Hey there, and welcome to the Mode/Switch! This week, we make sense of Gallup’s ⁠shockingly low job disengagement numbers⁠. It's tempting to ask, "Are people just lazy?" or "Are jobs just pointless?"

But to improve worker engagement, we need better questions.

Lee C. Camp of the celebrated ⁠No Small Endeavor⁠ podcast joins our roundtable this week to transform how we investigate pointlessness and purpose on the job.

I learned a lot from Lee’s questions about virtue in the workplace. But I also came away convinced that you can’t understand worker disengagement today without intergenerational exchange. Senior leaders, listen up! You need…

• Gen Xer David Wilstermann’s skepticism about corporate “purpose,” and…

• Xennial Emily Bosscher’s quest for meaning through brain fog, and…

• Millennial LaShone Manuel’s critique of exploding task lists, and…

• Gen Z Sheila Aupperlee’s stories about going to grad school while working three jobs—and still looking for some meaning in work.

My cohosts raise the question: Is it possible, in today’s economy, for a job to be anything more than just a job? A lot of people are asking the same thing:

Brene Brown’s turning from the self-help space to⁠ focus on the workplace⁠. Karen Sergeant’s asking about how AI enables us to ⁠rethink the workplace⁠. Meryl Herr’s asking about what to do ⁠When Work Hurts⁠. Anne Helen Peterson’s ⁠recent Substack⁠ engages “The Futile Search for the Bullsh*t-Less Job.”

Look, if you're asking if you should quit your pointless job--or stick it out for the sake of your amazing coworkers, you’re not alone. But I don’t think you can answer those questions till you’ve addressed the one Lee C. Camp raises in this week’s Mode/Switch.

Here’s my professional recommendation. Find a part of your job today that requires only 7% of your brain power, and then do that while hitting up this podcast.