I'll agree that being a manager sucks. Being managed is worse. Corporate is hell and it's an embarrassment to us as a species that we haven't managed to overthrow it. Our current system has all the bad things of Soviet-style socialism (bureaucracy, inept management, corruption) and all the bad things about capitalism (structural divergence, duplicated efforts, the widespread use of violence to maintain class divisions) but it has none of the good of either system. It should've been thrown in history's garbage pile decades ago.
If one has to survive in the shitpile we call corporate capitalism, though, then it's better to hold a higher rank, where the jobs are more lucrative, less demanding, and easier to keep.
I've been in multiple management roles at multiple places and, with one exception, the role is much more about managing expectations of leadership and playing political games to make sure your team survives.
Indeed, it sucks. But ICs suffer a high risk of random non-survival. The stress of being a manager comes from knowing what fecal garbage most of the people who run your company are. The stress of being a grunt comes from not knowing. It's hard to say which is worse.
On top of that mindlessly solving problems and getting to check out with only 3-5 hours of work is exactly what many of them want.
I find that, when the work is pointless, there's a hedonic adaptation to not having to do much of it, just as there is with everything else: whatever you have becomes, within 3 months, what you consider yourself entitled to. People who are used to 8 hours per day of pointless work might be happy at first to only have to do 5, but soon they'll grow to hate even that. I, on the other hand, don't mind working if there's a point to it. I want zero pointless work. Unfortunately, the current system, which celebrates the proliferation of malevolent bureaucracies, has nothing for people like me.