The purpose/results of the work matter just as much. Take restaurant work. Making meals people enjoy is less drudgery. Making meals you know are good versus making low quality slop. Working at a basic but locally appreciated breakfast place versus making breakfasts at Denny's even though you are making basically the same thing.

Take making software I felt was making the world better versus software that was not. When I knew my work dramatically improved the lives of tens/hundreds of thousands of people and by extensions their families touched hundreds of thousands more versus just a software job in a kind of bad industry. The positive job it was easy to put in ridiculous hours. For the other straight 9-5 felt like too long.