I think the difference here is that a 'bad' project will often be very specific. You will have a very particular outcome that you must achieve to finish, and yo

I think the difference here is that a 'bad' project will often be very specific. You will have a very particular outcome that you must achieve to finish, and you know what it is. ("Migrate our database from NoSQL to a relational database!" etc.) But you don't actually have the skills to perform the task, or the support to even get started in the right direction. You don't even know what questions to ask, or who to ask them to. You're just ... lost. It's also possible the project is simply too hard -- maybe doing it right would take an experienced engineer two years; but since that approach seems like obviously too much work, you flail around assuming there must be some alternative. This is, sadly, pretty common for junior programmers and people who are new to a team.