I would RATHER do something interesting and fulfilling, but if it was a case of paying my mortgage or failing to pay my mortgage, I would do a pointless job to get money, as it stands. Most people would.

Whilst slowly working to overthrow the system. Obviously.

I do pointless and meaningful both all the time. My software development and infrastructure work is something that takes skill and training, but my fixing laptops because a user picked up a "hijack" virus or one of the fake antiviruses... I usually do a Google search and find a good set of instructions to remove it and follow them, something anyone who operates their laptop and browses the web could do.

But, I guess I'm lucky in that I enjoy what I do, I'm reasonably good at it, and I get paid well for doing it. I don't have to choose between being a "pauper for my art" or "selling out."

I guess if it came down to it, I work so I can enjoy my time off work and afford the things that give me pleasure, so sell out I would. In a heartbeat, I would.

that life man ...sometime work sucks and you have to be cynical about it and realize that although you are not stupid you have to do stupid thinghs just to earn some money.
well at least you have a job...

I think it all depends on the money to pointlessness ratio. I don't think many people would do meaningless work for less than they could make doing useful work, but most would give up a little dignity to become millionaires.

that's what I'm talking about Draugnar.
I don't think I would have the patience and the diplomatic skill required to be able to hold myself and clear the virus. I would probably give them a sarcastic look and tell them "fix it yourself!" hahah
btw are you ok man?

I'm fine and my Dad's getting better. Thank you for asking, hellalt.

One thing you should realize with regards to your situation (and mine). We are (presumably) bright individuals or we wouldn't be in our respective fields and respected for our work there. So, you can't assume that because you view it as easy that the person paying you actually could do it themselves. People also pay you for the comfort of knowing a professional is doing it. They realize they are amateurs and, as such, they don't have the confidence in themselves.

And in the states, the legal system doesn't always let a layperson file the expected forms. We even have a saying: The person who represents themselves has a fool for a client.

who is frenchtourist i've never seen him before

also, i would not do something i found utterly pointless. it would have to have some scap of meaning to me... like, I could work at a post office or at a gas station or even calling people to survey them... but i could never ever do something utterly silly like be a casino dealer or a piano tuner. i mean... am i saying those people should not do those jobs... no, i'm just saying i wouldn't.

if i don't perceive there to be some direct contribution to society, i wouldn't want to do the job. and that's all very subjective. if someone offered me 100k a year to stamp papers or something.... yeah i'd do it, but i'd quit soon after to use the money for something useful, thereby mitigating the uselessness of the job i did.

I would rather sweep streets than have no job, but i would do whatever was necessary rather than bludge off social security.

Frustration at stupidity is a drawback for being intelligent, but the alternative frustration sounds so much worse that I take mine in stride.

When you work in a field dealing with these people such as law (what type hellalt?,) IT administration, or technical support, you quickly discover that most of your clients are either:

a) too lazy to even fathom doing it on their own
or
b) too stupid to grasp even the beginnings of the concept

Most of the time you get a large helping of both.

Why do you think most engineers hold their peers to such high scrutiny? Because they absolutely hate stupidity. You don't have to be brilliant to survive in the field, but you've got to have enough brain cells to not need hand holding. And this nature has led most outsiders to the labels of weird geeks and introverted nerds because deep down inside, they know the only reason that engineers ferret inside their laboratories is because they think you're stupid.

Practicing law is doubly infected with this problem. Most of your clients will be idiots and most of your fellow solicitors will be idiots.

Do Engineers know hoe to write best sellers?
Know how to fix a car?
or a heart?
I take it you are an engineer, Geofram?

On what level are you basing your acceptance of intelligence?
Being an engineer means being intelligent?
I think not- i have many friends in that field who cannot live in the real world without the help of their partners...

You seem to think all and sundry are idiots... so if an Engineer sees a Lawyer- is the engineer an idiot?

Excuse the typo Geo, "hoe" in the first line should read "how".

To answer the orginal question:

I worked in a bakery through grade school and college because the hours suited my sleep schedule and the physical labour was therapeutic. But when it came round to opening hours and all the counter clerks and register handlers would come in, I high-tailed it out of the shop.

