I think they did by and large (as did Graeber). The exceptions I remember listed were 1) "second order bullshit" - necessary jobs for "unnecessary companies".
E.g. cleaners for a debt collections call center - I don't think all reasonable people would believe this is socially useful. If the company doesnt need to exist the cleaners shouldn't either.
2) for example, cleaners who said that they were routinely ordered to clean things that already were clean or to do a small amount of cleaning and look busy the rest of the time. Performative cleaning, in other words.
The economist was specifically trying to misrepresent these examples to undermine the broader point, I think.
Clarity of intent. (Quality of training)
Adequate load sharing.
Interest of the approach (some petty tasks can made fun and challenging).
Then there's the systemic / social side of it. If your work flows with others. There a parallel with kinetic energy and inertia. A job where things flow is probably gonna be appreciated even if it has low value.
Right, and apparently:
> those who work in clerical and administrative jobs are far less likely to view their jobs as useless than those who are employed in roles that Mr Graeber regarded as essential, such as refuse collection and cleaning.
Which leads me to believe that people are not a good judge of the usefulness of their work. I think most reasonable people would agree that it's incorrect to classify refuse collection and cleaning as useless jobs. Perhaps the people doing them don't find the jobs meaningful, but refuse collection is certainly useful; without it, everyone would have to cart their trash to the dump, or, worse, we'd just have trash everywhere.
So it strikes me that all of this is just kinda pointless. I think we can reasonably make the argument that bullshit jobs do exist, but the number of these jobs is a very subjective take, and people seem to often incorrectly value their own jobs.