It suddenly starts making sense when you realize that most people are stupid. My strategy here is that I just adjust my schedule to have tasks take literally 10x time than they should and enjoy my free time while managers argue about shit.

People are not as much stupid as selfish. Nobody is going to threaten their own revenue stream just because their job is bullshit, in fact most double down and see themselves above others.

And another layer I've seen frequently - people somehow need to make their work meaningful to make it part of their core identity, even if its literally moving one pile of dirt to next pile and then reverse, or just adding friction to progress. Strong ego game.