make-work — Dizionario inglese

Sostantivo

1. An activity or task assigned or undertaken for the sake of activity or busy-ness, rather than because of a particular need.

   Uso

   • uso statunitense
   • non numerabile

   Parole correlate

   activity trapbusy work

   Esempi

   I once described this rather vulgarly as a Euro-wanking make-work project and I do not resile from that.

   Altri esempi (2)

   They are more sympathetic to immigration, free markets, and free trade, and less sympathetic to protectionism, make-work policies, and government intervention in business.

   In that COVID era, in June of 2020, I interviewed the anthropologist David Graeber, author of Bullshit Jobs: A Theory, a few months ahead of his untimely death. His book had suggested that many modern jobs were make-work, created out of “managerial feudalism,” where bosses needed minions around to feel important and signal their importance to other bosses. Graeber felt vindicated by the revolution in working life triggered by COVID, which had exposed some jobs as “essential”—while others were not. Those nonessential workers, he concluded, never needed to clog highways, or sit through meetings where, one by one, people would update the boss while everyone else stared off into space, contemplating what they’d rather be doing with their brief time drawing breath, aka office life.

Sostantivo

1. active work of little value

   Sinonimi

   busywork

   Termini più generali

   work

   Esempi

   while he was waiting he filled the days with busywork