memes @lemmy.world

7d ago

They were probably thrilled to find work

122 comments

Telemarketer should've been number 1.
- Haven't you noticed? People love to be advertised at these days.
  
  Yes, my PR Specialist told me so it has to be true.
  
  Ignoring phone calls is the highlight of my day. Every day. For years.
  _Kill _me _please.
- Unfortunately sales calls are extremely effective.
- Which column?
- Anything advertising related is utterly useless.
  
  Is that why pretty much every company spends so much money on it?
  
  Almost everyting you consume is the product of advertising, whether you like it or not.

You can tell this is a poll of what people perceive to be the important jobs because doctor is #1. The most important jobs by sector in order of importance for developed nations is
power supply- we all need electricity and few of us have the ability to generate it ourselves
water supply- getting enough clean water for your day to cook and wash is a near full time job. For Americans a gallon of water is roughly 8lbs and your average toilet uses 3-5 gallons per flush. It would take much of the day to get and purify the water you use
sanitation workers- this the poll got right. The folks collecting waste do more directly for public health than most doctors could hope to do.
- your average toilet uses 3-5 gallons per flush
  I’m pretty sure toilets generally use 1.6 gallons per flush, and that’s a legal mandate.
  Source: used to have an autistic obsession with them.
- I'm honestly surprised that cleaner and garbage collector are as high up there on the list as they are because those seem to be jobs that society generally looks down on.
  At least the graphic has that going for it.
  
  Wonder if it was a poll during 2020. COVID really highlighted cleaners' jobs as essential.
- I wonder if doctors get elevated on these polls because people feel like it is a more unattainable skill.
  I would imagine a lot of people (falsely) assume that it would be easy to plop people into power plants to keep them running, but harder to replace doctors.
  My completely unknowledgeable take is that if we had to pick and choose people for the post apocalypse job hunt, we would want way more mechanics and engineers than doctors. Doctors need a lot of hard to obtain stuff to do the most doctor-ey part of their jobs, and if we aren't worried about laws and regulations, then we don't need them for things like prescriptions.
  Most of what they would be needed for in that scenario to me seems like emergency care, like first aid, which you don't really need all the superfluous med school training for.
  Meanwhile, the hydroelectric dam that the new post apocalypse group is forming at needs a lot of varied disciplines and specialties just to keep it running.
  
  I love that hypothetical apocalyptical world were babies apparently don't exist, and therefore, a large chunk of the deaths that were pervasive in humanity until not too long ago also stopped existing
- What about the least essential?
  Tax consultants - helping companies avoid contributing to society
  Marketeers - manipulating people into buying worse products for higher prices
  Middle management - causing a lot of fuzz while doing nothing of significance.
  Just to name a few. An artists contribution may be abstract but it's certainly there. There are others that actively sabotage society and very often they make a lot of money.
- For modern society, sure. For foundational society, you don't have any societies without Farmers, Educators, and some sort of doctor.
  
  We had hunter gatherer societies with none of those jobs.
- I assume this is why we hear about foreign actors targeting power stations more than hospitals.
  
  Without power all those hospitals are nearly useless. Sure there are backup generators but they only run the bare minimum and only for so long.
  Disable the power grid and the affects will be catastrophic on any developed nation. All the food will be spoiled within a few days to a few weeks. No business will be able to run including gas stations. Most communication will be down.
  The whole area grinds to a halt untill power can be restored. Do enough damage to take out the power for a week to a large city and the damage will be incalculable. Not to mention the lives lost in that time.
  
