Are there any occupations you uniquely oppose the existence of?
I did retirement home training and used to think it was a sweet job. Then I got in the business and underestimated how demoralizing it was as they give you the easy elders in training while the others make you, or at least me, really think of the fact the job just amounts to an unkarmic freebie.
Search engine optimizer -- The entire industry, intentionally and with malice aforethought, exists purely to make it more difficult for search engines to provide quality output to search users.
Kinda, but there’s also an implicit assumption here that search engines are unbiased, which they’re not.
Yeah? Well they also used to work, so idgaf.
Any job working for a PBM (pharmacy benefit manager). Completely unnecessary third party parasites that drive up health care costs.
And maintains the monoplies of big pharma
Politicians. Don't get me wrong, we do need them, but I strongly oppose the existance of people who never did anything else.
I believe we'd be better off with a new set of randomly chosen citizen every so often. Kinda like jury duty.
The process of choosing government officials at random is called sortition. It's certainly not the worst method.
Its called Sortition and I agree
Oh hell no. You know how braindead most people are at something relatively simple like driving a car, managing finances, or logical decision making? And then you want to roll the dice and let potentially 'the average' citizen to partake in government? This also means you have to be fine with the dumbest motherfucker you have ever come across, making policy decisions.
Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeell naw. Fuck, we have some dense pieces of shit in govt/politics here in the states, but I know that we can do way, way, way fucking worse. Hell. No.
If you cannot trust in a randomly selected group of people making good decisions, can you trust in any kind of democracy? I, for one, prefer 'dumb' people being directly involved instead of having a lying contest every so often to see which actively evil person can get the most 'dumb' people behind him.
Any role at those finance firms that just buy up other companies to eat their profits. What do you provide? Nothing, you take already baked potatoes and make sure all the shredded cheese is scraped off into your gullet and thats it.
Vulture Capitalists?
That mental image is gold. And yeah, corporate raiders suck.
Marketing. Anything having to do with marketing.
I'm a big fan of Bill Hicks' philosophy in regards to those people.
Not aware of Bill Hicks' take, but marketing effectively amounts to manipulating people into buying things that they otherwise would not.
There's only 3 kinds of advertising that work on me.
You’re just going for that anti-marketing dollar
Anti-advertising advertising. Genius.
Going after that anger dollar, I see. Big market.
Marketing itself can be good, sadly the whole industry has gone off so far into the dark path that it's irredeemable at this point.
Bad marketing makes me want to ship my pants.
Any position in the for profit medical payment processing profession, it should be single payer through taxes instead.
Any investment position that exists to leech money out of successful companies instead of providing cash to improve the business. Basically any part of.a vulture capital firm.
Any pseudo pretend medical profession that has decades without evidence it works like chiropractors. I'm fine with mediums and other charlatans that at least put up a 'for entertainment purposes only' sign and don't have a history of causing injuries to their clientel.
Anything involving targeted advertising since it relies on scooping up personal data.
Debt collectors. The businesses took the risk when they loaned money or provided some kind of service on credit. Selling debt to collectors who maliciously lie and guilt people into paying money they don't really owe or tricking them into paying debt that would disappear after a period of time is horrible. There are no respectable debt collection companies.
This is pretty much my list. Middlemen. I wouldn't say absolutely without value but it's gotten out of hand.
There are some middlemen positions that add value, like many distributors who smooth out the transportation between manufacturing and retail, but there sure are a lot that insert themselves into the supply chain to suck money out without adding anything.
Debt collectors. The businesses took the risk when they loaned money or provided some kind of service on credit.
I don't use debt collectors any more, but I have a construction company and a few times a year people just decide not to pay for their work. If someone really truly refuses to pay I could take them to small claims court, and I have, but it's a ton of work and lawyers won't bother with anything under 10k. I've literally had a judge say "so petty" about me taking someone through small claims for a $1200 they'd been dodging for years So some jerk can stiff me for $1500 and I have basically no recourse. I'm not talking about some impoverished person who I took advantage of, these are people with nice homes who make a habit of not paying bills. I'll work with people who are short on cash and honest.
Even though debt collectors are 0/3 in the times I've used them, it's at least something to fire off a final 'fuck you and your credit'
Even though debt collectors are 0/3 in the times I’ve used them, it’s at least something to fire off a final ‘fuck you and your credit’
What a glowing recommendation!
Influencers. Just ad extensions.
