A sophomore undergraduate student at Brown University named Alex Shieh is trying to get on board the DOGE train by exposing all the waste and fraud going on at his school. He has started a website called Bloat@Brown to catalog all the criminal waste, and he’s desperately spamming Twitter to get Elon Musk’s attention.
He has a methodology that he documents. He’s feeding the list of Brown University employees to an AI he has loaded with an algorithm to identify all the bad actors in the university hierarchy, which seems to be flagging everyone other than Alex Shieh himself, who is a legacy admission, the son of a wealthy alum. This is the entirety of his program.
Bloat@Brown’s algorithm scrapes publicly available internet sources for each employee and role (brown.edu pages, articles, LinkedIn pages, job postings, etc.) and searches our database for co-workers with similar roles—similar to how a human would conduct internet research. These online sources are passed to an LLM, which makes its judgments solely based on the retrieved sources.
His program sorts through all the positions at Brown, sorting them into three categories: illegal jobs, redundant jobs, and bullshit jobs. I’m relieved that we don’t have a similar naive young student here at UMM passing judgement on me.
Here’s how he defines “illegal jobs”.
DEI: Does the role involve diversity, equity, and inclusion, which may violate the Civil Rights Act following the Supreme Court’s ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard?
Antisemitism: Has the employee publicly voiced antisemitic ideas, which the Trump Administration asserts is a violation of the Civil Rights Act?
You can tell his mind has been poisoned by conservatives. They all think that any role that allows a non-white person, or non-male person, is criminal. Also, you know that he’s going to label opposition to murdering Palestinians as anti-semitism.
His “redundancy” is similarly gooey.
Automation: Can the role be automated using current technology?
Overlap: Is the employee assigned to responsibilities that could otherwise be completed by other employees with overlapping responsibilities?
I’d be in trouble here. Our biology discipline employs 9 faculty — what a waste! All you need is one biologist, right? I’m sure Mr Shieh is fully aware of the breadth of biology and knows exactly how many people you need to teach it.
The real fun begins when he starts describing “bullshit jobs”. He has probably never worked in a real job in his life, but he knows which ones are unnecessary, because he read a book once.
“Bullshit Jobs: A Theory” is a 2018 book by David Graeber that describes five types of useless jobs.
Flunkie: Does the role exist primarily to make one’s boss feel more important (e.g., receptionists, assistants, etc.)?
Goon: Is the employee’s primary responsibility to fight or deceive others on behalf of the university (e.g., litigators, PR specialists, marketers, etc.)?
Duct Taper: Is the employee’s primary responsibility to make temporary fixes to systems that could be permanently streamlined (e.g., data entry, IT maintenance staff, etc.)?
Box Ticker: Is the employee’s primary responsibility to create superfluous outputs (e.g., memo writers, newsletter writers, etc.)?
Taskmaster: Is the employee a manager whose primary responsibility is to assign unnecessary tasks to their subordinates (e.g., middle management)?
Cool. So all receptionists and secretaries and assistants do is fluff the ego of the boss? Good to know. Personally, I’ve found the staff indispensable — they keep all the records, they know where stuff is, they track deadlines, they organize everything. My university would fall apart without them. At Brown, though, I guess the college president handles all the details; the faculty are all independent and don’t get reminders of all the work outside teaching and research that they’re expected to do.
I guess recruiting and PR at Brown is done by “goons” running around, lying about the university, and fighting prospective students. Every Fall a new crop of freshmen are hog-tied and dumped into the dorms. Yeah, let’s get rid of those guys.
Can he get any more patronizing? Maintenance staff are just “duct tapers”; why not set up university IT right from the very beginning, so you don’t need someone to patch it and maintain it? Also, no one needs “data”, let alone someone to “enter” it.
There is something called institutional memory, and it’s preserved by all those memos and documents that someone has to write, and that get sent around to all of us. That’s the glue that makes a university an institution with a purpose and a body of procedures to keep it running.
I guess we need to get rid of all middle management, it doesn’t do anything. All we need is a president who tells us what to do, and then the faculty who do the teaching and research, and anything in between is superfluous. Wait, who is doing the accounting to make sure I get a paycheck? Who is maintaining the buildings and infrastructure? Who turns on the heat in the winter? You mean I have to do all that now, because Alex Shieh thinks it would be more efficient?