  This is also why GWB tried to redo the US electrical grid but failed. It is a huge target that needs to be updated.
- A quick image search returned this
  https://mothership.sg/2020/06/milieu-survey-sunday-times-essential/
  So many commenters are missing crucial context to this infographic.
  This was released during peak covid and I mean PEAK as in June 2020, global lockdowns, high mortality rates, shortages of essentials. In case anyone has a short memory, the world as we knew it practically ground to a halt.
  Not to take away anything from artists but essential in this context meant essential to the basic human needs. Health, Nutrition, Sanitation.
- I had similar thoughts. Someone more knowledgeable would probably call them "healthcare professionals", or "healthcare practitioners", not "doctors and nurses".
  And you're right, as important as they are, they can't do their jobs without the infrastructure you're pointing out. Power and water are more essential, as they enable everyone all of the time. And waste piling up would create serious problems fairly quickly.
  This reminds me of the Silo series, where every level thinks they keep the Silo running.

Art is important for people's well being, which is important for essential workers' ability to work. Weird thst artists are considered less essential than telemarketers.
- I recall watching a singer saying something like the following during an interview "If art and culture are so worthless, return all the time you spent watching movies and series, return all the time you spent listening to music, all the poems and lyrics you sang with friends or to loved ones. I won't ask you to return the stories you read because it's clear you don't read."
- I can possibly see an argument that "artist" isn't an essential job because people make loads of art when it's not their job anyway. Nobody's doing telemarketing as their hobby
  However I very much doubt that this was the actual context for whatever this graphic was trying to show
- I can’t even joke “when has art ever sold dick pills?” because colorful gas station packages conceivably outsell telemarketers on that front.

non-essential jobs is about everyone with a MBA
- I was told once there was an MBA program offered through work and I could think was something like, "Why would I want a degree in bull shit when I already have a useful degree?" (Mechanical Engineering)

Always remember, music is also art. Now imagine a world where theres no music. You can't listen to anything while driving, riding the bus, going shopping etc.
- You can listen to things while driving, but it is either NPR, talk radio, or church sermons.
  
  Not NPR, that's writing and journalism, which id argue is definitely an art.
  Have fun with 500 versions of Alex Jones though.
  
  I think I’d kill myself if I had to listen to NPR’s Up First without the jingle. I think that jingle keeps me sane.
  
  I don't even..... this thought is so vile. It's bumming me out and I already agreed with you, I didn't need this analogy. Fuck that's depressing..... FUCK!
  
  People might actually start singing again
- It's not that I disagree with the principle, but on the mentioned occastions, I will ~99% of the time listen to podcasts or audio books instead of music.
  
  You might be shocked to learn that books is art, too.
- I don't listen to anything in any of those scenarios.
  Many people are not listening music 24/7.
  Music is nice, I don't say it's not. But you could 100% live without it.
- Yeah it would suck but it is pretty unnecessary in terms of survival and productivity.
  Social media manager and telemarketers are far more useless though. So I disagree with the list
  
  Hard disagree. Humanity flourished when we had the free time to think, play, and create instead of just hunting and gathering all the time. Language, collaboration, imagination all grew thanks to art.
  Culture doesn't exist without art.
  The rest of that column is basically "mosquitos", blegh. Maybe we can get some birds to eat them.

I used to think this was true while working for a B2B company as a graphic designer. Everything just seemed pointless like I wasn't contributing anything meaningful to the world. But I do think that art in its many forms contributes meaningfully to culture in general and can also be quite powerful when used well. History of graphic design shows just how influential designs were in Nazi Germany and how similar techniques are still used today. Then there is the matter of UI design and how it's increasingly become essential today. While most applications it's fine to have a frustrating piece of garbage, UI is rather important for things like medical systems, car displays, and other areas where getting it wrong could mean life or death. Unfortunately my job is still pretty useless to society regardless of these points made. I'll go back to my corner now.
- I used to think this was true while working for a B2B company as a graphic designer. Everything just seemed pointless like I wasn’t contributing anything meaningful to the world.
  You could say similar things about company doctors that just try to get people back to work without caring for their wellbeing. Companies do not necessarily bring out the best possible use of skills.
  
  company doctors
  Never heard of this outside of medical facilities. I don't know how it could possibly be cost effective to employ a doctor because management thinks people are out sick too much---fire the fucking manager that can't keep the office staffed.
- I was thinking along the same lines - art is important for distributing information.