Telephone sanitizers are a completely useless occupation IMHO.
"influencers" should not exist in their form today. If you are to peddle a brand, you get to be responsible (as in legally liable) for the claims made
my feeling is, is if you are going to be selling a product and you use certain words or phrases like "scientifically proven" or "research shows..." that you need to reference your claim.
That's not enough... not just because nobody would read it but because there is a LONG tradition of marketing funded junk science so they could very easily come up with some shitty paper that backs whatever they are saying.
The tobacco industry was famous for this and for years they produced studies that showed smoking was good for you
Bathroom attendants - since people got all the high value stuff.
I don't mean people that clean the bathroom etc.
I mean the guy that stands at the sink and makes awkward small talk before handing you a towel you could have got yourself and expects a tip.
EDIT: Y'all I'm pretty sure no one's having sex or shooting up in the bathroom at the fucking Eiffel Tower restaurant in Las Vegas ... Coke - probably. I don't know where anyone else has seen a bathroom attendant, but every place I've seen one at I've been wearing a suit...
Bathroom attendants are there to discourage drug use and bathroom sex. That’s literally their primary purpose. The fact that they have towels and mints is secondary to the fact that they’re just a walking overdose deterrent.
That’s why they’re commonly seen in clubs and bars where people would be inclined to do drugs or have bathroom sex.
It’s usually an old woman, and that keeps drunk bros from getting out of hand, assholes from littering paper towels, and you can just get your own damn towel.
I think it’s mainly higher end places thinking actual towels would be a nice touch but not willing to pay for them to be lost or stolen
Wait, what? What kind of crazy place do you live? I take it that everyone who applies to such a job is just a pervert who likes listening to everyone using the toilet. (or do you have separate toilet and sink rooms?)
No splash: no gash, no armani: no punani, no dolce and gabanna: no sucking your banana
Bathroom attendants play a key role in maintaining cleanliness and providing a touch of personalized service, especially in high-end establishments. Their primary responsibility is to ensure the restroom remains clean, sanitary, and fully stocked with supplies. However, their role goes beyond just cleaning. At upscale locations, bathroom attendants offer a variety of helpful services, such as providing guests with towels, cologne, gum, or mouthwash. They also discreetly help you leave the restroom looking your best—whether that means making sure your shirt is tucked in properly, your tie and gig-line is straight, or there’s no toilet paper stuck to your shoe.
Most of their cleaning duties are performed between guests. While you’re washing your hands, they might simply offer you a towel or a spritz of cologne. But when the restroom is empty, attendants are hard at work, wiping down surfaces, checking stalls, and restocking supplies to ensure everything remains in top shape. This constant attention prevents the need for the restroom to be closed for cleaning by some sweaty guy in filthy coveralls swearing and muttering randomly, instead keeping the space clean and functional seamlessly throughout the night.
Bathroom attendants also provide a subtle layer of security, monitoring restroom usage to prevent smoking, drug use, or other inappropriate activities. In some cases, particularly at nightclubs, this may even be their primary responsibility. While lower-end venues may employ bathroom attendants to create a more VIP atmosphere, the attendants in these settings are often more like an extension of front-door security and are there to keep things safe and orderly, rather than to provide the full range of services seen in higher-end locales.
Next time you encounter a bathroom attendant, ask them how you look before leaving the restroom. They’ll likely be happy to offer a quick adjustment or a friendly compliment, ensuring you leave looking sharp. In a way, they’re like an underappreciated wingman, helping you make the best impression possible. They're also usually wired into the rest of the house, so if you'd like the bartender to come by your table with something special or have some other special request, they can help take care of it.
Advertisers. For-profit advertisers mostly. They intentionally skew people's understanding of the world for the benefit (usually) of the rich.
Paparazzi, insurance companies (and I work in insurance), pay day loan companies/positions, and whoever cooks the chicken at cane's cause that shit be dry as hell.
Their sauce too, omfg I like chicken but it's like dipping the thing in liquid shit. How the fuck do they think this is the ideal sauce? Did they hire yes-men with no functional taste buds to decide on their sauce? When they were popping up around me a few years ago, family and friends tried them a couple times each. Everyone thought that, while the chicken is fine, the sauce kills it. Nobody I know has been back in... 7 years?
The best part is people fucking love that lame ass sauce too
Cane's mystified me. They will have lines around the block in my area and I just don't get it.
CEOs
I'm okay with Chief executive officers. I'm not okay with publicly traded companies.
