it’s as if someone were out there making up pointless jobs just for the sake of keeping us all working (2025) is part of a series of pieces that explores purposeless work. The piece presents the players with a set of pointless jobs which they must complete within the constraints set for the performance, which might include time limits, specific sequences reliant on others’ work being completed, or a greater degree of personal choice. The means of allocating jobs determines some aspects of the performance, reflecting potential differences between management structures in employment contexts. The degree of autonomy players have in choosing how to complete their jobs reflects the opportunities for personal task management in workplace settings.

The piece explores the way the amount of agency we have in our work and the types of jobs we are tasked with impacts on our effectiveness and levels of motivation. The required jobs in the piece are all fairly arbitrary and lacking in apparent utility, asking players to rationalise their own motivations for submitting to the requirements placed upon them by the particular management structure in operation. As with a number of my recent pieces, the title is drawn from David Graeber’s book Bullshit Jobs. It is well worth reading.

The piece was requested by Stuart Wood as a contribution to his book Trust in Music.