Mrs. Claypool: Mr. Driftwood! Three months ago you promised to put me into society. In all that time you’ve done nothing but draw a very handsome salary! Otis B. Driftwood: You think that’s nothing? How many men do you suppose are drawing a handsome salary nowadays? From the Marx Brothers’ 1935 movie “A Night At The Opera” to Mike Judge’s 1999 movie “Office Space,” and from Douglas Adams’s “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” to Joseph Heller’s “Catch-22,” writers and satirists have long made fun of the jobs in modern society that seem to have absolutely no social purpose or benefit to humanity whatsoever.
Now we have an actual head count — and it’s a doozy. One U.S. worker in five confesses in a new academic study that they think their job adds no value to the world. That’s the share who say their job “rarely” or “never” gives them “the feeling of making a positive impact on [their] community and society” or “the feeling of doing useful work.” “In total, more than 19% of all respondents … perceive their jobs as socially useless,” writes University of Zurich sociology researcher Simon Walo in the latest issue of the peer-reviewed academic jour …
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