A collegue highlighted to me the story the other day of Sisyphus. If your not aware of who or what he's done, he was the Greek hing who was punished for tricking and deceiving the gods (amongst others) and was made to push a large boulder up a hill for eternity. However, this was an interesting summary of the story:

It is the total lack of value of what Sisyphus has to work so hard to achieve that makes his punishment so horrific. It is not because his labor is merely arduous and eternal, but because it is arduous and eternally pointless, that he must suffer from doing it. One cannot imagine him happy unless one foolishly imagines him, or imagines him foolish. As a metaphor for part of the human condition and the plight of some people -- even those often considered most successful because we mistakenly think change is progress or that there are no hollow victories -- the myth of Sisyphus is a sad commentary. The work of far too many people has been, and continues to be, pushing a rock up a hill merely to change its location.

Sounds like everybody's job at some time or another doesn't it...