Every university has a few entitled students — I was once told by a student that I needed to run down to the prep room to get some reagents for him right now because he “pays my salary” — but Alex Shieh takes that to a whole new level. I think maybe part of his education ought to be spending some time serving as a flunkie, a goon, taping ducts and ticking boxes. But he doesn’t have to because he’s apparently a rich privileged child of a rich privileged mommy and daddy.
There’s a fun discussion of Alex Shieh on Bluesky. He’s been following Musk’s lead and writing to the employees of Brown University and demanding that they justify their job, and getting some replies.
Oh, that poor little boy is getting dragged.
How to become the most hated person at a university in one easy step.
This little shit is bastardizing Graber so.oncredibly badly. The whole point of Grabers book was not “look at all these useless eaters mooching off do nothing jobs!” It was an analysis of how the externalities of capitalism afflict working people with pointless work solely for the benefit of the wealthy and powerful. Graber was a fucking far left anarchist, I am struggling to imagine being so stupid as to read his work and come to the conclusion” these fucking workers have had it too good for too long!”
@crimsonsage: oh, he surely just asked an llm to summarize the book…
Talk about lack of self-awareness! The little twerp doesn’t realize that two years out of high school he’s not qualified to hold any of the “bullshit” jobs. Not much call for a pampered parasite.
Seriously, the person needs to read Grubens whole book, or at the very least his whole article that proceeded the book. It’s worth reading: https://strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs/
The whole point was people KNEW when they were working bullsh*t jobs. You don’t get told that by some out of touch person not related to the job. More importantly, the person knew departments or places that would be better off with their help or skills, not that there were no jobs to do.
There are so, so, many challenging, important, necessary or useful jobs that need to get done but don’t because capitalism. Because instead of being necessary, useful, important, or interesting being the marker of how we divide our labor, it has to make money. Not only “Make money” but “making increasing amounts of money”. It CAN be necessary, useful, important or interesting, but that is independent of the “making money” part.
I hate to point out the obvious to Mr. Shieh, but you’re non-white. You’re an Asian. Any job you get in the future will be labeled a DEI hire by the MAGA fanatics.
Screw it, I’m going on this tirade:
The fabric-and-craft goods store JoAnns is going out of business. Why? Do people no longer want fabric, notions, or craft goods? Nope- it’s going out of businesses because it wasn’t making ENOUGH money, more each year. They tried cannibalizing their front-line staff; the stockers, the clerks, and the check-out people which gave them just enough of a boast for a few years of stock portfolio boost but not enough money that they can’t make more money as an equity company buying them out and selling them piecemeal.
What’s the difference anyway, right? It’s arts-and-crafts, and female-coded ones at that. Who cares- no one will die if Joanns goes under. Buy your stuff online. But that’s peoples jobs that, while not exactly high-paying, were at the very least inside, air-conditioned, and not under unsafe and grueling conditions. The displaced jobs are Amazon workers- not exactly known for their great working conditions. The cutters at Joanns were often quite knowledgeable about what kinds of fabrics would work for what kinds of projects; that’s now institutional knowledge that’s harder to find. Now people are stuck with youtube videos- which has a lot of chafe and you need to have an additional skill to navigate AND still won’t tell you about your specific project. Amazon gets more power, local companies get less, google gets more people trying to pay to game the algorithm.
Not to mention, online purchasing is always, always a crap-shoot. I’ve lost many an hour of my life because I ordered something that told me it was cotton and when I got it it was POLYESTER. Not even a poly-blend. And I live in the city- since I am deep into this particular craft I already know I can find other fabric stores, where to find them, and what I can get there (and more importantly, what I can’t). But their hours are truncated, their selection is smaller, and I have to drive much further to get them (for instance, for those local; I drive past 2 Joanns, 3 Michaels, and a Hobby Lobby (why couldn’t they get bought out instead) to get to SR Harris from my house. And no offence to SR Harris; their fabric is inconsistent and has limited notions).
