We can call it platonic work, as in the form of labor,
which can exist with or without its actuality, as “platonic love”
embodies the emotion without carnal fulfillment, and meta-work
consists of such “tasks” as developing policies governing or conducting
studies of work that may or may not result in a
discernible (still less, tangible) product or service, so we
may fairly say that our organization today at most echelons
finds itself enraptured with platonic meta-work, generally
performed by sub-contractors who focus on details associated with drafts
of policies or studies, which remain billable without regard to their
proportionality to or effect on “problems” or “needs” (poorly defined
if at all), much less the mission or anything sponsors or customers
would recognize as meeting their own increasingly
tenuous and despairing expectations.
