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Comment on A Review of Graeber's Essay on “Bullshit Jobs” (2013)parent

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So these ideas about falling work weeks are nice in theory, but they don't take into account human nature and how real people think.

Taken to its extreme form that implies that only the best dentist in the world has any work. But even finding a dentist that is accepting new customers, especially if one is seeking an NHS dentist, can be quite difficult. I don't see anyone turning their noses up at a dentist because that dentist happens to only work two days a week.

I am also unsure that extra experience would allow the dentist to differentiate themselves that far in quality. It is not uncommon, if you interview a lot of people in some capacity, to meet a large number of people who seem to have done, rather than the 5 or 10 years work on their CV, one year 5 or 10 times – in terms of the experience that they have garnered and the things they've achieved. Other people have done far less work in their lives, but have crammed far more into it, or have achieved far better results. Sometimes that's because of their personality – how readily they put themselves forwards for things, other times it's because of the nature of their employment. If dentist B is of the latter type, and dentist A is of the former type, then I would choose dentist B.

Quite aside from the question of why a dentist would publish how many days a week they worked. If my dentist worked 2 days a week, chances are I wouldn't know.

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