[e_y_]

If engineers are doing fake work, it's because managers are doing fake managing.

Engineers generally like to work on meaningful projects. Sometimes we do get sidetracked on pet projects like building a better database design or whatnot, but the time spent on things like that pales in comparison to the scale of pet projects imposed from above.

Or projects, or entire product divisions, that were just badly researched, badly planned, and never should have been signed off in the first place.