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Instead of dealing with 1 smart human admin whose full-time job was dealing with a dozen other human functional service provider orgs (and often marrying her since it was usually a woman supporting a man), you now have to learn 15 pieces of enterprise software. Shadow line-labor.
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“Bullshit jobs” is a bit of an unfair term for humans who used to be at the client (admin assistant) and server (staff org pro) ends of routine business processes. They did real work, which is why real software businesses plus shadow line labor have replaced them.
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I hope it’s improved since I left paycheck world, but I’d guess about 10-30% of worker time now is the equivalent of bagging your own admin groceries in self-checkout admin bureaucrat machines in the Dark Staff cloud.
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This is something like the dystopian world of Vonnegut’s Player Piano, except that instead of clear divides between skilled human work and automation, all humans are now partly low-skill shadow-line labor robot babysitters, spending 10-30% time working the Dark Staff cloud.
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(soon to be equipped with AI and genuine people personalities a la Siri/Alexa/Cortana... then certain functions may go almost fully dark with even most customer service being handled by AIs that learn on process failure instances across large call data sets)
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As these systems improve the routine use will get better and better, reaching near consumer-grade UX quality. Invoicing systems will get as precision-engineered as google. The flip side: failures will get harder and harder to fix.
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Basically, economies of business process scale are kicking in with a vengeance. Soon, resolving a problem with eTPScore will be like trying to get Twitter to unfreeze an incorrectly frozen account. The difference is, your paycheck might be held up while you wait.
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CoE has profound consequences. All the troubles ailing social media today — fake news, exploitative bots, algorithmic crashes — could potentially migrate to enterprise systems. Think Dark Staff phishing etc. I already get the occasional fake invoice.
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Free-agent world is barely distinguishable. I think I use as many self-bagging admin things but they tend to be narrower point solutions for much more specific, unbundled needs. I suspect I overall spend more time on admin since I have to do more by myself, but it’s all necessary
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In a way the free agent/paycheck distinction is now irrelevant. Flexwork + consumerization of IT + BYOD + consumerization of employment = amazing dissolving workplace. There is no need for an access controlled physical/digital “office” to work in. No walls. Open borders economy.
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The CoE effect is even stronger where you’re an actual consumer too (Amazon or Starbucks say). Think old-fashioned employee stores/employee discounts/company towns but seamlessly integrated at relationship level.
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You no longer compartmentalize your relationship with the corporation. It’s the same login/id and access credentials. It just has rich, fine-grained effects on cash inflows/outflows based on your full relationship with the Dark Staff, via the corporate-employer-as-switchboard.
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So employer organizations are now increasingly like virtual switchboards connecting workers to Dark Staff services. If there’s an office, it’s for either specialized physical equipment or community services. The watercooler IS the office now.
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The so-called “third place” is no different from the office now. Both are basically coffee shops. The coffee just might be cheaper in one. Even f2f privacy is not as critical a function. That’s for one of the phone booths, which Starbucks might soon have.
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To wrap it up, think of it this way. Soon “quitting/changing your job” may not be a dramatic event with huge lifestyle consequences. It might just be some permissions getting downgraded on one switchboard, and upgraded on another.
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You’re bagging your own admin groceries in either case, at most from a different coffee shop. Welcome to the brave new world of consumerized employment. Your call is important to us. Our Dark Staff representative, Cortana, will be with you shortly to discuss your paycheck freeze.
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