I admit these are all needless jobs, but they all exists (although rare) here too.
You should try harder to find the really bizare ones that here are unheard of…

I’ve only been here for a few days!
Don’t worry… they’ll be a follow-up post once I find those…

I think Elevator ladies is something Japanese with their rediciolous dance when the doors open, and you can’t blame the Japanese for abundance of manpower. It’s strange, but service is a lot more important in East-Asian places I visited (Taiwan, HK, Singapore, Vietnam), which is the opposite of what I was expecting. One needs to maintain and show off “face” at all times, and having personal drivers and un-needed services is one of the things that allow that to happen.

In Russia till the 90′,elevator ladies/gentleman were very common, the interesting thing is that they were common mostly in just apartment buildings,no matter what class was living there…..you made me think now,what is the reason for that…

Sorry to shatter the myth, but in Russia till the 90′s elevator ladies/gentlemen were
no more common than in other places, and cerainly not in “just apartment buildings”
(unless the apartments in the building belonged to some high ranking party officials).

In fact from what I’ve seen, Russia of the 2000’s has more elevator ladies than Russia of the 80’s, mostly in apartments of the so called “new Russians”.

Anyway, in a month from now I’ll be able to provide an up-to-date report on
the state of Russian affairs in this matter…

As for “new Russians”-I have some kind af a strange allergy…for this issue
Its suprising for me to hear that Russia now has those as well-I bet it is common only for the high class buildings, for in a regular ones they wont stay alive even for half a day….what was worth to think about (at least for me) is that till the 90′ they were working in every bulding-even for the low classes…keep me posted on your visit there,Mush-Mush

ori, I am a big fan of your blog and learn a lot about China through your
descriptions. Looking forward to the daily entry.

Thanks… I hope I can live up to the expectations

excellent blog Ori, keep it up!

The elevator lady reminds me of a book by Dr.Seuss called “Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are?”
listed in it are some of the most imaginitive useless jobs (and other depressing situations), such as
A bee watcher (everyone knows a bee works harder if its being watched)
A bee watcher watcher (everyone knows the bee watcher works better if he is being watched…)
A bee watcher watcher watcher…watcher.

the elevator lady is at close contest with the watcher

I think the original elevator men were at the time when elevators had no electronics just up-down lever, which may be somewhat of a problem when several people get on the elevator.

I think most jobs will become useless as AI progress and we will all be unemployed… but then that would be the least of our problems when the robots will attack…

Maybe they’re a relic of the time where there was a team of oxen going around in circle and raising the platform. They’d feed the oxen, or whip them, or something like that. And press the buttons too. Today, only the buttons remain… but it’s still a very prestigious job!

Luckily, there’s still the Halting Problem, that will ensure our gainful employment even in the age of AI.
Until the robots destroy us all, that is.

Ori, just discovered about your blog, it is great.

In Japan there are the 1. and the 2., as for the 3rd, I must note that the GPS also stays there for you waiting in the car while you’re buying cigarettes (at least the Japanese one does).