> was it all for naught?

I accepted a long time ago that it is all for naught :)

Enjoy our time on this earth, do what we can, focus on people and it'll be alright

Yep 90% of companies don't matter and don't affect things. Only 10% of people do. That's just the way the world works. There's no way to know before you start so just live while you can enjoy.

Ok, but then honestly, spending 40+ hours/week in an office, doing work that's neither enjoyable nor useful doesn't seem like the best way to spend that time.

It also feels like willfully abandoning the bit of agency you still have if you don't even try to understand why the world around you works like it does.