Even something as simple as the bread process can be lost on the average citizen of this world. You show them how it works and you explain why it works and they still look at you like you're a magician because two plus two only equals four on a good day. Some people feel like a king in that setting, I feel like an alien.

It paid the bills and I got some joy out of it, but it was only a world's means to my ends. True happiness isn't finding work that you love, because that's easy, it's finding something you love that makes the people you work with tolerable.

A best seller is a piece of text that the masses love, meaning the engineer inside would have no interest in writing one. Being a good engineer and being a good writer go hand in hand, but to an engineer, the only opinion that matters is their peers.

You've just defined a person by their profession. If I'm an engineer, I can't possibly be a good writer, or a good husband, or a good hockey player.

And you've also crossed the meanings of intelligence and knowledge. An intelligent engineer seeking the employ of a solicitor (lawyer) is not stupid for lack of knowledge, but he would be stupid if he didn't at least understand what the solicitor was doing for him and how.

I never said I believe all engineers to be intelligent, anyone can get a law degree or license as a professional engineer, but given that in both these fields, and especially engineering, the only way to advance is through peer review and critique, then I feel confident in saying that all good lawyers and all good engineers are intelligent.

Geofram: define good lawyer and engineer.
I hope good doesn't equal succesful in your book.
Whenever I have to face 50 years old lawyer I find it extremely easy.
Those aged, succesful opponents are so bored that they prefer to act in a fast, mediocre way.
On the contrary facing a talented 30year old lawyer can be a real pain in the ass.
Once me and my 30year old opponent end up writing about 100 pages each for a quite simple case just because we wouldn't accept leaving anything uncommented.
Eventually we called it a two way draw :P
Geofram: In Greece a young lawyer usually doesn't stick to one area of law. I'm allowed to do anything. I have no idea about commercial law, which I hate. I like doing anything else. It's less boring that way. I also hate expertised lawyers who only take one area let's say car accidents and are totally unable to do anything else even if it is something that affects them personally. That's absolutely ridiculous.

@ Thucy: "i could never ever do something utterly silly like be a casino dealer or a piano tuner"

Why do you single out these jobs as being "utterly silly".

It is important for people to have leisure time so that they can relax and enjoy life. Some people enjoy playing the piano, and others get a lot of enjoyment from listening to piano music. For this, it is necessary for a few people to be employed as piano tuners. Thanks to them, large numbers of people enjoy pleasurable recreation through piano music.

In what way is the piano tuner's job "utterly silly"?

@hellalt - you tell me to define skill, but instead I challenge you to define success!

Looking back at your original post, I would guess that your definition of success is not having to do tasks that you don't want to do and that you achieve success through repititve completion of tasks you don't want to do, regardless of how skilled you are at the task.

If someone propositioned me with: I'll give you $5 to run down the street and pick up my mail or I'll give you $5 to tell me what colour my shirt is, then I'd take the easier path to the same reward.

But is being successful is always being able to tell the man his shirt colour instead of running down the street, in other words, always being able to take the easy road without any consequence?

Your 50-year old lawyer worked hard so that in his age he could only take cases requiring very little effort and ones that he did not much care for the outcome. Does that make him successful? Not in my book.

The very definition of success means to overcome an obstacle and to accomplish a task against odds or opposition. If anything, the 50-year old lawyer was successful when he worked hard and saw little reward compared to his older colleagues that didn't care and now that he has reached their age, he has lost that success.

Side: Jamie has a good point.

@hellalt again

On being so expertised that you can only perform in that area and perform badly at different aspects in the same job title, I disagree with you.

On the broadest level, take engineering. A practiced civil engineer deep into his field will not know the job of a man just as deep in the field of computer engineering or aerospace engineering.

And it goes deeper than that, a friend of mine just hired two civil engineers. One has been working at robotics for the past 12 years. The other has been working with LADAR (a sort of radar but with lasers) technologies ever since he graduated. Together, using their expertise, they accomplish one goal.

But if you ask one to do the other's job, they'll look at you like you just asked them to go back to college, they might love the opportunity to become an expert in another field, but it won't be cost or time effective for the project.

