Are Lazy Girl Jobs Bullsh*t?
Are we thriving or surviving?
There has been a lot of exciting stuff going on!
Version 2.0 of the Lazy Girl Job Program is almost here!
BBC, WSJ & 60 Minutes are featuring our lazy girl job movement (they all should be coming out very soon)
#lazygirljob on TikTok now has 17.6M views on TikTok!
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Lazy Girl Jobs came from surviving
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Are Lazy Girl Jobs Bullsh*t?
I am always recommended the book, Bullshit Jobs: a Theory by David Graeber. Although I have yet to read it, I am planning to! I have read his original essay, On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs, that went viral in 2013 thus motivating him to write his novel. It is 100% worth a read. Supposedly the gist of the book is the rise of what he defines as “bullshit jobs” and their consequences. Which got me thinking….
I want to breakdown the similarities and differences to our theories, Lazy Girl Jobs vs Bullshit Jobs. We both define similar jobs as our main focus. Jobs that are not necessary and could even be called pointless. Jobs that have a high potential for work life balance and automation. I also am shocked he shared a similar critique in 2013 which is now ten years ago!
Huge swathes of people, in Europe and North America in particular, spend their entire working lives performing tasks they secretly believe do not really need to be performed. The moral and spiritual damage that comes from this situation is profound. It is a scar across our collective soul. Yet virtually no one talks about it.
-David Graeber (On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs, 2013)
The difference is I am recommending this bucket of jobs to you while David is doing neither in his essay. He is defining and displaying Bullshit Jobs as a commentary on our economy’s current health.
A misconception I don’t think people think through when we talk about LGJs is this career decision isn’t a choice. We are opting into the Lazy Girl Job mindset out of survival. If we had a choice, we would love to do meaningful work at a place where we felt a sense of purpose. But then the world created millions of Bullshit Jobs. Which was fine for a little bit. We came up with ideas like girlboss, She-EO, and so many other now cringe terms in an effort to create representation for career-focused women. Now, employers can’t hold their weight for motivated workers. Because:
The end of "free money" in the tech industry. You can learn about ZIRP
Social Security at risk of failing in 2033
Inflation between 1997 and today, producing a cumulative price increase of 90.10%
Pensions no longer existing
With all of this economic pressure of course we are pressured to either coast at our jobs or job hop for a better salary. I recently made friends with some Baby Boomers. I don’t have grandparents in my life so the conversation was very eye opening. These friends own 100s of acres in Northern Colorado all from one 9-5 their whole life. I just do not agree this route to wealth is possible today. And if you are a minimalist and think you don’t need a house and shouldn’t care that is fine too. But the single family home asset class is such a conservative way (or at least used to be) to build financial stability in the US.
And if you’re like “I don’t want to be rich” okay but you probably don’t want to worry about money either. We no longer have straightforward path to financial stability with one income stream. Of course taking the breaks off your job and romanticizing your personal life sounds like a better option.
It’s as if someone were out there making up pointless jobs just for the sake of keeping us all working. And here, precisely, lies the mystery. In capitalism, this is precisely what is not supposed to happen.
-David Graeber (On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs, 2013)
Sometimes late at night I ask myself: if you take my advice on getting your own lazy girl job, what will be the long term effect in your career? And then I juggle that question with another: but if you continue with the status quo of work expectations, what is the price of a lifetime of regret from not prioritizing yourself? And not just today, what if you don’t prioritize yourself over the entirety of your career? How would that concept feel?
Also, being a career-focused women is soul sucking in my opinion. I do consider myself a very motivated young woman. I have done the girlbossing and the corporate ladder climbing. And it led me to anxiety, anti-social tendencies, and a free mug.
Now I work for myself and I have never worked harder in my life but it doesn’t give me the above said negative impacts. I am not saying the solution to this is being an entrepreneur. I am highlighting that I don’t know if the traditional idea of career success and true happiness and peace can exist at the same time. Therefore we quiet quit and job hop and we get Lazy Girl Jobs (so many buzzwords I feel like I’m in an alternate reality) and we decenter our 9-5 from our life to survive.
A Personal Note
I'm constantly debating myself, sometimes for the better and sometimes because my brain is playing tricks on me. I wanted to share a glimpse of my thought process with you by comparing BS Jobs and Lazy Girl Jobs. I intensely evaluate my thoughts before I present them to you. It’s important to me because I think your time is valuable. Also, I think what we say is important.
I feel like a new era is on the horizon. Right now, I have two paths presented to me to choose from: write a book or build a tech company. These choices aren't mutually exclusive in the long term, but they are in the short term because I'm only one person and we can't clone ourselves yet, haha. I don't know the answer yet, and I don't know when I'll know it, but I'm reminding myself that's okay. I am 26 so I have (hopefully) many years to do it all and then some.
This Thursday marks my 3rd year of sobriety. My sobriety date is also my dad's birthday, and we've had a very unconventional relationship throughout my childhood and young adulthood. After 10 years of therapy and many soul-searching activities I have partaken in, we've recently reached a compromise. The day after I left corporate America to pursue content creation full-time this March, he called me from prison and we agreed to talk on the phone a few times a month. The process has been very healing for me.
I don't talk about this stuff on a large scale for a lot of reasons. I don't care what “user473910&$” thinks about my personal life, I don't want to burden you all by turning you into my therapist, I have people in my life who I can talk to about this, and some of my family members would prefer if I didn't talk about it. But for some reason I am okay with sharing recently.
Since getting sober, July has always been a really explosive month for me. This observation has also been a huge motivating factor for me to continue to stay sober. Every anniversary it feels like I time travel into the future. In July 2021, I celebrated my 1-year sobriety anniversary and gifted myself a brand new car. I also opened my first business off of my TikTok and made exactly as much money in that month as my new monthly car payment (which wasn’t a lot but just a weird coincidence). In July 2022, I started going viral to the point where the New York Times and Bloomberg mentioned my videos. This year, my 3rd anniversary, is massive.
I'm excited to see what the future holds, but I'm also taking things one day at a time. I'm grateful for my sobriety, my relationship with my dad, and the opportunity to create content that has touched so many people's lives. I'm also grateful for you, for reading this and taking the time to get to know me a little better.
Xoxo,
Gabrielle