What is the Bullshit Jobs Calculator?
The Bullshit Jobs Calculator is an illustrative self-assessment tool that helps you estimate how much of your working life feels pointless, performative, or low value, at least in your own view.
Inspired by David Graeber’s Bullshit Jobs, the calculator combines your own assessment of your work with five common job archetypes to estimate how much of your paid time may feel meaningful versus how much feels like “bullshit”.
The results are presented as hours rather than just percentages, helping you see the potential impact over a year and across the rest of your working life.
This is not a judgment on your employer, colleagues, or profession. It is simply a reflective tool based on your own inputs.
How the Calculator Works?
The calculator starts by asking how much of your paid working time feels pointless or performative, using a simple percentage slider.
It then asks you to score five of Graeber’s job archetypes:
- Flunky – making someone else look important
- Goon – work that exists because competitors do it too
- Duct Taper – fixing problems that should not exist
- Box Ticker – paperwork, reporting, or compliance theatre
- Taskmaster – creating or supervising unnecessary work
Your overall score combines your percentage slider with your strongest archetype score. The result is then translated into annual hours, career totals, and optional salary-related estimates.
The aim is not to tell you whether your job matters. The aim is to help you reflect on how your time is spent and whether your current role feels aligned with what you value.
Step 1: Enter Your Working Life Details
Add your age, planned retirement age, salary, working hours, holiday entitlement, and optionally your commute time.
Step 2: Rate Your Job
Use the main slider to estimate how much of your paid work feels pointless or performative, then score the five Graeber archetypes based on how familiar they feel.
Step 3: Review Your Results
See your estimated bullshit percentage, yearly hours, career totals, dominant archetype, and a breakdown of where your time may be going.
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Disclaimer: This calculator is for reflection and entertainment as well as education. It is not career advice, HR advice, financial advice, or a diagnosis of your role. You decide what counts as meaningful or low-value work.
What does retirement mean to you?
Traditional retirement is broken. Understand how our calculator enables you to live a better life now vs later.
Retire from corporate work?
Use the tool to utilise how you can step away from the corporate world and live life on your own terms.
Work less, live more
See how part-time or project-based work can bridge your income gap while giving you more time for life.
Freedom through planning
Understand how your savings, spending and investments can work together to buy back your time.
Test-drive retirement early
Model scenarios that let you experience elements of retirement before fully stepping away.
How different people might use the calculator
Most jobs contain a mix of meaningful work and frustrating work. These examples show how different people might use the calculator to reflect on where their time goes and whether their current role still feels worthwhile.
Lewis, the reporting manager
Lewis enjoys leading his team but feels much of his week is spent producing reports that nobody reads.
- Sets his bullshit slider to 45%
- Scores Box Ticker at 8/10
- Explores how many hours this adds up to before retirement
Aisha, the problem fixer
Aisha spends much of her week fixing recurring process failures that she feels should have been solved years ago.
- Scores Duct Taper at 9/10
- Uses a 35% bullshit rating
- Compares meaningful work against firefighting time
Gareth, the well-paid sceptic
Gareth earns well but increasingly wonders whether the meetings, approvals, and internal politics justify the time he spends on them.
- Sets his bullshit slider to 60%
- Scores Taskmaster at 7/10
- Reviews the golden handcuffs section closely
What is the Bullshit Jobs Calculator?
The Bullshit Jobs Calculator is an illustrative self-assessment tool that helps you estimate how much of your paid work feels pointless, performative, or low value in your own view. Using David Graeber’s five job archetypes and your own ratings, it converts those feelings into hours, career totals, and practical reflections.
What is a “bullshit job”?
The term comes from anthropologist David Graeber, who argued that some jobs contain work that even the people doing it struggle to see value in. The calculator uses that idea as a starting point for reflection.
Is the calculator judging my employer?
No. The results are based entirely on your own inputs and perceptions. Two people in the same role may answer very differently.
How is the overall percentage calculated?
The calculator combines your main bullshit percentage slider with your strongest archetype score. If all archetype sliders are set to zero, the result comes entirely from your percentage slider.
What are the five archetypes?
The five archetypes are Flunky, Goon, Duct Taper, Box Ticker, and Taskmaster. Each represents a different type of work that Graeber discussed in his book.
Why focus on hours rather than money?
Because time is often the more valuable resource. The calculator is designed to highlight how much of your working life may feel worthwhile or unfulfilling rather than simply focusing on salary.
What are “golden handcuffs”?
The calculator uses this phrase to describe situations where someone earns good money but feels trapped in work they find unfulfilling.
Is a high score necessarily bad?
Not always. Some people accept frustrating work because it provides income, flexibility, security, or supports goals elsewhere in life.
Can this help me choose a new career?
Not directly. The purpose section offers ideas for reflection, not career recommendations or job vacancies.
Is this based on science?
No. The calculator is inspired by Graeber’s ideas and uses subjective self-assessment rather than scientific or clinical measurement.
Does commute time count?
You can choose whether to include commuting as part of the calculation.
Does salary affect the score?
No. Salary does not determine how meaningful a job feels. It is only used for some optional calculations and illustrations.
Is my information stored?
Inputs may be remembered in your browser for convenience. Any CSV export or email signup process is separate from the calculation itself.
Trust and education
Certified Money First Aider®
These calculators are built by a Certified Money First Aider to help you think more clearly about money and time. Money First Aid® is about practical, non-judgemental support for financial wellbeing. The calculators can certainly help you make informed decisions, but they are not regulated financial advice.
