Does your Job make the world a better place?

Akrasia

What do you do for a living, and is it doing something that genuinely improves the world, or is it something that ultimately doesn’t matter, or may actually make things worse.

Everything is entirely subjective but if you have an opinion it’s best to back it up with reasonable arguments.

Me personally, I work in a small software company that operates in a B2B environment where there are loads of similar competitors. I do my best to make the best possible product but if we disappeared tomorrow nobody would be any worse off. As a positive, we help the local rural economy and try to give back to the community...

Ubbquittious

Not really. I prevent some e-waste from becoming e-waste for a few more years. That is about the size of it

punisher5112

Yes I contribute to lowering global warming by carrying up to 124 people at any one time....

Vehicle returns around 5mpg but this is brilliant when you look at what single occupancy car gives....

AllForIt

No, but I do make the world a better place even if I do say so myself.

rizzodun

I work for a medical device company, who also produce products that are intravenously administered to seriously ill patients. So if we cannot produce, it's not unreasonable to say people may become critically ill, or worse.

Good to know I make a difference in some small way.

greencap

pretty much all jobs make the world a better place.

since someone was not content with a situation and so paid you to change the situation to something which would make them a little bit more content.

so after you've done your job there is one very slightly more content, though usually still ungrateful and moaning, person in the world.

also the money from the job makes you slightly content for a brief period which you also quickly forget about. so thats two slightly more contented people for a slight moment.

but without all the little jobs there'd be epic scale moaning going on.

my job doesn't really make any great difference to any one individual, im just a cog, but i don't really give a sht about the end customer anyway, its all about me from my point of view.

my boss could tell me that all the work i was doing all this time was secretly going into a big fire at the back of the building and that i'd helped not a soul in this world and i'd still just be thinking about my bank account.


collectively almost all jobs are important, the surgeon can't perform surgery if he/she is on the phone trying to source nails for the leaky roof in the hospital which is filthy cause theres no cleaners.

Kitty6277

I’m a waitress at the moment so I think my job really doesn’t matter at the end of the day. I mean yes, I can make someone’s evening more pleasant by being nice and doing as much as I can for them, but ultimately by the end of the evening when they’re gone home, it’ll all be forgotten.

paleoperson

greencap wrote: »

pretty much all jobs make the world a better place.

since someone was not content with a situation and so paid you to change the situation to something which would make them a little bit more content.

so after you've done your job there is one very slightly more content, though usually still ungrateful and moaning, person in the world.

also the money from the job makes you slightly content for a brief period which you also quickly forget about. so thats two slightly more contented people for a slight moment.

but without all the little jobs there'd be epic scale moaning going on.

my job doesn't really make any great difference to any one individual, im just a cog, but i don't really give a sht about the end customer anyway, its all about me from my point of view.

my boss could tell me that all the work i was doing all this time was secretly going into a big fire at the back of the building and that i'd helped not a soul in this world and i'd still just be thinking about my bank account.


collectively almost all jobs are important, the surgeon can't perform surgery if he/she is on the phone trying to source nails for the leaky roof in the hospital which is filthy cause theres no cleaners.

Totally false.

It's the exact opposite of that, many or most jobs are like digging a hole in the ground and filling it up again, plus carbon emissions, some of which are extremely huge.

Ubbquittious

greencap wrote: »

pretty much all jobs make the world a better place.

since someone was not content with a situation and so paid you to change the situation to something which would make them a little bit more content.

so after you've done your job there is one very slightly more content, though usually still ungrateful and moaning, person in the world.

also the money from the job makes you slightly content for a brief period which you also quickly forget about. so thats two slightly more contented people for a slight moment.

but without all the little jobs there'd be epic scale moaning going on.

my job doesn't really make any great difference to any one individual, im just a cog, but i don't really give a sht about the end customer anyway, its all about me from my point of view.

my boss could tell me that all the work i was doing all this time was secretly going into a big fire at the back of the building and that i'd helped not a soul in this world and i'd still just be thinking about my bank account.


collectively almost all jobs are important, the surgeon can't perform surgery if he/she is on the phone trying to source nails for the leaky roof in the hospital which is filthy cause theres no cleaners.

