h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Many of us on h2g2 will be familiar with Douglas Adams’ story of the Golgafrinchans. This alien race managed to rid itself of all the pointless middle-men (and women) of their society by deceitfully packing them off into a huge space ‘ark’ and sending it into space.

After picking up Arthur and Ford en route, the ship crash lands on Earth, where this bunch of misfit management consultants, hairdressers, TV documentary makers and telephone sanitisers eventually colonised the human race as we know it.


Adams’ satire was based on the useless occupations of the 1970s and 80s, but my question is this:

Forty years on, what occupations and other identifiers would you include in a list of today’s Golgafrinchans?

All the original Golgafrinchams are still here, but we now have

personal motivators
actualisation managers
website designers
Candy Crush level designers
charity muggers
account switch salesmen
tattoo artists
tattoo removers
Sky News reporters

I remember 'joggers' from the original. Today's equivalent has to be commuting cyclists.

Hey, website design is important. Sure, not all website designers are actually good at their jobs, but without proper web design you couldn't have wonderful places like h2g2. ( I speak here of every skin other than Pliny, of course.)

And some people like tattoos.


I would say we could do without career politicians who have been in office for so long that they've completely lost touch with their constituents, yet somehow they keep getting voted for.

And hiring managers! Or, even better, whoever comes up with those stupid assessment tests I was talking about just the other day. They should be shot.

TV celib chefs.
media 'celibs', who's claim to being a celib, is that they are a celib, (I.E., not actually famous for anything other than being famous).
Telephone marketing, or was taht on the first time round?

bag packers at checkouts in supermarkets.
'Town guides'.
'street wardens', etc., etc.,

"bag packers at checkouts in supermarkets"


Hey, I like them.

ahh... but.. like or no like.... we managed, as a civilsation without them, for centuarys..... therefore, by the definition, they are, unnecessary they always confuse me, I can't see what's wrong with just chucking everything I've bought into my rucksack or 'bag for life'

I can make a café for sparing most of the occupations that have been offered in this thread. Here's my reasoning:

Baggers: I get behind feeble, elderly shoppers in the supermarket almost every day. Future shock has almost killed them, but they gamely keep trying to make a go of it. You will *never* be able to persuade them to use the self-checkouts. If you waited for them to pack their own bags, can you imagine how much time it would take? If you think lines are long now, just see how long they would be without the baggers. I frankly don't care if *you* don't need the baggers. Somebody else needs them, and the stores want to keep them as customers!

[Well, I meant case, not cafe....]

tattoo artists
tattoo removers

Tattoos are a matter of self-expression. You have the right to self-expression by recommending that tattoos be eliminated. People who want tattoos have their rights....or has the Earth become a lot less tolerant?

"website designers"

Does this include H2G2? If so, how would this site have come into existence without a designer?

"TV celib chefs"

Think hard. Would the world have been better off without Julia Child trying to make French gourmet cookery seem less daunting for home cooks who wanted a better standard of food preparation for their families? I recall that my mother used some of her recipes. I remember my mother's cooking with great fondness.

"hiring managers"

Would hiring of new employees stop in its tracks? I think a lot of companies and governmental entities would come apart at the seams. What I would compromise on would be insertion of the word "incompetent" before "hiring managers."

On the other hand, here are some occupations that few people really need, in my humble, biased opinion :

actualisation managers [this function could be taken over by other functionaries]
account switch salesmen [many of these seem to be part of scams anyway]
Sky News reporters [I hope someone will step forward to defend these]
media 'celibs', who's claim to being a celib, is that they are a celib, (I.E., not actually famous for anything other than being famous).
Telephone marketing
Swan counters [the Royal Family has at least one]

Noticed you did not defend charity muggers

That's an unclear term which probably is used in a different country than the one I live in. If I had a clearer idea of what it meant, I might be against it. I'm categorically against muggers, whether they mug charity personnel or not. How's that?

Taking a wild guess, I'm imagining that the term refers to telemarketers who try to get you to contribute to charities which you would not give to 99% of the time if left to your own devices. Now, there are a very few charities that I approve of. I don't mind being reminded that they need money. Even so, I rarely give to them when they want me too . And, there are a lot of charities that are either scams or poorly structured. If that's what you mean, I'm mostly against them. :-_)

charity muggers jump out at you for donations or a monthly sub over 2+ years

I'd be against them, then.

reality tv producers
they are respomsible for some of the "non-celeb celebs"

gossip columnists (including the TV ones)
for perpetuating the myths that all celebs are interesting

I think that we may be seeing an error in banishing telephone sanitisers.

When DNA wrote of their banishment, hot-desking (sorry, in my workplaces that is called flexible working - hot-desking must not be spoken of), was probably not envisaged.

The result of this is multiple users of phones and pretty much all of them are filthy. Often the push buttons are becoming covered in a film of yuk and the ear part of the hand set caked in what is probably a mixture of make up, skin fat and dirt.

And nobody (including me) takes responsibility for cleaning them. There may well not be suitable cleaning materials in the offices.

I work in the NHS and one of the bits mandatory training that MUST be done (or we lose brownie points and funding) is infection control. Just saying.

PP.