I'm not so sure about this one. Doing something well can be a pleasure in itself, and even take the sting out of a job that looks like useless busywork. And if you find a really elegant solution it could be useful for something else later. At least you can take pride in yourself and keep your skills up.

Munger is something like a co-manager of Berkshire Hathaway. His quote should be considered in that context: if doing something isn't worth the effort, doing it well won't fix that.

Buffett's quoted that as a justification for not investing in small businesses in that he needs large deals to make a difference to Berkshire.

This reminds me of why I don't shy away from describing myself as both bright and lazy. I'd like to use my intelligence to minimize the effort of a task, especially one that seems quite menial or 'useless' in order to be smart about doing something dumb. From my experience it's a pretty useful mindset, with caveats of course.

I read Mungers' comment as a bit of inverse logic. If you see something a company is doing badly, there's a strong signal that it's not worth doing.

Similarly, within your own organisation, similar logic applies.

I heard something similar credited to Peter Drucker.

"There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all."