Monkey Work

I met a guy at a party who recently graduated in Computer Science, from the University of York. He has a job, starting this month, for one of the big-four accounting firms. I asked what he'd be doing. "IT Audit," was the department. Apparently this is mostly checking up on IT security, running through check-lists and then suggesting or taking corrective action. Trying to be as polite as possible (although I don't think it came out that way) I confessed that I wouldn't find that very interesting. I might even have used the word "boring". He didn't seem too bothered. "At least I'm not programming, that's just monkey work!"
Monkey Work! I went into shock. Was it just a joke? I don't think I'd told him by that point what I do, so little chance of retaliation for the b-word. At the end of the evening, I apologised in case I'd been too rude. He accepted my apology, but specifically said, "I don't take back that thing about programming being monkey work." Ok then, no joke.
What's my problem here? It's not that somebody else likes IT Audit while I like programming; that's fine. My problem is that a fresh graduate in Computer Science, a specifically technical degree, believes (or at least goes around saying) that programming is monkey work. Programming is not for everyone, and it's possible that students discover they don't like it during a Computer Science degree. But how can they graduate without appreciating some of the skill and ingenuity required to program well? If people who have been taught about computers don't understand what we do, who will?