It is easy to apply that to law. A tech corporation holds many IP lawyers on retainer, considered the best in their field and outstanding lawyers all around, but if the vice-president gets into a serious car accident and in no-question needs a lawyer, he'd be stupid to use one of those guys.

@Geofram - success has more than one definition...

suc⋅cess  /səkˈsɛs/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [suhk-ses] Show IPA
Use success in a Sentence
See web results for success
See images of success
–noun 1. the favorable or prosperous termination of attempts or endeavors.
2. the attainment of wealth, position, honors, or the like.
3. a successful performance or achievement: The play was an instant success.
4. a person or thing that is successful: She was a great success on the talk show.
5. Obsolete. outcome.

And I'm with Jamie. Why single out piano tuners and casino dealers. They both provide pleasure to people. A good dealer is like a good bartender - they listen and chat with you and make you feel better when you are losing, and can bring the excitement to a poker table that's floundering with their flourish and reparte. And no piano is going to be used in a concert hall or for a recording unless it has been tuned by a professional piano tuner.

There is no such thing as a silly job, only silly individuals that don't recognize that every job brings something to the table. If it didn't, no one would be willing to pay for it to be done.

I tried to mention that every definition of success is a personal one, but really there are only two in your quote.

Number one is sort of what I described and number two is what most people think of success as.

@3and4 - What kind of dictionary uses the word to define in its definition?!

To defend Thucy, he said piano tuners and casino dealers were personally what he thought of as silly professions because the trade or service offered meant nothing to him. Though I don't agree with it, I've never seen a live piano performance or been dealt cards at a casino, but I can respect the profession nonetheless.

I draw the line between a respectable profession and a silly one at one question:
. Does this job require a unique set of skills that are either obtained through practice and learning or innate ability?

In both cases, yes.

Dealing cards well requires both training and a natural dexterity. Being a good dealer requires dealing the cards well AND being able to maintain control of the table while not disenfranchising the players, whether it be poker or blackjack or another table game.

Tuning a piano is a skill in which you are trained and in which you get better with practice. The best can sit and play it briefly and know exactly which notes are out of tune by ear, down to which string (every note has multiple strings that are struck by the hammer in a piano).

Oh no Jamie I totally agree, and I would pay a piano tuner to come tune my piano (if I could ever afford one) just like everyone else. I love music.... trust me :)

The thing is.. I just couldn't do that day in and day out my whole life. I would really really start to question my existence. Because, I'll admit, yes I want those people to exist, but to be quite honest, I don't know how they do that their whole lives without going insane. I would be driven mad by thoughts like, "Well no one really NEEDS a piano anyway..." that kind of thing.

And I wasn't hating on those two jobs specifically... I was just pulling stuff out of my ass.

I could have just as easily said "receptionist at a coffee maker company" or "factory worker at a halloween costume factory" or "shoe salesman."

These are not jobs that I do not respect, that is not how I defined them. I define them as jobs I could never do for more than a few years before growing very disillusioned.

shoe salesman...
That can only remind me of one person
Al Bundy!

A symphony orchestra doesn't NEED a piano? A household with a musical prodigy who might turn out to be the next Mozart doesn't NEED a piano? You are assuming that because you don't NEED one, that no one else does. I have a piano that I practice on for when I play in church. I also have a trombone, a french horn, a flugelhorn, and a classical (nylon string) guitar. I play all of these at various times during the year with the brass ensemble at church or on certain songs I perform there at various times during the year (the holidays being a big one). They may not be needs in the strictest sense of the word, but I couldn't perform without them and I couldn't play my best without a piano in my house on which to practice. So, to me, they are needs as these are things I desire to do and those are the tools required to do them.

In fact if people stopped doing those jobs I would get very upset. Probably most by piano tuners, and then by halloween costume makers, and shoe salesmen. Haha.


What I was more getting at was this. Sometimes I have the pleasure of coming into close contact on a daily basis with someone who does menial labor, and has done for a long long time. I am always in awe of these people. I never say anything along these lines to them, because it would be extraordinarily rude, but I just want to ask them how they stay sane.