If I were to start a business I would like to be allowed to run that business. But I think any business that goes public and starts trading on the stock market has sold out completely and totally and no longer has any intrinsic value.
They always do it for a temporary injection of money and they always end up enshittifying as they inevitably have to satisfy the investors who gave them the money.
Publicly traded companies blow my mind a little bit.
It's not enough to make steady, consistent profits. Give out reliable quarterly dividends and make it so your investors make their money back plus a little extra over time. Free money is not enough for the ownership class.
Growth isn't enough either. Buying something for X and selling it for 1.1X so you make money even without a dividend isn't enough for the investor class.
You have to grow infinitely. You have to grow faster than everyone else. You have to beat the projections. Make your product smaller and shittier & sell it for the same price. Lay off 10% of your workforce after record profits to cut costs. Force ads and subscriptions and data mining into every possible space. Undercut your smaller competitors until they fold, then jack up your prices. Break the law, fuck over your workers, buy out politicians, move your production lines to countries with no labor laws.
Being publicly traded actively rewards evil and anti-human behavior.
https://reclaimdemocracy.org/corporate-accountability-history-corporations-us/
TL;DR: the entire point of incorporation was supposed to be for public benefit, and it's been perverted into a sociopathic entitlement instead. Perhaps even worse, the notion of "corporate personhood" wasn't even the legitimate decision of legislators or judges, but a fucking clerical error that subsequently got treated as gospel!
CEOs are fine, you need someone to steer the ship.
However don't pay them a bazzilion bucks while eveyone else gets pennies.
War profiteers. If you work for a company like Raytheon or Lockheed Martin then you are doing an incredible amount of harm to the world and I have even less respect than I have for people in the military. These companies are constantly looking to fuel conflicts, destabilize, and pump all sorts of weapons into every corner of the globe. These people are the true scum of the earth, they are among the worst people who have ever lived.
Gated housing security/executives, HOA
Religious bureaucracy, barker
Pimps
Union busters
Search engine manipulators
Tanning salons
Deodorant advertisers
Smoking industry
Subprime mortgage brokers
Gambling industry
"And just like that, he left."
"He what?!... Did he say anything?"
"Nothing at all. He plopped the list on the ground and promptly walked out."
"What a bloke."
Why deodorant advertisers specifically?
Their history of shaming body image stinks.
"the job just amounts to an unkarmic freebie."
sorry, something about this phrase is not clicking in my mind, what do you mean?
"Influencers", advertisers, and just about every Wall Street job.
Influencers. And more broadly, almost anything to do with marketing.
Middle-men of any kind. Facilitators, landlords, middle-management positions... They're all worthless and contribute nothing to society but bullshit.
People think this without a hint of irony, and yet have never worked in a place without management. Good management improves productivity and efficiency, while also shielding workers from executives. Bad/no management almost always leads to chaos.
It's like the whole idea of not having leaders; it's a great theory, but it assumes that everyone is capable of working together perfectly towards the same goal, when the reality is that not everyone has the same goal.
Middlemen, etc., are trading in knowledge. They know who can do what, and decrease duplication of effort.
Being a middle manager (and therefore biased), I view my role as the person who serves the team by:
This allows them to do their jobs as best they can. Could they get by without me? Probably. But they would have a worse time and not be able to work as effectively.
Flippers. Any kind of flippers
I just assume anyone who works at a juvenile prison either molests or beats children.
Had to check myself cause my brain wanted to say "maybe some of them got in there for the right reasons", which, idk maybe but the incarceration system is garbage and ACAB in the end.
Some of them certainly did. My younger brother, for instance. He's quite literally a psychopath. There's no cure for him, no rehabilitation that would fix him. The best that can be done is keeping him out of society for as long as possible. He was in and out of juvie starting at about 11.
Lobbyists
Senior Bribery Logistic Engineers*
What about a lobbyist who works for say the Electronic Frontier Foundation? Or a nurses union. Or who works for the Sierra Club, or some organization trying to protect the environment?
"Lobbying" is just talking to a politician on behalf of a person or group. If the Hollywood studios all hire lobbyists to talk to representatives about why copyright terms should be longer and DRM should be mandatory, doesn't it make sense that there should be people telling the other side?
I get that too often lobbyists overstep ethical boundaries. Often, they either effectively bribe politicians, or they write up laws allowing the politician to just rubber-stamp them. But, you could shore up and/or enforce laws restricting that kind of thing, while still allowing a representative of a group to meet with a politician and explain their point of view.