So “bullshit” jobs were done away with. You can always automate the check-outs right (except, no, as Walmart proved people will steal WAY more shit if you don’t have an actual person). Same thing with Toyz R Us, and everyone else; the stores were already sliding into irrelevance because you cut the front-line staff and the stores became less useful; you couldn’t find anyone, stuff was unstocked, and lines were long. But it wasn’t because “stock person” and “retail clerk” were useless; it’s because they didn’t make enough money to keep them around.
Not that one should make fun of people’s appearances and really not relevant but am I the only one thinking Alex Shieh looks remarkably like a small-headed Peter “Gestapotato” Dutton* wearing Elon Musk’s hair?
See :
https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/65-reasons-why-dutton-is-unfit-to-be-pm,18924
@ Stevo
Yes the only one. Not even remotely similar.
https://www.aph.gov.au/Senators_and_Members/Parliamentarian?MPID=00AKI
But “wearing Elon Musk’s hair” was still hilarious. X-D
Brown U has many other students, so I guess that makes Alex Shieh ‘redundant.’
Antigone10 @ 7
Private equity is buying up perfectly good companies with temporary financial troubles, wringing out all $$$ they can, and then let them go bankrupt. I do not think the EU nations permit similar practices.
Who would have thought French politicians and German bureaucrats are a bulwark of civilization?
@ 6
Right? You know that (probably) fat old white guy whos’s been trolling PZ’s blog for years pretending to be Japanese – “違う” or whatever the fuck stupid made up name he calls himself – this is what that guy wishes he looked like. At least remotely south-east Asian.
He would never in a million years get a job in the racist Trump administration. Utterly delusional.
What the fuck? This is the kind of racist comment that can get you sent back to your home country. You know nothing about that person. --pzYeah…
One of the things I learned early working a highly technical job is that the Administrative Assistant is absolutely the person who keeps the office running, because they handle all the little details of dotting i’s and crossing t’s that let the rest of the technical staff focus on their jobs rather than spending time dealing with more bureaucracy than necessary. Back when I was in University one of my friends gave me the advice that the one person you do not piss off at any large corporation is whoever runs the mail room.
Anybody who doesn’t understand that either has never worked a real job in their lives or has their head stuck too far up their own asshole to see how the world around them works. (Though this guy appears to be gunning for ‘both’.)
@antigone10:
I think it was Circuit City that went with a plan to reduce expenses by ‘we’re going to fire all the staff who are getting high salaries because they’ve been here and know everything, and then offer to re-hire them back at a starting salary to save money’. The result was the fully expected case of all the staff who actually knew what they were doing telling the management exactly where to shove that idea, and stores that now no longer had anybody who actually knew the inventory or were willing to put in the work, which meant customers went elsewhere if they had the choice.
birgerjohansson @10. Surely that would be Asset Stripping which, so far as I know, is not illegal in the EU.
BTW can anyone tell me whether C. Northcote Parkinson’s rule that, all things being equal, administrative jobs increase at about 5-7% per annum has been refuted?
Based on his name and appearance, it seems Alex is Chinese…i.e. not a proper white man. He may have to go back to where he came from.
Silentbob @12: You’ve been misgendering and insulting chigau for a long time (years?). I don’t know why, or how you keep getting away with it. Please, please try this shit at Mano’s place.
You really are a nasty, malicious piece of shit.
Conventional (naive) wisdom: “Crime doesn’t pay.”
Capitalism: “It pays, therefore it’s not crime.”
demented fuckwit @12
Ta mère était un hamster et ton père sentait le sureau.
Bessez mon cul.
I didn’t need translate to know “cul” and I never read it before in French. Elderberries?
Making McCarthyism great again.
Alex is going to do well when he enters the real, working world.
“I have some ideas to make this company more efficient.”
“Stay in your cubicle, Alex.”
The department secretary at Brown CS launched my fucking career. Thankfully she’s retired now. Idiots back then were much more constrained in their idiocy, because the technology to broadcast a fundamental lack of humanity were not so well developed.
Oh never mind to my @19. Monty Python reference.
With someone like that on my staff, I would have a great idea on how to become more efficient. I’d have to retain a lawyer to deal with the resulting entitled lawsuit but it would still be worth it.
