> Personally I find it disrespectful to be pulled into random meetings I have no reason to be in. Or be held up in meetings that are 45 minutes longer than they need to be.

Then raise those issues like an adult, rather than passive-aggressively tuning out.

Quoting from The Testament of a Dealer:

> Do you spend far too much working time at meetings? Do you try to make important decisions in groups of more than 10 people? Do you have more than, let’s say, 15 co-workers under your direct management? Do you receive daily reports which you don’t read on the day you get them? Do you have days when you don’t have time to ring back the person who’s been looking for you to discuss an important matter? If the answer to any of these questions is “yes”, then you yourself are part of the problem, because you’re no longer on your guard against ever-increasing bureaucracy.

I am paid to write code not sit in 10 meetings a day. If I raise the issue everyone gets all pouty. There is an unspoken feeling of being forced to attend every meeting assigned to you just in case something feels useful. You deliberately ignore this to make your (absolutely wrong) point.

> I am paid to write code not sit in 10 meetings a day.

Unless you're some kind of modern-day ornamental hermit, writing code is unlikely to be the end goal; more likely you're getting paid to produce something useful, something for which communicating and understanding the problem is often far more important than actual coding.

> If I raise the issue everyone gets all pouty.

This does not sound like a healthy working relationship, although I'm not sure the problem's on their end.

> There is an unspoken feeling of being forced to attend every meeting assigned to you just in case something feels useful.

Well, nut up and get over it. Either attend or don't, but don't half-ass it. The surest recipe for pointless meetings that go on for too long is meetings where half the participants are coding instead of paying attention.

> I am paid to write code not sit in 10 meetings a day. If I raise the issue everyone gets all pouty.

Then it's time to move on. This is not a way mature adults should be handling such a situation.

A passive-aggressive reaction isn't mature either though, so maybe this is mutual and your company and you are actually perfectly in tune.

I wish the good old fashion art of writing an agenda was still practiced. And not an hour before the meeting. Give me at least a day. I’ve clarified many a meeting just by looking at the agenda and communicating with the host that J. Doe has more experience in that area than I do. I’ve also been able to get meetings canceled by reading the agenda and figuring out what the person needed.

Agendas. They’re worth the 10 or 15 minutes you’ll spend writing it.

My biggest pet peeve is meetings that come out of Zoom chats “Let’s chat about that later in the week” and the subject of the meeting is “Continue Discussion from Zoom”. Awesome.

Oldest trick in the book was to write the agenda AND the minutes of the meeting in advance, run the meeting per the minutes, tweaking them on the fly and publishing them as soon as the meeting was done.

Only the minutes count as the results of the meeting. Works only in large, bureaucratic, political companies.

Right, so the solution here is not to have you in the meeting if you’re not required (and perhaps give individuals some latitude to decide for themselves whether they’re required), but if you are in the meeting you ought to be paying attention.

I'm not your slave. If you have important info, I'll listen. If I think you're wasting our time then you are, unless you convince me otherwise.

This is the kind of attitude and response I would expect from a 9 year old, not a professional adult.

If you think you're not needed in a meeting, or the content isn't relevant, or someone else should be there instead, pretend you're an adult human and raise the issue. But if you're going to be in the meeting, pay attention. It's astounding to me that this could be a controversial statement.

The only thing controversial is you saying someone with a differing opinion is acting like a 9 year old. This is only serving to further reinforce the general feeling that PMs are overall useless, overpowered, and undersupervised.

Likewise if it's a problem my camera is off except in certain meetings (with clients or whatever) then bring it up to me. To this day that has yet to happen. Shockingly, work gets done, I listen to the important points of the meeting and talk when needed, and I don't have to let someone look at me while I'm not looking at them. It sounds like you have a problem communicating without a face to look at. If it helps, you can tape faces to the screen or request people put an avatar/photo of themselves up for you to talk at.

You're arguing a point I haven't made.

> > If I think you're wasting our time then you are, unless you convince me otherwise.

That's not a differing opinion, that's petulant and childish.

Your coworkers deserve the benefit of the doubt when they say you're needed for something.

Then say no to the meeting.

And if you can't, find a job that treats you like an adult.