There are some jobs that only do a disservice to those around them. clampers, tele marketers, airport security, most of the insurance industry, those involved in persuading people to buy unnecessary disposable chinese tat


If you wiped out certain professions in the morning the world would only breathe a collective sigh of relief

Woodsie1

Yep...the world would grind to a halt if me and my colleagues around the world downed tools.

Yours regretfully,criminally underpaid hgv driver;)

KungPao

I believe so.

My girls are the cleanest in all this city.

greencap

paleoperson wrote: »

Totally false.

It's the exact opposite of that, many or most jobs are like digging a hole in the ground and filling it up again, plus carbon emissions, some of which are extremely huge.

Wrong.

If you're doing a banal job which doesn't do much in the way of making the world a better place, odds are you're still indirectly serving a greater function in society.

So if you're selling bulk paper from an office in slough, you're still a component in some other slightly more relevant enterprise.

Your paper might be used in the brochure for relaying essential information about a university course, or home designs.

Ultimately if your job title is a stable one then the market has decided that you make the world a better place.

greencap

Ubbquittious wrote: »

There are some jobs that only do a disservice to those around them. clampers, tele marketers, airport security, most of the insurance industry, those involved in persuading people to buy unnecessary disposable chinese tat


If you wiped out certain professions in the morning the world would only breathe a collective sigh of relief

pretty much all

almost all

.

Always Tired

rizzodun wrote: »

I work for a medical device company, who also produce products that are intravenously administered to seriously ill patients. So if we cannot produce, it's not unreasonable to say people may become critically ill, or worse.

Good to know I make a difference in some small way.

I worked for a company like that (US based with multiple sites here in Ireland, managers were all Irish) They always talked up how patient centered they were meant to be.

Load of shïte. They had been sued for billions, for a litany of shady things such as hiding fatal side effects of their products, patent infringements, etc. They jacked up the prices of a product to the point people who needed it had to bankrupt themselves to pay for it.

They also liked to bang on about how they wanted employees to enjoy a good work life balance. That didnt seem to be true either. I was on a 30 day contract for them, through a recruitment agency. They paid the agency double what my hourly rate was, incurring the extra cost simply because this way I could not have any proper rights.

Was hired under the auspices of a 3-11 monday to Friday shift. after 2 weeks was told I had to go on 12 hour nights 8pm to 8 am, five in one week including fri sat sun every other week. ruined my health doing that schedule.

they also renewed the 30 day contract 11 times, but wouldn't tell you until the last few days of the month if you had a job for another 30 days.

after doing 10 months of these 12 hour nights they finally took us off them and went back to 8 hours... for 3 weeks. then told me I had to go back on the 12 hours again. didn't ask, told me. i said no and explained my physical and mental health was suffering from lack of sleep and lack of daylight. and they just didn't renew my contract.

this scared a few of the other lads (who all SAID they would refuse it too) and they said yes to going back onto 12 hrs. company cut them all loose a few months later too.

Pharma companies are the most corrupt gangsters in the world. There are loads of natural treatments banned in this country and in America due to them lobbying against them, simply because they can't be patented and because they might work better with less side effects than the chemical crap they peddle.

BeerWolf

I work at the airport, dealing with flights. So for those going on holidays, probably... though they'd remain ignorant to the amount of times I got to bust my ass off because of how often THEY **** up, wasting my time dealing with...

paleoperson

greencap wrote: »

Wrong.

If you're doing a banal job which doesn't do much in the way of making the world a better place, odds are you're still indirectly serving a greater function in society.

So if you're selling bulk paper from an office in slough, you're still a component in some other slightly more relevant enterprise.

Your paper might be used in the brochure for relaying essential information about a university course, or home designs.

Ultimately if your job title is a stable one then the market has decided that you make the world a better place.

And I'm telling you that's garbage.

Don't worry, I get what you're saying, we all do, we fully understand the idea behind your post. No need to worry about any of us not getting it.

Someone wants it done so it's a market force, the "invisible hand of the market" right? Put into practice in the real world without any oversight (and sometimes with oversight and regulations) it's a stupid idea and a wasteful, garbage allocation of resources.