Yeah, I mean the bribery kind. We need to overturn Citizens United
Are there still places that legally mandate car refueling operators? That seemed like a job that literally only existed to give some people a job.
Yes. And it’s really dumb.
Not just in the states either. They do it in Mexico and some of the operators use their job to rip off tourists. You have to make sure they reset the meter before they start pumping your gas.
Mexico, Peru, and New Jersey, USA are 3 places I know still do this.
Oregon does, or did if they stopped.
Looking at you NJ, you ridiculous grift if a state.
that seemed like a job that literally only existed to give some people a job
That is exactly what it's for, and it prevents a lot of worse problems just by existing. It significantly reduces crime rates by allowing people who otherwise couldn't earn income, and provides a way for ex-cons to successfully reintegrate into society and not relapse, as well as providing low/no skill labor. It gives some a sense of purpose - retirees who physically can't do any other work for example and need something to do.
It is literally there to give people jobs and its a good thing.
This is why I'm in favor of mandating everyone use horse-drawn carriages. Can't let those carmen be out of work, spreading hooliganism
People downvoting you are very self-centered, they don't understand the importance of a job for lots of people. Until we have UBI, jobs like these will always be necessary.
There are undoubtedly people beginning to say the same thing about supermarket checkout attendants now. That doesn't seem like a good thing to me.
Cops
Whatever job MBAs have
Lemmy users that post the same thing in multiple Ask Lemmy communities
They get paid for that?
Anyone who is trying to sell me something
Boy, you don't know what you're missin'!
If only it were possible to maintain this state indefinitely
Telemarketer.
Managers without empathy.
Sounds a bit like doctors without borders now when I think about it, it's maybe already a clan.
People who evalulate and grade pop-culture collectables like baseball cards, video games, etc.
Imagine having a career based on turning people's collection hobbies into investment opportunities for rich people; making said hobbies unaffordable for the people who actually enjoy the subject matter in the process. You'd have to be a real fucking scumbag to do something like that.
That vaguely reminds of real estate business.
Lobbyist
Let's say you lose your job because a company lays you off without notice amid record profits. With your new found free time, you get so angry you go to your state senators and representatives and try to convince them to make a law limiting layoffs to a 6 month notice period for profitable companies. You are now a lobbyist. You are saying not to lobby the government full time. But for the sake of clarity let's say your coworkers also got laid off and pooled their money to send you to lobby on their behalf, you are now a paid lobbyist.
I feel like most people that complain about lobbyists are really just complaining about corporate lobbyists or lobbying groups paid by corporations. Lobbyists are a good and necessary part of any democracy.
Up voting for your last paragraph. Totally agree. Lobbyists only interested in corporate profit are evil.
And, even if you do lobby the government full time, what if you're a lobbyist who works on behalf of environmental groups. If the Sierra Club wants to alert politicians about a secret clause snuck into a new bill regulating coal mines, they can hire you to talk to the right people. If a town like Flint, Michigan is having trouble with contamination of their water supply, they can hire you to find the right people to talk to.
Maybe in an ideal world every politician would have enough time and enough staff to fully investigate things on their own. But, in the real world, we're probably always going to need people to talk to the decision makers and advocate on our behalf.
What we really should have is good oversight and tight rules to ensure it's just talking and not doing favors, giving money, etc.
i wish that people had as vivid of imagination when thinking of ways to build a mass movement to fix the problems with our deeply dysfunctional "democracy" designed by and for the benefit of the wealthy 1%, as they did when trying to find excuses as to why every single part of said political system is totally irreplaceable and in fact is functioning perfectly within the best system possible.
A better world is possible, but it is up to us to change it.
Yeah, hatred for lobbyists may realiy be hatred for corporate influence, but they don’t have to be the same thing. Limiting corporate money in politics, and adding some thirds rule would be go a long way
Off-topic: Lemmy really needs better crosspost functionality.
Lemmy is a small group of people, let's not divide it further by having the exact same conversation in two (or more) places.
Papparazi. Fucking leeches
Elected Republicans
Streamers
Steamers with like 10-30 people are fun to watch or hangout with, when it's 7,000 emojis and someone making $100k a month... Meh
How about the entertainment industry as a whole?
