By some definitions I would consider subsistence farming a much more meaningful job than what tens of millions of Americans are doing now - middle management, financial advisory, advertising, bureaucracy (medical, managerial, political, regulatory, etc), legal discovery, data entry, tax accountants (which only exist because Turbotax bribes the government to keep taxes broken), and many more.

There are tons and tons of bullshit jobs that don't produce anything valuable, don't fulfill anyones need to have a meaningful life, but somehow keep butts in seats often at keyboards getting paid to justify someone elses jobs existence.

There is a reason why job satisfaction is abysmal, why depression and opioid abuse is rampant, and why those weren't as large problems two centuries ago when people were almost universally subsistence farmers. The labor wasn't easy but it always justified itself to those doing the work (assuming it was your own farm, growing your own food, which was and has always been pretty rare). You knew why it had to be done, something lacking in many modern careers.

This is where there's a kind of evolutionary gap that comes into play. Sitting in front of a screen for 40+ hours a week, and spending additional time at the screen for recreation doesn't seem conducive to good mental or physical health.

Shit jobs aren't synonymous to menial jobs. Shit jobs are ones where you suffer physically and mentally, and that suffering usually has little to do with actual job responsibilities, and more with a shitty boss (manager or entrepreneur) treating you like a consumable and trying to optimize you.

E.g. flipping burgers at McDonald's isn't a shitty job because you're flipping burgers; it's a shitty job because you are paid badly, made to work much faster than it's healthy, and the management is shitty to you both personally and structurally, in how they plan the shifts, etc.

I'd argue that any shitty job could have a non-shitty variant with mostly the same tasks and responsibilities, and only the conditions changed. Which leads me to the answer to your question: anywhere between invention of agriculture and the industrial revolution, or perhaps even up to XIX century. Even when people toiled on farms, to then give most of it away to some nobles with swords, at least they weren't micromanaged day-in, day-out by said nobles.

The uncomfortable truth here is that foodservice/retail managers are also relatively low paid low skilled jobs and therefore have a tendency towards being populated by people without the skills to humanely manage their employees and employer.

One step up, the corporate managers putting the pressure on the local managers are themselves pressured by market conditions to cut cost and drive efficiency. And who drives those market conditions? You and I, my friend. We like cheap stuff. The consequence is that others suffer.

That's why I don't believe unregulated markets are be-all and end-all. These feedback loops are stronger than any one of us, the lowly worker and the lofty manager alike, they'll eventually grind us all to dust if we let them. Brakes must be put, because humans can't survive a perfectly efficient economy.

Menial or low skilled work doesn’t have to be a “shit job”. They are that way because society allows them to be.

I worked on a farm throwing hay. It’s literally backbreaking work, but I had an awesome employer who thought about safety and making for a better workplace. If Amazon were running that farm, I’d be crippled by debilitating pain today.