Some people are exhausted not only by excessive workloads. Often, they are more drained by having to perform tasks at work that seem unnecessary, create reports that no one reads, attend meetings after which nothing changes, sell people things they don’t need, or simulate busyness just because the workday has to last eight or more hours.
Anthropologist David Graeber provocatively called such activity “bullshit jobs.” In Lithuanian, this is translated as “šūdmalos darbai.” David Graeber himself described a bullshit job as: “a job so completely pointless, unnecessary, or pernicious that even the employee cannot justify its existence, although due to work circumstances, they feel obliged to pretend otherwise.” The term is certainly unpleasant and can evoke many feelings, but sometimes hearing it helps recognize an experience that previously had no words.
When work seems good but does not satisfy deeper needs
Such people do not necessarily work under bad conditions. On the contrary, often their salary is quite good, their position may sound impressive, the workplace stable, and their relatives or society value their careers. However, they themselves feel that a large part of their life is given to an activity they do not believe in and that provides no deeper satisfaction.
In consultations, I hear about everyday life where a person learns to appear busy but no longer feels that they are truly creating anything. Some say that nothing in the world would change if their job simply disappeared. Others see how the work they do is assigned to someone higher up in the hierarchy. Still others spend almost the entire day on internal processes whose sole purpose is to serve other processes.
Over time, a certain paradox arises. Outwardly, a person has a job, status, and income, appears happy, but inside feels a great emptiness. Sometimes they even avoid talking about their work because they do not want to admit aloud that they see no value in it or cannot explain what they do there, what their role is.
Austrian psychiatrist Viktor Frankl called the state of inner emptiness and lack of meaning the “existential vacuum.” A person does not always directly notice this state; it can manifest as boredom, apathy, anxiety, cynicism, emotional eating, irritability, or depression. The question of meaning itself may remain unnoticed. Work does not necessarily have to be the main source of a person’s life meaning. However, we cannot separate our well-being from the activity to which we devote most of our waking life.
Is it really burnout?
Burnout at work has been increasingly discussed in recent years. The World Health Organization defines this phenomenon as a syndrome resulting from “chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed,” characterized by exhaustion, increased mental distance or cynicism towards one’s job, and reduced professional efficacy.
Burnout is most often associated with excessive workload, tension, conflicts, unclear expectations, bullying, or lack of rest. All of these are important, but sometimes we do not talk enough about another possible part of burnout – the loss of a sense of meaning.
In the Greek myth, Sisyphus was condemned to endlessly roll a stone up a hill, only for it to roll back down each time it reached the top. The punishment was the futile effort to change something and the meaninglessness that comes with it. The modern person, instead of rolling a stone, creates endless reports, optimizes something, or participates in constant meetings where they feel no meaning.
At the same time, this does not mean that every depression or anxiety is related to a lack of meaning. Nor can all burnout symptoms be explained by this alone. Still, I believe this aspect receives too little attention. Therefore, for a person whose problem is the content of the work itself, it is not enough to advise better sleep, making a schedule, exercising more, or learning breathing exercises and meditation. Worse yet, sometimes people simply learn to endure a situation that essentially does not change for a little longer.
What percentage of jobs are meaningless?
Graeber relied on surveys in which a significant portion of people doubted the contribution of their work. In a 2015 “YouGov” survey, 37% of UK workers said they did not think their work was meaningful to the world.
In a similar Dutch survey, about 40% of respondents felt a lack of meaning. Of course, this does not mean that nearly 40% of all jobs are objectively unnecessary, but we cannot ignore these numbers. Moreover, the exact accuracy here is not so important.
The very question of whether work “meaningfully contributes to the world” immediately sets a very high standard of evaluation. A person may not think they are changing the world, but their work can still be useful to clients, colleagues, the community, or family.
Graeber’s figures can be disputed and have been disputed many times. However, the problem he raised does not disappear because of that. Even if only 5 or 10 percent of workers consider their work completely meaningless instead of 40, we are talking about millions of people worldwide who feel that their work and life lack meaning.
