I would argue willingness to say no is what separates junior from senior.
In my experience it actually leads to Juniors being abused a lot of times being given dumb projects someone should have said no to. Then code review rolls around and the seniors are like “what is this” and there’s a dumb fight. Lol. Maybe that’s just the places I’ve worked.
I don't think you're the only one who has experienced this; we hired a couple of new grad programmers recently and they've really been put through the ringer. Not necessarily on dumb projects, but projects that one might categorize as urgent but not important.
In my experience it actually leads to Juniors being abused a lot of times being given dumb projects someone should have said no to. Then code review rolls around and the seniors are like “what is this” and there’s a dumb fight. Lol. Maybe that’s just the places I’ve worked.