It's amazing how a lot of hardcore capitalists/libertarians for some ridiculous reason get the impression that others don't understand that simple idea of the market. Like that they have to explain it to us. Yeah we get it, we ****ing get it, it's really a very simple thing.

If people are spending their whole lives building life size houses for Kardashian dogs only to be demolished soon afterwards (and if you add up all the working hours involved including in the manufacture of the materials it would certainly amount to entire lives), that's just a bloody waste of life and carbon emissions. It doesn't make the world a better place, it's a waste.

greencap

paleoperson wrote: »

And I'm telling you that's garbage.

Don't worry, I get what you're saying, we all do, we fully understand the idea behind your post. No need to worry about any of us not getting it.

Someone wants it done so it's a market force, the "invisible hand of the market" right? Put into practice in the real world without any oversight (and sometimes with oversight and regulations) it's a stupid idea and a wasteful, garbage allocation of resources.

It's amazing how a lot of hardcore capitalists/libertarians for some ridiculous reason get the impression that others don't understand that simple idea of the market. Like that they have to explain it to us. Yeah we get it, we ****ing get it, it's really a very simple thing.

If people are spending their whole lives building life size houses for Kardashian dogs only to be demolished soon afterwards (and if you add up all the working hours involved including in the manufacture of the materials it would certainly amount to entire lives), that's just a bloody waste of life and carbon emissions. It doesn't make the world a better place, it's a waste.

Yes, but who are you to say?

Or rather who is 'we'. Stop trying to sound like you've got the whole world on your side with your 'we all' 'any of us' laughable shyte. Its transparent and lame. You're not subtle.

The vast majority of jobs do indeed make the world a better place, since peoples needs and wants are satisfied by the work of the myriad of mediocre jobs.
Its the old 'for want of a nail' deal. Nothing good or world improving gets done without the minions doing all the unimportant stuff. If you're in a boring role you're still part of the process of making the world a better place. The invention doesn't manifest without the courier who brings the samples.

The population could live in perfectly ecologically mud huts eating small game, and composting the hemp covered corpses of their loved ones as a way to grow mushrooms to further save the planet, but they'd live in misery and thats not making the world a better place. Theres more than the purely physical to consider, 'the world' includes peoples experiences as well as the environment.

Ficheall

I proofread the grammar in mathematicians' research output. Jimmy Gauss writes "a equation" instead of "an equation", and I have to fix that. Anto Euclid, one of the very few readers, might notice, but he certainly wouldn't care.


More bothersomely, if a sentence is unclear, I have to spend ages trying to guess at a rewording, not having a clue what the material is about, whereas anyone who actually was reading it would probably instantly know what had been intended.


But worst of all is the stuff that only another copyeditor might possibly notice. Kerning, consistent list formatting, making sure the space between lines is equal... Things I would never have noticed, but have been trained to be bothered by.


The pointlessness of it all does my head in a little, but I am finding it impossible to give up the online work and the flexibility with hours

Rvsmmnps

No, not so much.
I work in mass tourism in a Scandinavian country, I'm starting to question its effects on the local area and people.
People employed on various ships are payed peanuts, locals are tired of the pollution from vessels, even some guides are worried about various nature trails being ruined by the sheer volume of people visiting.

Rave.ef

Yes and no.
Yes
I deliver bulk sugar to sweet factory, bread mills and breweries and distilleries
No
I deliver bulk plastic to manufacturing plans for the likes of milk bottles and plastic piping.

twignme

I’m ex military, so I guess it depends which side you are on to decide whether my job made the world a better place.

sonyvision

I doubt it. Work in Finance for a global insurance company, spend my days counting zeros, increasing shareholder wealth, counting losses, and drinking coffee.

I did have a job while I attended school 1 hour a day I would cycle to elderly people who were house bound with their prescription. Certain individuals I would always leave till my last run because I knew they were lonely and would have a cuppa for 15/20 minute
. I was 15/16 at the time.. I didn't create world peace, but for a few years I felt I was making a different to those people.

sjb25

I'm a paramedic so maybe not a better place but I help out a bit anyway

Foweva Awone

Earlier this year I was working in an addiction treatment centre. My main role was meeting and greeting our clients, some of whom were already on recovery programs, some who were on waiting lists trying to get onto a program, and some who were still in active addiction and just in for a needle exchange or whatever.