The story of work that no one missed
One of Graeber’s books mentions the story of Joaquín García, which became known in Spain. This engineer working in a municipal company hardly showed up at work and did not perform his assigned functions for at least six years. This only came to light when he was about to be awarded for his years of service. At that time, García was studying philosophy and, as reported in the media, became an expert on Spinoza’s work.
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This story is not as simple as it may seem at first glance. García himself said he experienced persecution and bullying, was deliberately left in his position without real functions. However, one aspect remains astonishing: the organization paid a salary for years to a person whose work no one missed.
This case is sometimes presented as a symbol of meaningless bureaucracy, where it is unclear what the employee’s function and place in the system are.
In a 1989 survey of UK office workers, respondents reported being productively working on average only two hours and 53 minutes per day. Although this data is old, it remains illustrative. This number should not be considered an exact measure of work productivity; it is a survey based on people’s own assessments. However, it reminds us that being at the workplace for eight hours does not mean eight hours of meaningful work.
When an employer buys a person’s time rather than a clear result, there is a need to simulate busyness. An employee cannot simply say: “I finished the work in three hours today, I’m going home.” They have to appear busy for the remaining five hours, even if that means creating new processes, writing emails, attending meetings, or just pretending to work.
In therapy, I have often heard clients consider how to meaningfully fill free time at work. Paradoxically: the organization cannot provide meaningful activity, but the responsibility for empty hours ultimately falls on the employee.
Why don’t people leave?
At first glance, the answer to this question is very simple – they do not feel they can afford to. A meaningless job still pays a salary that allows survival, meeting their own and their family’s needs. It provides social guarantees, stability, and the possibility to buy a home.
A person may feel that work exhausts or even destroys them, but at the same time be strongly dependent on it – due to a mortgage, children, or other financial obligations. Sometimes there is also the belief that nothing can be changed: a better job cannot be found, and a different life simply no longer seems possible. Pressure from the environment also contributes.
In our culture, being busy is still often associated with value in society. If a person is tired, it means they work a lot. If they work a lot, it means they are needed. Being busy has become a fashion issue, so to speak. Nevertheless, we rarely ask whether all that work really has any greater, more personal meaning.
That is why people stay. They suppress dissatisfaction, browse social networks during work, procrastinate tasks, start hating Mondays, and look forward to the weekend. On Sundays, they fear Mondays because another week full of meaninglessness will begin. Then they blame themselves for lack of motivation. But motivation is not always lacking due to discipline problems. Sometimes a person’s psyche justifiably resists activity in which they see no meaning, as humans are oriented towards meaning.
What to do about it?
I do not suggest that everyone who is bored at work should just quit. Not every moment can and should be meaningful. We create and discover meaning ourselves. All jobs have routine, administrative tasks, and periods when the result seems vague. It is important to distinguish temporary disappointment from a long-term relationship with work in which no value or opportunity for self-fulfillment is felt.
You can start with a few honest questions. Do I understand why my work is needed? Do I feel its result? Can I influence how I work? Do I feel I am using my abilities? Does my activity contradict my values? Am I valued at work for real contribution or only for the ability to appear busy? Does work provide greater satisfaction or just meet basic needs?
In some cases, it is not even necessary to change jobs; it is enough to find your role in the same position: reject excessive processes, agree on clearer results, take on more meaningful functions, regain more autonomy. In other cases, it is necessary to admit that there will be no fundamental change and start preparing to leave – not impulsively, but realistically and consistently, answering the questions mentioned above.
Employers should also sometimes invest less in employee training on how to “better cope with stress” and more in asking what creates that stress. A person needs to feel important, significant, and have a greater sense of inner satisfaction. Another meditation app or yoga with colleagues will not help here. Psychological help should not become a tool to adapt a person to any system. The healthiest reaction to a meaningless situation is to feel that you no longer want to live that way.
