I agree with that. Sometimes a meeting is the only way to get the right people talking about the problem or issue.

Doesn't that indicate a huge organizational dysfunction, if you cannot get an answer through (say) email?

I'm surprised you would consider e-mail an effective tool to have a discussion with multiple people. In the past I've found emails for non-trivial things to be more slow and frustrating than useful.

Or one's boss is wasting one's time in meetings.

Not in a very large corporate environment. I have had so many meetings where I didn't say a word, didn't even know anyone there. Manager I talked to like once a month sent me meeting requests and I went. It was pointless. They weren't optional either.

I've never worked in a very large corporate environment.

> meeting requests

Did you ever reject the request? I'm honestly curious to know what would happen?

Did you ever speak up to your manager about this? His manager?

I guess the real question is, what did you do to fix this?

I reject every time I think the meeting is not a good use of my time. I always give a reason why I'm rejecting and sometimes that will be challenged but more often and not I don't attend the meeting and people don't get to upset.

A lot of the time people who are booking meetings will request attendance from anyone and everyone who may have a remote link to the agenda, they don't put any thought into whether the meeting will actually be useful to everyone they invite. Another problem is that people, usually project managers, will book meetings at the drop of a hat when a quick two minute chat at someone's desk would suffice - a lot of middle-managers have nothing to do other than attend meetings and they suck everyone else in with them.

I'd rather be as much as a ghost as possible in the environment lest I get more shit-work to do. Nothing, I set a world record in Temple Run from all the training I've received at these meetings.

Haha. Well, thanks for the honest answer. Having never been in that environment, I can't say what I'd do. =)