Before the pandemic I worked in service and dispised being told to find busywork between rushes. I object to waisting time and cleaning products just so it feels like they are getting their moneys worth out of me. Like, they bought my time, it's not my fault there is nothing to do right now, I don't owe them. Under no other circumstances would I buy something, realise I don't need it, and expect the seller to pretend I used it to make me feel better.
At the interview for my current job I was clear that it was my least favourite part of anything and don't want to do it here. I was promised no busywork. Only over the last 10 months my job has been slowly automated until all that's left is busywork. I wish they would sack me. I'm miserable.
This is the entire problem with valuing work over value or productivity or joy or any other means of valuing worth. We live in an increasingly automated world. There is less work to do than ever. And unless they get comfortable with letting people walk away when it's finished and still get to live, we are just going to invent busywork to fill it. How much of the global economy is being poured down the drain just so someone looks like they are working? How much “job creation” is just government sanctioned waisted time? How many jobs exist purly because they are just as much effort as a job which is actually adding value to the economy, despite giving nothing to the world?