Graeber grouped “bullshit jobs” into five types, with examples such as:
Flunkies: receptionists or assistants whose role mainly signals status for a superior.
Goons: lobbyists, telemarketers, or PR workers hired in competitive “one-upmanship” against rival organizations.
Duct tapers: workers who repeatedly patch problems that could be fixed at the source, such as programmers repairing bad code.
Box tickers: survey administrators or compliance staff whose paperwork creates the appearance that useful work was done.
Taskmasters: managers who create unnecessary work or supervise people who don’t need that supervision.
These are Graeber’s illustrative examples, not a claim that everyone in those occupations has a pointless job; his definition depends on whether the employee sees the role as unnecessary or harmful.