For a lot of young professionals right now, the working day feels like a bit of a contradiction.

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Diaries are packed, inboxes never properly clear, and there is this constant pressure to be visible and responsive. And yet, by the end of the day, it can feel like you have not actually done anything that meaningful.

It is a feeling that is creeping across industries, and it is getting harder to ignore, especially as more data starts to show a gap between how much people are working and how fulfilled they feel doing it.

The latest figures from the Office for National Statistics still point to relatively steady employment, but that stability is not translating into people feeling better about their jobs. At the same time, research from Gallup keeps finding the same thing: most employees feel disengaged.

They are showing up, doing the work, staying busy, but not really feeling connected to what they are doing. This is not about people not trying. It is about people putting in the effort without a clear sense of what it is actually adding up to.

Part of the issue is that the nature of work itself has changed. It is not just that there is more of it, it is that a lot of it has become quite abstract. Outputs are harder to define, outcomes are harder to point to, and days get swallowed up by meetings, updates, approvals and email chains that seem to go round in circles. You can spend hours working without ever feeling like you have moved anything forward.

That is where the idea of so called “bullsh*t jobs” comes in, a term popularised by David Graeber. It might sound blunt, but it resonates because a lot of people quietly recognise it. In many workplaces now, productivity has shifted into something more performative.

Being seen to be busy, contributing on calls, replying quickly and staying active on messages all start to stand in for........

© LBC