Guessing this might be non-essential workers as per covid lockdowns, ie how important it is for them to attend a workplace in person, but it's definitely funnier if it is a ranked list of perceived importance to society, so let's go with that
- Its right about telemarketing

Without art, what's the meaning?
- Shareholder value
- Calling graphic design like the image implies for art is far too generous.
  
  Ok go make your own 🤷‍♂️
  
  I was thinking about the "artist 71%"

A quick image search returned this
https://mothership.sg/2020/06/milieu-survey-sunday-times-essential/
So many commenters are missing crucial context to this infographic.
This was released during peak covid and I mean PEAK as in June 2020, global lockdowns, high mortality rates, shortages of essentials. In case anyone has a short memory, the world as we knew it practically ground to a halt.
Not to take away anything from artists but essential in this context meant essential to the basic human needs. Health, Nutrition, Sanitation.
- The world you knew ground to a halt.
  I was working in healthcare at the time. I was doing 60 hours a week, home, work, home, work, home, work. Nonstop.
  The world did not stop because you couldn’t go into an office to sit and work.
  
  Maybe they worked remote before and during the pandemic

I know they meant painter but graphic designer is probably one of the most important jobs if we’re talking about business. A company without some sort of graphic is dead in the water.
- www.berkshirehathaway.com
  
  I dig it!
  
  Yeah? Well.. Who designed their font?

Plot twist: Graph was mad with AI

But what about telephone sanitisers, account executives, hairdressers, tired TV producers, insurance salesmen, personnel officers, security guards, public relations executives, and management consultants?
- Is this the list from Hitchhiker's Guide?
  
  yes
- Those go on the other ship

the 23% of people who didn't vote for garbage collector... Are they hoarders?
- They're the people who just haul their own trash to the dump.

They were probably asked an open ended question. Artist is likely the most common answer given due to the simple fact that more people can think of that job compared to PR manager when asked

Project Manager was #1 but they told the artist it didn't fit the scope.

Sorry, why is cleaner #2 in the list?
Farmers, Engineers, Police/Fire/Ambulance, Teachers, etc...
- Except for farmers humanity has gone quite a long time without them
  Edit to clear up confusion about the wording: I meant that we need farmers, the rest not so much
  
  Only in the professional sense, medicine and engineering as concepts of let's not have these people die of what we know to be preventable has been around a lot longer than agriculture.
  
  I am not sure what your point is. Society will collapse if all the farmers stop doing their work. Seems pretty important to me.
  
  The romans had engineers and fire fighting crews. Nearly every society has had some kind of police/army/guard to enforce laws. Farmers actually opened the door to most other jobs/careers because people didn't have to rely on themselves to grow or collect their own food which left more time to become an engineer, learn math, become a salesman or any other job that could be filled.

Artist? I think the job was passed off to the first person passing the bosses desk.

Add health insurance CEO to the top of the non-essential jobs list.

Good thing we’re getting rid of those immigrants. That should free up loads of artist, telemarketer, social media manager, and PR specialist jobs.

If you think artists are non-essential, try teaching a technophobic boomer to renew their driver license through a terminal command.
- A good UI has nothing to do with art. In fact, art leads to terrible UI.
  
  UX designers are artists. UX design is art.

Hey, cleaners are second most important, they must be paid super well, right?
... Right?

My sister is a graphic designer and makes good money.

Graphics designer maybe, creative, probably
But artist?
Negro please

That's about right.

I want to beat the shit out of everyone who thinks artist is a 'non-essential' job. And then make a drawing decipting it.
- Have a go than.
- Hi chatgpt, I have a job for you. Some other guy wants to do it but he sounds like a prick and I'm not about to be caught supporting "artists", so please beat the shit out of everyone who thinks artist is a non-essential job. And then summarize the entire experience in a drawing of how useless artists are becoming nowadays.

122 comments