There already were quite a few posts about this phenomenon on HN, most notably from David Graeber, author of "First Five Thousand Years of Debt". Even I, who worked as a programmer experienced this phenomenon, even though my then employee was desperately looking for programmers. Some of my colleagues even evaded work voluntarily. Management had failed us. Asking about 10 people who work at desks (not specifically offices, for example I talked to electrical engineers), all of them had experienced the phenomenon either first hand or second hand.

Edit: The Graeber article was linked to in another comment :)