https://www.thenation.com/article/society/wvu-cuts-higher-education/

The authors analogize educational levels and unemployment rates to playing musical chairs to underline the zero sum game being played in the labor market.

This becomes a useful argument for why a universal basic income ought to be implemented, not to mention the bullshit job thesis which pairs with it.

When did the definition of a so-called "conventional job" emerge? Presumably after the start of the industrial revolution when people began moving from traditional crafts, home work, farm work, and other general subsistence work.

What defines a non-conventional job? Does it subsume caring work? What does David Graeber have to say about this in Bullshit Jobs?

I've been told since the first day I started working at the Division of Hospital Medicine at @UCSF that my work doesn't bring in $ to cover my salary. It's a narrative of manufactured scarcity, a common tactic in capitalism. The CEO is making $1.85 million plus bonuses.

— Rupa Marya, MD (@DrRupaMarya) November 4, 2022

A Hospitalist’s economic value is in what we *save* the system in terms of quality-driven care and patient throughput (DC/unit time), not in how much we bring in through profees. Because of how the system is structured, you’ll only see our value when we aren’t there.

— Rupa Marya, MD (@DrRupaMarya) November 4, 2022

This sounds a lot like hospitalists fall under David Graeber's thesis in Bullshit Jobs that the more necessary and useful you are the less you're likely to get paid and be valued.

I suspect the ability to track an employees' direct level of productivity also fits into this thesis. One can track the productivity of an Amazon warehouse worker or driver, but it's much more difficult to track the CEOs direct productivity.

I'm not sure that's the correct diagnosis.

Alternative take: you were not, at that point in your life, equipped to understand that you could be generating new ideas and that you should walk away from that writing course with an appreciation for writing as a vehicle for what you'd like to accomplish with a given subject/format. It's fine that you didn't—many people don't—and your instructors, institution, parents, community, etc. probably could have done a better job at communicating this to you, but it was there, and it was the point all along.