It does not mean they didn't have a reason to get up in the morning, just that those reasons were unrelated to the business line they "worked" in. I have known

It does not mean they didn't have a reason to get up in the morning, just that those reasons were unrelated to the business line they "worked" in. I have known a bunch of such people, in a variety of mostly governmental jobs (but one high level banker too and even one in a tiny 5 employees company !). They were going to work like you go to the pub. They went to socialise, engage in petty status/influence wars, and indeed, there was this competition to see how to profit from the system. And even then, all of that is relative. Money alone is a powerful reason to get up in the morning for the vast majority of the world. That's really a first world problem that you want to be paid to do something with meaning. Hiring people to do nothing all is routinely done in third world outsource centre. You keep team around for months before a project starts and you don't hear much whining.