## Metadata - Author: [[Benn Stancil]] - Full Title:: We Were Hired to Do the Grunt Work - Category:: #🗞️Articles - URL:: https://benn.substack.com/p/we-were-hired-to-do-the-grunt-work - Read date:: [[2025-09-27]] ## Highlights > If you regularly talk to people who work at technology companies, you will discover something surprising: Everyone is doing the wrong job. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01k65thh4ex9g2sy01sdzawcm8)) > Most data analysts are answering the same dumb[2](https://benn.substack.com/p/we-were-hired-to-do-the-grunt-work/#footnote-2) questions that they answered last month, living every week at the intersection of *Groundhog Day* and [LMGTFY](https://letmegooglethat.com/?q=LMGTFY). ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01k65thcm7fgx1j23x57wvx5mp)) > It is possible that all of us are constantly making irrational choices, and we are all asking each other to do distracting administrivia ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01k65tqxemdd6ga78hr2z307z6)) > mundane tasks are the important tasks. There are only so much strategy to discuss ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01k65tr6ee6k23g22fzsgw2ms1)) > Everything changes, and the indignities remain. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01k65trx9maxp6nvjy6nxvxq8z)) > The old boundary lines are blurring. Just as we’ll see fewer “pure managers,” we’ll also see fewer “pure ICs.” Instead, more people will live in the messy middle: sometimes executing, sometimes designing processes, sometimes coordinating. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01k65tsz2qbdx19a1wrskp663r)) > But there’s also a bizarro, Waluigi version of the Jevons paradox that can also be true: No matter how many things technology makes convenient, the supply of inconvenient things seems to remain constant. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01k65tvszx1k6nj1tw6zwdak3y)) > What will people who work at technology companies tell you, if you talk to them in ten years? I have no idea. But I suspect they will tell you that they are doing too much tedious grunt work, and they are hopeful that [they will soon be saved](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1422794/Newton-set-2060-for-end-of-world.html). ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01k65tvxzzrvcjpcftj4k0meh6))