Recently this has taken a new shape. Let me explain:

I live in a dorm. There is a dining hall downstairs. The same people have worked there all year and it's clear that some of them have worked there for a long time.

They all show up to work around 6AM every morning, and don't leave until nine. This is on basically every day but Sunday.

And every morning, when I come in for breakfast at 7:00, the man who works at the grill makes me an omelet (so good btw). We chat usually because no one else is around, it's still very quiet that early. Every single day, he does the same thing over and over and over. He knows what I like on my omelet. It's one of the parts of my day that never changes. It's static. Then when breakfast ends he starts making burgers on the same grill. Every day. Until 8pm. And then he goes home. All I want to know is what keeps him going. Surely one of the nice things about it is that he provides for a family. I always figure that the thing that usually makes these jobs worthwhile is being able to provide... but still. Maybe he just really likes college kids and omelets... but I doubt it. It's not that he's all grumpy all the time either. He's as nice as could be.

So I really like this guy, and appreciate him immensely. Even more so because I know I could never do what he is doing. Yes I could learn to make the omelets and work there for like two or three years. But after that, I would probably get fired or just quit because I would be so unenthusiastic.

I don't know. Sometimes I think it's a character flaw I have.

And I play on my parents' piano when I'm at home, and I know the piano tuner guy. When I said "NEED" I meant like... if every piano got destroyed this afternoon, it would suck, but that's all it would do. It would just be really lame. Nothing awful would happen besides that in itself. I capitalized need to show I was talking about need in the strict sense.

Again... I sense you all think I am saying "piano tuners are useless let's just get rid of them."

Absolutely not, for many reasons. One is, I like to have my piano tuned. Another is, this is the person's job, they may like there job. Another is, it's a vital service in the economy that people can make good money off of, and another is, it provides jobs, reducing unemployment.

What I was saying is that I don't think I could do it for very long. Me. Myself.

I was just answering the question as honestly as I could...

I agree that I couldn't do those jobs. But I was taking umbrage at your calling them "silly". You grill cook friend probably loves chatting with people and feels he is serving his fellow man in the best way he knows how. I ride with a chef at the Cinci Zoo on the bus every day (he lives in Hebron, like me) and he loves being a chef, whether he is cooking hamburgers for a bunch of kids on a school field trip, or cooking filet mignon for a fundraising dinner. He likes the people and seeing them enjoy his creations. I bet your grill cook friend actually takes pleasure in knowing you enjoy his omelets everyday, when you have a variety of options (McDs, BK, cereal in your room, whatever).

People who do the "menial" tasks find pleasure in them and/or accept them because they don't think they can do better, or they end up leaving and going somewhere else to do something else until they do find that job they either take pleasure in or can tolerate.

You'll also find that many people don't care what they do so long as they enjoy the people and environment they work with and in. As good as I am (I leave that for my employer to decide) and as much as I enjoy software development, I wouldn't stay here if I didn't honestly like the poeple and the workplace. For some, myself included, that is the most important part of their job.

Oh, and one thing to note, if every *anything* we viewed as a nicety, not a necessity, were destroyed tomorrow, never to be remade, it would have a profound effect. If every baseball glove were destroyed tomorrow, the financial impact would be staggering. No MLB contributing to the economy? no summer sports entertainment?

If every piano were destroyed, we would no longer hear live performances of Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue." And the orchestras on broadway would be unable to perform the musicals currently running there. That would be a financial hit to NYC, maybe not as huge as baseball, but still.

And what if every TV set were destroyed tomorrow? We can live, individually, without TVs, but Hollywood would be decimated. Movies cost much more to make than TV shows, and don't rake in near the cash as TV does as a percentage of investment.

Thucy - you are young yet and need to think about *every* possible use for a given item or job before declaring it silly or having a minimal impact on society and the balance sheets of the world's various economies. Just realize that there are more things in Heaven and Hell, Thucydides, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

Draugnar you are right, Thucy should not have described those occupations as "silly". They might be a bit boring. But in the casino dealer's case, even that may not be the case as he gets a lot of social interaction. If you are a 'people person' it could be quite fun, I think.