I tell myself that most other jobs are just as meaningless or come with their own baggage, but I don't know for a fact. I do know that when the stars are aligned, when I'm in a flow and have something interesting to work on, I like the job, and consequently it seems "meaningful" - I think that's just sensory, a feeling. On the other hand sticking with it could be embracing mediocrity.

I think of Candide from time to time. Who can say if this is the paradisaical garden and alternatives could be much, much worse. Either way it's human nature to be restless. Maybe we can't all have the better job. This turns my attention to side projects, but I think as it pertains to tech, I don't have that much interest.

Lots of service jobs don't feel meaningless most of the time (though they may come with other problems).

Plenty of jobs that involve moving around real stuff in real life rarely feel meaningless (though, again, they may have other problems, especially wear & tear on one's body).

I feel like if you are in construction, the daily physical exhaustion and low pay must be crushing but at the end of the job you have built something that is physical and permanent, you have made a mark on the world. In software you have not really made anything, its just a url in a browser. There is nothing tangible you can look back on as you get older and point out to your kids, its just meaningless pixels. There are exceptions of course, people who built the internet changed the world in almost every way. Our crisis is existential.

I used to have this job where all you did all day was put second hand clothes into this huge hydraulic press, you'd press a button and out would come a nicely wrapped bale of clothes. It was absolutely mind meltingly numb job, it required absolutely zero skill and you'd repeat the same motion over and over and over again.

But you know what? I still remember the feeling that you had at the end of the day, seeing stacks upon stacks of these bales, nicely filling the warehouse, how satisfying this was.

I don't remember the last time I felt like that when programming.

My favorite job ever was helping run a camp site at a state park, a couple summers. Carry wood around, take fees at the gate and keep some light records, golf-cart around from time to time to bug people for payment, who were mostly pretty chill about it. Sunlight, outdoors, a fair amount of light physical activity. Busy days with huge lines at the gate flew by in what felt like minutes. Slow days, not much to do but read. Perfect.

Nothing tech related I've done over ~20 years of being paid to do tech shit has been half as good. Buuuut that job paid barely over minimum wage and had no benefits. So. Here I am.

[EDIT] Oh, and not a single screen all damn day! Old-school cash register and paper records.

Indeed. And it may sound silly I get more satisfaction in putting dishes out of dishwasher in right place every morning. But later on mind numbing daily standup sets tone for another crappy day.

I really do hate the daily standups that start every morning. Mindless reporting out that we are behind schedule and that eventually to catch up there is going to have to be a 12 hour day or 2 this week.