An enduring image for me is of the kind of bullshit jobs that you really can only find in certain parts of East Asia these days.
For example, drive to a parking garage at a shopping mall and there will be a guy who's entire 8 hour work day is spent wearing an over elaborate bell hop uniform and bowing to cars as they drive in. That's it...his entire job is bowing to cars. If he disappeared off the face of the planet tomorrow, it wouldn't affect a single thing. People would still come to the mall, cars would still manage to park, not one thing would change.
Or how about the nice costumed sales ladies standing in every aisle in the grocery store, not giving out promotional samples (a la Costco), but simply holding up gift packages of cheap processed food items. My favorite is the gift package for your salaryman husband, a beautifully wrapped container of instant coffee. That's actually two BS jobs, the lady holding the package (which you were going to buy anyway), and the person who packaged up the $20 container of instant coffee in an overly elaborate gift package that will go directly into the trash 10 seconds after it's received.
I remember travelling in Russia, and going into one of those amazing Stalanist subway stations, and there was a booth with a person in it. They didn't do anything, they weren't really an attendant, didn't help anybody or have any particular function, they just sat there for a 8 hours.
Of course for the really unbelievably useless jobs you have to look inside the U.S. government.
For example, drive to a parking garage at a shopping mall and there will be a guy who's entire 8 hour work day is spent wearing an over elaborate bell hop uniform and bowing to cars as they drive in. That's it...his entire job is bowing to cars. If he disappeared off the face of the planet tomorrow, it wouldn't affect a single thing. People would still come to the mall, cars would still manage to park, not one thing would change.
Or how about the nice costumed sales ladies standing in every aisle in the grocery store, not giving out promotional samples (a la Costco), but simply holding up gift packages of cheap processed food items. My favorite is the gift package for your salaryman husband, a beautifully wrapped container of instant coffee. That's actually two BS jobs, the lady holding the package (which you were going to buy anyway), and the person who packaged up the $20 container of instant coffee in an overly elaborate gift package that will go directly into the trash 10 seconds after it's received.
I remember travelling in Russia, and going into one of those amazing Stalanist subway stations, and there was a booth with a person in it. They didn't do anything, they weren't really an attendant, didn't help anybody or have any particular function, they just sat there for a 8 hours.
Of course for the really unbelievably useless jobs you have to look inside the U.S. government.