It wasn't that bad at a previous job, but it was close. The sad part is nobody else would comment on the useless nature of these tests that didn't actually test anything.

I’ve had other engineers make very condescending remarks about these kinds of questions, as if I don’t understand the value testing or quality at all. It makes them look mature and responsible, and me immature and short-termist. I quickly learned not to bring it up, especially not in front of management.

It's true. I mean, I wouldn't comment on them either. I'd just roll my eyes when asked to review another 4000 line "test suite" that upped the coverage but did not test anything meaningful. I wrote many useless tests myself, assigned tasks like "upping test coverage for module XYZ." They'd all get thumbs up and looks-good in reviews.