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I was discussing jobs and careers with a friend recently, and as you may guess it wasn’t complimentary. I mean there’s a reason David Graeber wrote a book called “Bullshit jobs,” which surprisingly I have not read.
What got me thinking is not how many jobs, are well, bullshit (I mean I know that but I should read the book), but the danger of the job description itself. Jobs can become a kind of “Accountability Sink,” and I think that’s potentially more common than we may realize.
An Accountability Sink is a concept I was introduced to in – you guessed it – The Unaccountability Machine by Dan Davies. The idea is that some processes and parts of an organization that adsorb accountability. It’s the help line that never lets you actually reach someone. The process no one is responsible for. The idea that “number go up” means all else is fine.
Now these aren’t always bad. Some people make bad decisions due to bad data. Accidents happen. We need some Accountability Sinks where the organization takes or diffuses the hit otherwise no one would want to do anything. I mean I work in medicine, and everyone is working hard, everyone is addressing risk, and if the organization didn’t accept responsibility, everyone would go insane from stress.
However you can guess that though they may not be bad, Accountability Sinks become problematic. Enough Accountability Sinks and leadership of a company can devastated people, states, economies, and countries. They may not even realize what a-holes they are as they’ve lost feedback.
Now, let me bring it down to the level I started at – I wonder if some jobs, some positions are Accountability SInks. The job is a convenient person to blame or the job comes with the assumption of unaccountability.
Ever been some low-level peon on a job? First to take blame? First to get laid off? Your position is an accountability sink. You can be let go because you carried out someone else’s bad decision. You can let go to juice stock prices because of a bad quarter brought on by C-level failure. You were the accountability sink, a human crumple zone for corporate accidents.
But also ever seen how some jobs – and not necessarily leadership (but too often, leadership) can make the most dunderheaded decisions and get away with it? You’re assumed to be right as you’re an expert or a business genius. Your failure might be considered part of your job, and it’s fine that, say, a system went down as that’s expected. Yes, you decided on conflicting standards, but as it’s not apparent until people try to make shit work you’re fine because you followed the recommendations.
Your job may be the accountability sink for others or have accountability sink built in. Either way congrats, your job may reduce responsibility.
Kind of makes you want to take a look at your job again, doesn’t it? Though it might not hurt to take a look at your co-workers as well . . .
Steven Savage