonable response to dissatisfaction, but it risks reinforcing patterns that ultimately harm both the organization and the individual. At its core, quiet quitting breaches the trust between employer and employee. It’s akin to entering a covenant, much like a marriage, where mutual expectations and responsibilities are foundational. Quiet quitting, then, is like practicing quiet polygamy in a marriage —repurposing time and effort meant for one commitment to serve another, without honesty or consent.
This analogy isn’t meant to condemn but to illuminate the deeper ethical challenge. Additionally, Quiet Quitting harms not only the employer but also colleagues who must shoulder the extra burden. Low performers undermine morale, impede improvement and stifle innovation.
Lou Holtz, the former football coach for Notre Dame once pulled a kid off the field who had just been going through the motions. As a replacement jumped off the bench Holz stopped him and said, “Sit back down. The team has been playing one man short all game, and I want them to know it.” Turning to the player he had benched, Holtz looked him in the eye and declared,”You have no right to pretend!”
Most importantly, Quiet Quitting can erode your own character. Virtue and vice are formed through habit. Habits of disengagement and learned helplessness compound over time, shaping a mindset that cannot be shaken off. Each small compromise pays compound interest.
Quiet Quitting risks fostering habits that erode personal agency and resilience over time. Learned helplessness arises when a person “tries” to improve a situation, fails and then gives up. They feel powerless to change their circumstances, leading to passivity and lack of effort. Blaming the employer reinforces their belief that they are not at fault for their lack of effort. An external locus of control is a tendency to attribute outcomes to external factors (like other people or circumstances) rather than one's own actions. Believing they were swindled into a job expresses a complete lack of responsibility and accountability. A victim mentality is a mindset where someone sees themselves as a victim of circumstances or other people, often avoiding responsibility for their actions. Behavior and attitudes are sticky and if not corrected, become habitual.
As Samuel Johnson observed, “The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken."
A Better Way Forward
Buzzard’s three paths—conforming, resisting through excellence, or leaving—are insightful, and I’d argue that the latter two represent the constructive options. Resisting through excellence, as Dorothy Sayers advocates in her essay Why Work, prioritizes serving the work itself. Alternatively, leaving a role that no longer aligns with your values or aspirations is a responsible and at times a courageous choice.
There is, however, also a fourth option: leading. Leadership doesn’t require a title or formal authority. It begins with small acts of initiative for the common good. A front line worker leads when they stop the assembly line because of a quality issue, a junior staffer leads when they raise their hand and respectfully speak truth to power. Any time you move into the white space of the organization at your own initiative at personal risk for the benefit of the common good you are leading.
Organizations are hungry for this kind of leadership. By choosing to lead, we not only elevate our workplaces but also strengthen our own character. Courage, like any virtue, is developed through consistent practice. Over time, these habits can transform not just individuals but entire organizations.
The Good News
At one company, I encouraged my staff to practice leadership by stepping outside their comfort zones weekly for the good of others. This habit of courage, rooted in love and service, strengthened not only our team but also individual character—essential traits for personal and professional growth.
Leadership transforms workplaces and individuals alike. By choosing to lead with courage and selflessness, we find meaning in our work, strengthen our character, and align our actions with our purpose. Whether by resisting through excellence, leaving with integrity, or stepping into leadership, we lay the foundation for a life of service and significance. Faithfulness to small acts of courage and integrity prepares us for greater impact, reminding us that even in the least of tasks, we are building a life of significance.
 | A guest post by
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It takes some guts to come write for The Savage Collective arguing the side of business. I appreciate it.
There's an important distinction that's getting ellided in this response and the first two pieces. As you say, most businesses won't employ too many non-useful people for too long. But just because a job produces value, i.e. contributed to profit, and is thus worth paying for, doesn't make it good, meaningful work -- doesn't save it from being BS.
The quintessential "email job" might be for HR and ensure everyone in the office gets paid on time. That's useful to the business; critical even. It's not BS in the sense of the "value" MBAs and economists would measure. But it's BS in a grander sense: the work is not valuable intrinsically, it does not aid the flourishing of the person doing it, it does not even offer the satisfaction of accomplishing something hard (perhaps even brutalizing) like railroad construction or coal mining. No one would call mining "BS" but all office work hangs on the hairy edge of that definition. It's not about producing profit -- because producing profit is, itself, quite suspect in the larger, spiritual pursuits of human beings.
Thanks for this post. A couple of thoughts:
(1) "At its core, quiet quitting breaches the trust between employer and employee. It’s akin to entering a covenant, much like a marriage, where mutual expectations and responsibilities are foundational. Quiet quitting, then, is like practicing quiet polygamy in a marriage —repurposing time and effort meant for one commitment to serve another, without honesty or consent."
I think that's a good point. But it should be counterbalanced by another: it is a myth — a sustaining myth, perhaps, but a myth nonetheless — that the purely contractual relationship entered into by potential employer and potential employee is entered into by equals. In only a thin, legalistic sense does a pre-employee "freely" enter into such a contractual relationship, and only in a similarly thin, legalistic sense is the employee "free" to leave. The contract binds, sure, and brings a host of mutual expectations and responsibilities into existence. But the relationship has a different tenor when one party has less power and less real freedom to leave — just like a marriage.
(2) "In a competitive marketplace, jobs are created to enable companies to meet real needs or solve real problems. Companies only hire people when they need them. Take a company that hires someone for a task no one really needs—soon enough, that job will be trimmed. In a competitive environment, if you’re not providing real value, you don’t survive. Efficiency is the market’s regulator, and inefficiency is not just wasteful but fatal."
Again, good point. But I think the term "bullshit jobs" has been used ambiguously to refer to (a) bullshit positions and to (b) necessary positions with bullshit shadow work. You argue that the former don't really exist, because they don't last long in a competitive environment. Fine. But that doesn't mean the latter don't exist.
I have a necessary and valuable position, but my role is increasingly encrusted by tasks with no real value, and often those very tasks make it harder for me to perform the other tasks that make my position necessary and valuable. A typical bullshit shadow task will contribute to the *appearance* of value but not the *existence* of it. A bit more specifically: one kind of valueless task will, in essence, require me to spend time and energy trying to measure my contribution according to reductive, simplistic, bureaucratically legible metrics and then reporting my measurements. I spend time and energy providing the firm with things it can show others, or itself, to make it *appear* effective, which keeps me from doing things that would make the firm *be* more effective.