I like to think I made a difference by making sure that their visit was always a pleasant one - for some clients, the tea and biscuits and chat I had with them while waiting for their needle exchange may have been the only positive human interaction they had all week.

I'd also often end up sharing my own story of addiction and recovery with clients and/or with their family members, I like to think it often gave them some hope. I lost everything through my addiction and it took multiple attempts for me to get my life back; if anyone ever seemed to be a lost cause it was me. But I got there, and my life is really good now.

I was also able to give plenty of reassurance and information to anyone about to enter our residential treatment program - it's got a reputation for being very tough, I've done it myself so I was usually able to address any concerns anyone had.

I was doing that job as a CE scheme and, while I loved it, it wasn't financially viable to stay there forever. So I left it to return to my previous career - accountancy. Now I'm working in the finance department of a huge engineering company, and while the work is much more mentally challenging, I have to admit it feels like it matters a lot less in the grand scheme of things.

I still spend a few hours volunteering in my old role in the addiction centre when I can. Good to remember where I came from, and to give back to those who helped me when I was at my lowest point in my life.

Salary Negotiator

Middle management for a medical devices company with responsibility for pricing in Europe and a few other select markets.

The treatment certainly improves lives and often costs less and heals the patient quicker than alternatives but it’s my job to get as much money from cash strapped health services.

So yes but also no.

Akrasia

paleoperson wrote: »

And I'm telling you that's garbage.

Don't worry, I get what you're saying, we all do, we fully understand the idea behind your post. No need to worry about any of us not getting it.

Someone wants it done so it's a market force, the "invisible hand of the market" right? Put into practice in the real world without any oversight (and sometimes with oversight and regulations) it's a stupid idea and a wasteful, garbage allocation of resources.

It's amazing how a lot of hardcore capitalists/libertarians for some ridiculous reason get the impression that others don't understand that simple idea of the market. Like that they have to explain it to us. Yeah we get it, we ****ing get it, it's really a very simple thing.

If people are spending their whole lives building life size houses for Kardashian dogs only to be demolished soon afterwards (and if you add up all the working hours involved including in the manufacture of the materials it would certainly amount to entire lives), that's just a bloody waste of life and carbon emissions. It doesn't make the world a better place, it's a waste.

Well said.

Pineapple1

sonyvision wrote:

I did have a job while I attended school 1 hour a day I would cycle to elderly people who were house bound with their prescription. Certain individuals I would always leave till my last run because I knew they were lonely and would have a cuppa for 15/20 minute . I was 15/16 at the time.. I didn't create world peace, but for a few years I felt I was making a different to those people.

That sounds lovely. How does one land a job like that?

El Tarangu

Yes and no.

Yes - I do work for a large organisation, whose work does help people.

No - these improvements are probably difficult to quantify, and my direct input even more difficult again.

Some of the tasks I've done include having a load of brochures written, designed, translated and then printed and shipped all the way from eastern Europe, only to sit iina basement for 3 years, until someone eventually decided to have them pulped.

So yeah - yes and no.

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

I like to think I did my bit to make the world better. I spent my life involved in wildlife and environmental protection in Ireland and around the world. It was, in many ways a losing battle but we had many successes and hopefully arrested rate of loss or decline.

Akrasia

I had a previous job working for an insurance company where I spent every day calling people up to tell them their PPI insurance claim had been denied.
If there is a definition of soul destroying work, this is close.

Then the job turned into processing claims for refunds from Mis-sold PPI dealing with greedy claims management companies trying to rip off consumers who were already ripped off by greedy banks selling ridiculously expensive insurance policies, often simply adding them to people’s accounts without telling them what they were or how much they cost.

The only good I could say I did, was when I ignored my bosses and told customers to not claim on their policies because there was a clause that said they would get a refund of the premium if they never claimed on it. We were ordered to not tell customers this, so some people put in claims worth a few hundred pounds that ended up costing them 20k in an insurance refund

FTA69

I work as a trade union organiser, organising low paid workers to take strike action against outsourcing companies for a living wage. If you ask the workers they'll think I am, if you ask the bosses they'd probably say no.