I love meetings where:
- I don't have to contribute anything
- I don't have to say anything
- I don't end up with any "todos" when it's finished
If I could sit in meetings like that all day, I would do it in a heartbeat
I used to be like that when it was working in office, but then once I started working from home 6 years ago, I could intensely focus and get more done in 4-5 hours per day than I ever did in office and then use the remainder of the day to do house chores, cooking, and fitness.
The caveat before COVID is that knowledge sharing and working with colleagues was worse.
But now that there's tools like Microsoft Teams where everyone can instantaneously join a meeting without waiting for people to arrive, without figuring out conference room equipment, and people can immediately share their screen and show code or give links real time rather than (let me jot that down on paper and get back to you later today), and people can all reference the same contextual meeting notes, everyone is more efficient. It's a game changer, and companies that do not adapt will lose talent and operations will be cost prohibitive to compete with companies that adapt.
It's kind of hilarious how much things have changed. 10 years ago I remember meetings where the manager literally just had Microsoft word open on a PC connected to a projector and would go around and ask 20 people 1 by 1 what they're working on and then email out the word document. Took up to 1.5 hours. Every fucking week. Such a god damn waste of time. Now everyone just maintains their own tasks/stories on AzDo boards and if you want to see what people are working on just go to AzDo boards and filter by name.