I think this is the most profound thing I've learned in my career. But an even more important lesson is that you have to find a place where the B.S. is tolerable to you. For some people the politics of a bigco may be impossible to deal with, for others the "another month, another pivot" shiny objects syndrome of a small startup may be the issue.

Every place has B.S. That's why they call it "work" and not "fun". Find a place where the B.S. is tolerable (or, better yet, minimal).

No, it isn't. The "work" is the fact that I am applying my skillset to satisfy my employer's desire whether I feel like it or not; often, that means polishing and grinding at rather boring but rather necessary tasks.

None of that requires bullshit, and calling bullshit "work" normalizes toxic behavior.

I would also like to distinguish between toxic and abusive behavior (which I don't think anyone should tolerate) and a certain amount of B.S. The latter can vary across a spectrum, but is tedious, or frustrating, or annoying, not psychologically harmful.

I prefer to think of it is a finding a bullshit compatible place. All companies have bullshit, but the trick is to find a place whose particular variant of bullshit is compatible with your particular tolerance of said bullshit.

Bullshit compatibility is an important thing!

Smaller company doesn't have to mean less bullshit. It's just a different kind of bullshit.

They can take the form of your manager, or colleague, or anybody in the company and the option is to either deal with it or bail on the company. In a larger company with many teams, you can usually route around such people by switching to a different org. Plus their power is often more constrained because there is just more people in the company.

401k match is nice, but it's part of total comp. I don't want to be promoted into a job where I'm responsible for others, thanks -- it's more work, I'm not good at it, I feel bad about fucking up the careers of my subordinates, and it doesn't give me the same fulfillment of doing my normal stuff.

In exchange for a chance of promotion, I get to deal with a purchasing process that makes it nearly impossible to pay a recurring vendor; I get to do performance review cycles twice a year (no wait, there are actually two hidden mid cycle reviews, so 4x a year), and deal with co-workers who don't give a shit about actually getting things done, they just give a shit about appearing to have 'impact'. I get to deal with 'up or out' policies. I get to deal with pass the buck bullshit trying to get my state income tax changed to reflect where I work and where my desk is. Oh and so many meetings, because nobody is willing to be responsible for making decisions.

I'm willing to put up with this shit because of equity from an acquisition, but I was much happier with the typical bs at the startup, which was mostly that I ended up owning a lot of stuff I'd rather have offloaded onto IT because we didn't have IT, and because I worked at a rinky-dink ISP in the 90s so I knew how internet email worked.

But mooreds upthread is right, it's not a matter of finding a place with no BS, it's a matter of finding the BS that is most tolerable. I clearly have a preference.