[deepfriedtech]

I loathe meetings and do my best to avoid attending them unless there is a specific technical issue being discussed that falls within my wheelhouse. I especially dislike meetings with non-technical people present. To have to stop the meeting constantly to explain things is annoying, so I ask to be excused unless my area of expertise is involved. A later walk-to-the-local-cafe-for-espresso with my supervisor gives me anything I need to know without the lame questions and hand-holding.

There is a reason I ask to be in the server room with the lights out...

[mturmon]

I get where you're coming from, but as you probably know, one must be careful not to take it too far. Metaphorically, one of these days, the server room you're shut up in might be outsourced to the cloud, and you weren't at the meeting.

More concretely, by saying "no" to these meetings, a person is advertising that there are some standard capabilities that they don't have (e.g., "not skilled at working with non-technical people" appearing on an evaluation at some point). This will limit the kind of roles that person will be able to fill. What seems like a strength from one angle ("deeply technical") can look like a liability from above.

(Not a down voter, BTW, just have some personal experience with the problem.)

[eru]

Decline most meetings, not all.