This article offers some reflections following a recent session of our “scientific reflecting and debating” meeting with students of the spatial sciences research master. In the current semester these sessions are held in a hybrid mode to enable students who are on research internships abroad. This included the islands and sustainability students who are based in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Iceland and Lesvos. As usual, being a multicultural group comprising over 12 different nationalities, allowed us to engage in a sort of spontaneous international comparative analysis which leads invariably to interesting findings. In this occasion, we reflected and debated on the book “Bullshit Jobs” by David Graeber (2018), in the company of Prof. Dimitris Ballas. Graeber’s witty critique on expendable and mostly nonsensical jobs, gave us plenty of food for thought, and at the end I found myself inundated by a torrent of new ideas. It took me while to put my mind to rest, however, when the noise had completely disappeared, I was able to recognize where I stood in the “bullshit jobs” debate, and what lens I wanted to wear while writing this brief essay.

My meditations took me to my own country, Mexico, where bullshit jobs abound. Indeed, it is not unusual to come across any of the five categories of bullshit jobs established by Graeber:

1. Flunkies, whose only job is to make their boss look or feel important.
2. Goons use aggressive tactics to push meaningless agendas or sell useless products.
3. Duct Tapers must constantly undo the damage caused by a glitch or fault in the organization.
4. Box Tickers oversee paperwork that has no other purpose but to serve as endorsement for pointless or even illicit activities.
5. Taskmasters create bullshit tasks for others, and supervise them.

However, another kind of bullshit job came to my mind. One that does not fit into any of Graeber’s categories, but that has nonetheless become ingrained in Mexicaneity. I’m talking about the “viene-viene(s)” (which literally means come-come in Spanish) also known as “franelero(s)”, found in busy streets with side parking and in many public parking lots in Mexico. Their job consists on spotting empty parking spaces, stopping traffic to make room for comfortable maneuvering, and accompanying the driver throughout the parking process, in order to minimize the risk of bumping into another car, a wall, a post, or a tree. A viene-viene will also help car-drivers who are leaving, expecting a few coins in return. Viene-viene(s) are easy to recognize, as they are usually carrying a piece of red cloth (“franela” in Spanish, hence the term franelero) for dusting, and a whistle as their preferred tool for communicating.

Evidently the job of a viene-viene is a superfluous one, which were it to disappear no one would miss (although Mexicaneity would certainly lose a superstar!). Precisely Graeber’s definition of a bullshit job. Nevertheless, contrary to the testimonies found in his book, it is very likely that a viene-viene would try to convince us that they do provide a valuable service to society. And it would be difficult to argue with them, as their existence is legitimized by different syndicates and public authorities. Moreover, the willingness of citizens to pay a gratuity to viene-viene(s) for their services seems to indeed imply an intrinsic value. Precisely this argument was posed by the former secretary of labor of Mexico City back in 2011, a time of intense social discontent with viene-viene(s). However, this is a rather simplistic view, as it fails to account for the informal institutions of charity inherent in the Mexican society, that exist among other factors, due to a deep social inequality and an ensuing collective effort to alleviate the conditions of the less fortunate. In this regard, the said secretary did acknowledge that viene-viene(s) exist only because the current economic model cannot generate the conditions necessary to provide enough formal jobs. A view which indeed supports the argument that rather than intrinsic value, the tip implies a charitable action and the awareness of citizens that viene-viene(s) are less fortunate people in need of (economic) help. In other words, the awareness that it is a bullshit job.

As I pondered on these matters, it occurred to me that other developing countries could be facing a similar situation. Perhaps it could even be possible to find viene-viene(s) in other Latin-American countries, or even other continents. Coincidentally, my roomie’s Pakistani boyfriend had come over for dinner shortly after our discussion of the book in class, and I decided to ask him if there were viene-viene(s) in Pakistan. Like Mexico, it is a developing country (United Nations, 2022) with an even higher percentage of informal employment (84% compared to 57% according to 2021 data by ILOSTAT, 2021). And indeed, he knew right away what I was talking about, confirming my suspicions that there are viene-viene(s) in other parts of the world (A few days later I learned they exist in Peru as well). Moreover, we came to the conclusion that they perform the same tasks and use similar methods. One in particularly made us both consider an interesting analogy to modern technology, which can be seen as a substitute: viene-viene(s) simulate a proximity sensor by knocking on the roof or the rear of the car, increasing the tempo as it approaches an obstacle. Apparently viene-viene(s) were ahead of their time, as they had perfectioned proximity sensors well before ultrasonic and electromagnetic technology began being built into cars!

As I mentioned earlier, the underlying motive for paying viene-viene(s) is the charity of car-drivers, rather than the utility received from their services. In Pakistan, paying a viene-viene can be considered a form of Zakat, which is the most important form of almsgiving and one of the five pillars of Islam. Pakistanis are thus required to give away 3% of their earnings to people in need, through the Muslim community, charitable foundations, or directly to those less fortunate. In Mexico, the informal institution of charity has religious influences as well. The diezmo, was until the Mexican independence, a mandatory tithe paid to the Catholic Church. When Mexico achieved independence, the diezmo was abolished and gradually transformed into a voluntary contribution. Nevertheless, it dwindled rapidly as the church's authority diminished. Today, the limosna (Spanish for alms) is the most common form of almsgiving in Mexico, and although voluntary, it is quite similar to the Zakat in terms of the amount destined to charitable causes and the channels of distribution. Therefore, paying a viene-viene can be considered as a form of limosna in Mexico and as a form of Zakat in Pakistan.

Bullshit jobs are thus a form of charity in developing nations when the economic system fails to provide enough formal jobs. This sort of trickle-down economics, however, is evidently not the most efficient nor the fairest, and neither does it help solving the real issue. Perhaps the question governments should be asking, besides how to generate (non-bullshit) employment, is if there is a more optimal way of collecting and spending that 3% of earnings. In Mexico, parking meters have gradually replaced viene-viene(s), although not surprisingly, tax-pocketing corruption scandals followed almost immediately. This is in fact one of the reasons why in some (corrupt) countries people rely on the sort of informal institutions that are independent of the state. Changing the rules of the game, and transitioning towards a more efficient system, will not be an easy task!

References

Gomez-Flores, L. (2011) Parquímetros no desplazarán a los franeleros: Miron Lince. Accessed on: 10-03-2023. Available at: https://www.jornada.com.mx/2011/12/01/capital/041n1cap

Graeber, D. (2018). Bullshit jobs (First Simon & Schuster hardcover). Simon & Schuster.

ILOSTAT (2021) Proportion of informal employment in total employment by sex and sector (%). Accessed on: 10-03-2023. Available at: https://ilostat.ilo.org/topics/informality/

United Nations (2022) World Economic Situation and Prospects 2022. Accessed on: 10-03-2023. Available at: https://www.un.org/development/desa/dpad/publication/world-economic-situation-and-prospects-2022/

Zuber, C. (2014) Pedestrians and vehicles busily move about on a rain drenched downtown street with old rundown buildings in Las Choapas, Veracruz. Accessed on: 10-03-2023. Available at: https://rug.assetsdelivery.com/new/image_detail.php?imageid=34308701&keyword=mexico%20cars&lang=nl