Any meaningful activity incorporates a significant amount of drudgery as a prerequisite. It's like the old joke, a man lost in New York asks a passing violinist, how do you get to Carnegie Hall? And the violinist replies, practice. Either you learn this young or you spend your whole life unable to do anything that isn't superficial.
Being engaged is a state that many of us want to be in. Failure to grow in ability leads to boredom which is a wonderful negative motivator.
Consider what Frank Herbert says about this, for example: "So I don't worry about inspiration, or anything like that. It's a matter of just sitting down and working. I have never had the problem of a writing block. I've heard about it. I've felt reluctant to write on some days, for whole weeks, or sometimes even longer. I'd much rather go fishing, for example, or go sharpen pencils, or go swimming, or what not. But, later, coming back and reading what I have produced, I am unable to detect the difference between what came easily and when I had to sit down and say, 'Well, now it's writing time and now I'll write.' There's no difference on paper between the two."[1]
It's amusing in these conversations how quickly some people go from "say no to drugery and busy work" to "but its essential for discipline!", its almost as if they've been inculturated into a pathological system of education.
the discipline to do what though? To be good at drudgery and busy work would prepare you to face down boredom and learn how to overcome larger bureaucratic barriers to accessing information and to participate in us legal/civil society.
If you think I or the OP would argue anything else, then you're falling into precisely the trap I identified.
I disagree; I think that being expected to behave like a part of a machine is an essential, defining aspect of the human experience.
More likely, "was an essential, defining aspect briefly in the XX century".
That century is now over. Before that, you was expected to steer your own judgement while working on a farm (not very machiney experience), and after that, everything that can be replaced by a machine would.
Compare this to XX century school or factory assembly line where you have no choices.
This doesn't make sense to me. It's dehumanizing to expect people to behave like robots, parts of the machine.
Even if doing a routine, manual job, people should be able to see some point to what they are doing. If it really is pointless (like lots of jobs), they should feel encouraged to speak up.
In the janitor example, cleaning is an important job that people appreciate, the janitor making an important contribution to whatever is going on in the building (hospital, office, etc). But if the janitor is asked to do pointless busywork they should complain.