Some livestreamers (even big ones) are legitimately fun to watch, but I agree that there are a lot of livestreamers that just do "reaction content" which, while it can be fun (in the same way as Rifftrax/MST3K), isn't something most streamers put enough effort into to be considered good. Instead it ends up being a low-effort way of generating views.
If you want some good streamers, some of the big streamers I like are people like,
Even if it's not your thing, I'd highly recommend looking up the stream vods for Jerma's IRL stuff, it's brilliant and extremely high-effort.
Edit: I was just trying to make some suggestions, jeez.
Data brokers. Also, those bug-bounty fuckers, both the buyers and sellers of exploits. They make the internet a worse place.
Edit: a slight edit on grammar.
Hard agree on the data brokers, but what's bad about bug bounty programs? I'd say it's a good thing you get a reward if you help make a product more secure, and it helps discourage people from selling zero-days to black hats. Or do you mean black hat bug bounty systems? They are already super illegal
Looking at the replies, I realized I'm too much of a normie for this thread.
I don't think I understand what you mean. Do you agree with everything said here?
Cops, prison guards, landlords.
Cops, landlords, the entire advertising industry, anything to do with the stock exchange, PMCs, lobbyists (and by extension most career politicians)...
I'm just getting started
Some food jobs make me think we get carried away with what food is supposed to entail.
Elaborate please?
We could go our entire lives without the existence of a large majority of things which are taken for granted in the culinary sphere and still get the same appreciation out of food.
Police.
If you have to ask why at this stage you must also still believe the Spanish Inquisistion is necessary.
Yeah you're right, local neighborhood militia sounds much better /s
The police do a valuable job if you're living in a functional society.
“fucking stupid”
Your answer is fucking stupid
I know
Meat processing (for human consumption) because it’s unnecessary for our survival and I personally find it an abhorrent and morally wrong.
Hi! I'm going to pick your brain because this is on my mind tonight.
My family happily eats meat. I've never hunted anything but a few fish, rarely and not for decades. So, there's the background.
Noticed there are LOADS of squirrels around. In my yard, at my camp, in the woods. Thought about harvesting a few. (Turns out I'm too soft, what if I shoot someone's wife?!, but I thought about it.) My kids were horrified at the notion. "But you're happy killing chickens and cows for your McDonalds?!"
Kayaking tonight, I ran into a monstrous rookery in the swamp. Egrets I think? Great Herons? Anyway, they seem always in the same place, by the hundreds and hundreds. Thought, "How about bringing a 20-gauge and shooting down dinner?" My wife was horrified. "Birds are not food!" So I brought out a pack of chicken, "Chickens aren't birds!" (She's Filipino, something may have got lost in the translation...)
What are your thoughts? I dated a vegan once who couldn't admit that hunting your own food was morally superior to farm tortured meat. Uh... I don't get it. If you're going to eat meat, isn't harvesting your own the moral choice?
No because it is not ethical to murder an animal when it’s not necessary.
My philosophy is that I don’t want to mess with animals simply because I can. It’s that simple.
Just as an example, a lot of vegans will happily eat honey and it never occurred to me in my first year that it could be questionable. I decided on the spot never to consume it again simply because by my logic we’re having to hoard up a bunch of bees and make them produce it for us — only later did I read up on the topic and find all the arguments for/against it — but that didn’t matter to me because I try to keep it that simple.
Hunting is an area I haven’t given much thought. I grew up in a hunting family, shot a deer at five years of age, etc. but never got into it. I know there’s a big debate surrounding it but knowing I don’t want to hunt in the first place I haven’t really read up on it simply because it’s not relevant to me.
Personal trainers. Watching other people exercise is not a job.
You may as well be a corporate tax accountant, a ghost writer for the rich or an email scammer in terms of the value you create for society.
I would say many of them are there for a free paycheck yes, but personal trainers are also there to teach people who have never learned how to exercise how to exercise and to encourage them when their friends and family will not, and those are valuable if time limited resources.
It’s also motivation. Sometimes I ask for a few sessions as a birthday present because it’s the only reason I’ll actually go to the gym. Accountability.
Weight training can be super dangerous if you don't know what you're doing, you can easily do significant damage to your back or knees doing fairly basic exercises like a deadlift or squat incorrectly.
Especially as weight training is increasingly encouraged for the elderly, personal training seems a fairly reasonable job. Admittedly, like any other job, there are folks who provide little to no value (think of the teachers just waiting to collect their pensions) but that's not to say it can't be a super useful industry.