Why So Many Jobs Are Crappy

[Demeter]

http://heteconomist.com/why-so-many-jobs-are-crappy/

I’ve been thinking about it. Work, being a core part of life, is meant to be interesting, engaging, and meaningful. Otherwise, why are we wasting our time on this planet? Yet, for many, work is not living up to its name. Work of the good kind is less and less on offer in the jobs being created. I’ve been reflecting on possible reasons why, and decided it’s really simple. The problem is not the jobs. It’s us. Most humans are simply not the kind of people a boss would want to hire. Take yourselves as a case in point. I’m guessing you’re the kind of people who’d prefer to feel needed rather than expendable. Well, that kind of attitude won’t do. Bosses want to keep your wages down, and that would be harder to do if you were given opportunities to make yourselves invaluable and near on irreplaceable. Bosses need to keep their options open in case some of you get ideas about better pay and conditions, or just generally become ‘difficult’ or, dare I say, ‘bolshie’. You know it’s true. A boss needs to be able to dump you at the drop of a hat. Maybe it’s to boost profits. Maybe it’s to cut costs. Or maybe it’s just because it feels good.

And a boss needs to be able to dump you without it having detrimental effects. There must be ready replacements, eager to crank it up, the moment you’re out the door. And if morale suffers, because the buddies you left behind miss you, the boss will want to send them packing too, and bring in a fresh batch of wage-slaves.

Quite simply, there is little place for satisfying roles, the kind where you get to learn more and more interesting stuff over time. The only good on-the-job learning is no learning at all. Or, if you must learn, thirty minutes tops to master a dead-end role. Although the point seems obvious, I don’t believe it has been treated with the kind of gravity that only the economics blogosphere is fully equipped to deliver. It’s high time the situation was spelled out in painstaking – okay, not painstaking – analytical terms. Then we can all lower our expectations and knuckle down to a lifetime of short-lived McJobs and frequent sackings. If we’re lucky.

One way to characterize a job is by the learning that occurs in it. This can be described by a learning curve:




In the diagram, u(t) stands for the unit labor cost that a worker – let’s say you – achieves at a given point in time, after you have built up an amount, t, of experience. It is how much you cost the employer per unit of output produced, at a given moment in time. We can call this the ‘instantaneous unit labor cost’, or sometimes just ‘efficiency’ for short. If learning occurs on the job, you get more and more efficient, and your unit labor cost falls over time. The curve is drawn assuming a particular wage level. If the wage increases, the curve will shift up.

On first being hired, you were green, and cost the bosses m + c per unit of output. Eventually, through learning on the job, you will get this down almost to m, which is your ‘potential efficiency’, given current pay and conditions. Some jobs will allow more learning than others, which will be reflected in the amount c, which is the ‘scope for learning’.

Here is one possible algebraic representation of the learning curve:




The second term is the one that captures the learning process. When you just start the job, t = 0, and the second term equals c. Just as shown in the diagram, you cost the bosses m + c per unit of output. The longer you stay in the job, the larger t gets, and the closer the second term gets to zero, which it approaches asymptotically. Your unit labor cost converges on m, as indicated in the diagram.

The rate at which you reduce your unit labor cost from m + c down to m depends on how fast learning can take place on the job. The ‘rate of learning’ is represented by λ. When λ is large, the learning curve will be very steep initially, and almost all the learning will occur just after being hired. When λ takes intermediate values, the learning process is steadier and longer lasting, reflected in a more gradual curvature in u(t).

McJobs are those where learning is either nonexistent or extremely rapid but short-lived. If there is no learning, c = λ = 0 and the learning curve would just be a horizontal straight line showing a constant unit labor cost of m. Rapid but short-lived learning would mean the learning curve slopes down almost vertically until m is nearly reached, then stays almost flat after that. It would probably take most of us a half shift to master flipping burgers, but after that we’d have it down pat. Bosses love McJobs. They make us readily replaceable.

Satisfying jobs – let’s call them ‘good jobs’ – will generally be ones where learning occurs at a steady pace more or less indefinitely, probably as part of a defined career path. Bosses would prefer not to offer these, and will always be looking for ways to deskill roles that, for now at least, need to allow workers greater autonomy, ingenuity, and scope for on-the-job learning. Once you gain experience in a good job, you will soon become much more efficient in the role than an inexperienced replacement would be. This might remain true even if you happen to win a pay rise, work less hours, or start operating at a more leisurely – let’s say human – pace. Any of these things would shift your learning curve up, because you would now have a higher unit labor cost at any given level of experience. Even so, you might still be more efficient than a prospective replacement.

ORGASMIC MATHEMATICAL MODELLING FOLLOWS, AT LINK

[leveymg]

1. Keep that Subject Matter Expertise in the sweet spot, illustrated. Keep ur job - QED

Unfortunately, the bosses pretty much own Economics. This is a delightful exception.

[rock]

2. "Most humans are simply not the kind of people a boss would want to hire."

Although I do NOT disagree with your proposition (nor your analysis), I really believe more in the related theory: "Most humans simply do not want the boss that comes with the job." I.e. it is the boss, not the workers that make the job so non enjoyable. Bosses are, in general, bullies. Specifically, they are assholes, not very smart, and finally have minimal interpersonal skills. If you are a boss, I didn't mean you, of course. Did I mention gullible?

[Demeter]

3. Not my thesis, I am only the messenger

I agree with you about bosses, and extend it to the people around you in the job...if the boss has been successful, they will all be alike...and deadly to anyone (and to the company, itself, if that group has any interaction with random public citizens).

[starroute]

4. It's being a boss that turns people into bullying assholes

I've known some very decent, intelligent people who turned into complete assholes when they became bosses -- and who were still decent and intelligent off the job.

I even had someone say to me once, "When I was an employee, I hated the way my boss would tell me to drop everything I was doing and do what he wanted right this minute. But now that I'm the boss, I'm going to do the same thing."

I think some of it may be the problem of being dependent on other people who aren't necessarily going to do exactly what you want when and as you want it. It's like that early video game where you had to chivvy a bunch of lemmings along and keep them from jumping off cliffs. Suddenly instead of doing stuff for yourself that you know how to do and are good at, you become a supervisor and have to manipulate other people into doing it for you. They may be dumb and unable to meet your expectations. They may be smart and have their own ideas about how to go about it. But either way, they aren't cooperating, and you get angry and start yelling and looking for ways to bully them into compliance.

It's the hell of delegation.

[rock]

5. Believe me I appreciate your sentiment

It's a universal human failing.