The receptionist is often a client’s first contact with a company and therefore makes the first impression on said client. Good receptionists are worth their weight in gold yet many companies scrimp. I’ve never understood it.
I’ve worked for small companies and large corporations. In any half-decent company everybody plays a vital role, including cleaners, security guards, receptionists, techs, managers and CEOs.
The importance of each role is highlighted by the problems caused when somebody underperforms. This is true for any of the above groups.
so appropriate that he’s a sophomore.
I wonder if Alex Shieh’s crap helped get Dr. Rasha Alawieh, an assistant professor at Brown University, deported to Lebanon? Oh well, losing a kidney transplant surgeon is no big deal.
I wonder if she might like Canada?
[OT + meta]
Rob, it’s been even more often there, just as long.
Exempli gratiā.
I think this Alex character is just having a look at me moment in order to try and get Musk’s attention. To then, well who knows? Brown U staff just happens to be the victims but as far as Alex is concerned, beside the point.
I’m hoping this guy finds out first hand why universities have lawyers on retainer
Why on earth would he ever do that, when his privileged background allows him to fail upward just like Trump?
Bekenstein Bound, non-privileged people may themselves not enter the real, working world.
(That is in itself a privilege. Tell that, for example, to a Palestinian youth in Gaza)
He’d fit in well with Musk, thinking he knows everything and if he doesn’t know it, it must not be important.
When I was working in the mid 1980s I encountered a “computer tech” guy who decided that we needed to memorize a long nonsense alphanumeric method to access certain printers on a minicomputer that we used for graphics.
I told him that I was to busy to remember the random codes and could he just give them names like “basic”, “color”, “Big”. etc? He resisted, and then I asked if he would be prepared to do my job which was to solve nonlinear multivariable 2nd order differential equations.
The next day he “discovered” the minicomputer had the capacity to create “logical” names to direct graphics to the requested printer.
Over the last few weeks I have been thinking how well those working to dismantle our democracy would be at solving nonlinear multivariable 2nd order differential equations. Which really is not that difficult if you have taken engineering applied mathematics… because the Euler equation is the basics of simplifying the solution.
Needless to say, I am frightened by an administration that is using 19th century economics that created the Great Depression and simply does not understand preventing diseases with vaccines is better than hawking vitamins and yucky fish oil. The bullies that I endured because I was literate in literature and math have taken over this country. They are destroying everything.
chris: “The bullies that I endured because I was literate in literature and math have taken over this country. They are destroying everything.”
Alas, it is apparent that roughly 1/3rd of the population agrees with those bullies.
And, also apparently, that suffices for their ‘mandate’.
I want to apologise for any fatphobia I may have expressed in this thread.
I’m overweight myself and may have internalised social attitudes that being slim is desirable.
Anyway I apologise unreservedly for any implication that being fat is a character flaw. I don’t believe it and it isn’t true.
The hubris and irony referring to David Graeber whose values couldn’t be more diametrically opposed to this conservative twat.
[meta]
Silentbob, your persistent malevolence and personal antipathy are not worth an apology, just the implication about corpulence. Your trolling.
She. Aged. Retired. Canada. No pretence whatsoever — rather, respect and interest.
You’ve been told that over the years, multiple times.
“I’m overweight myself and may have internalised social attitudes that being slim is desirable.”
Your persistent and perverse misgendering and mis-ageing and antipathy.
Older lady you call a basement boy, and have at least a dozen times over the last couple of years.
(Bah. You are known to me, O Slyme)
Elon probably thinks this boy has promise.
@12. & #36 Silentbob
Yeah, the fatphobia is bad. Really bad. But there’s more there as well – claiming that somebody else is pretending to be someone they or something they are not without evidence. What’s your basis for doing that?.Where’s your evidence and logic showing chigau (違う) is anything other than who she says she is?
Mocking her nynm here too when for starters all names are made up and chigau (違う) is real Nihongo (Japanese) meaning “Different” although cultural the word is used a bit, werm, differently to how how we use “different” in english too.Really, what is your problem with that as a nym exactly?
Silentbob @#12 and 36
Insulting other commenters based on information about them that you have imagined is dozy and Trumpian.