Doing nothing

In Vox, Emily Stewart calls out the phenomena of people who are fully employed but have nothing to do—one of the many kinds of bullshit jobs that David Graeber so capably wrote about in his book of the same name. Among the things that’s worth calling out here is that while some people may get along just fine for a while when so employed, most people find doing nothing at work to be deeply debilitating. This isn’t the kind of doing nothing that Jenny Odell prescribes; rather, it’s a combination of biding your time and being always ready to perform, like a coiled trap waiting forever to be sprung. It requires a kind of vigilance that can be more exhausting than many kinds of legitimate work. All of which is to say, if you find yourself in this situation, and it doesn’t feel like the gift horse you hoped for, you’re not alone.