A Geek's Life

Someone, a Black-British celebrity/ intellectual of sorts, who I follow on Twitter posted a link to a substack article which hit far too close home. The article, I did no work for a year and no one noticed, delves into the crisis of meaning which is apparently endemic to corporate life and the author’s experience of it, for a year at least. It is very much in keeping with the assertion that most corporate jobs are bullshit jobs, for which we perhaps have David Graeber to thank for bringing to the zeitgeist.

My own conflicted relationship to work is something I haven’t shied much away from: Goodhart’s law, my struggles with being a specialist in a world of generalists, AI/data and work and quietly, quiet quitting all fairly recent forays.

The article does offer five strategies for navigating the world of bullshit work. Tactical slacking does seem like the one for me! It sounds great, it reads like the sort of thing a domain expert would do, which I like to think I am.

Here’s to a year of tactical slacking then!