You may disagree, but the "NPC" comment comes from the widespread belief that it's easy for low-performers to stick around at big companies, versus at smaller companies that live and die by their burn rate.
The truth is that most high performers do menial busy work that doesn’t impact real bottom lines either. Everyone sits around doing things knowing that their job doesn’t need to exist and rather than call out the madness of a society focused on busywork for the appearance of “productivity” everyone just rips on each other instead… Society could use a lot more empathy and a lot less fear.