I’m pretty sure most people welcome having an occupation, because they have nothing else to occupy their time, and human nature abhors a vacuum. Such people cannot comprehend how anyone could mind being assigned a purpose.

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When people occupy me with tasks they want done according to their defined procedures, or with making products they want made to their defined specifications, that is an occupation of my time, of my energy, of my mind and of my self-identity that I welcome just about as much as a nation welcomes an occupation by a foreign power.

Maybe the etymology of the world “occupation” can shed some light on the essence of its meaning.

ORIGIN Middle English : formed irregularly from Old French occuper, from Latin occupare ‘seize.’ A now obsolete vulgar sense, to have sexual relations with, seems to have led to the general avoidance of the word in the 17th and most of the 18th cent.

That sounds about right.