[enominezerum]

My old manager had "optional" 1:1 meetings that were decent enough provided folks above him didn't schedule over them.

We would talk about projects I am working on, their general status and if I have blockers, if the team is working good from my POV, administrative stuff like PTO, performance reviews. He also had varying interests so there was some personality there such as what game you playing, what shows you watching. We even shared a bit of "how things at the homefront".

We were both in our late 20s/early 30s and he was relatively new. He didn't want "that manager" because lord know that company had a lot of managers that existed to attend meetings and divy work up with nothing of benefit to the team.

But, I can echo what you are saying. I have had manager that hold meetings just to dodge work and claim they did some managering that day. Yea, daily 2 hour "team lunches and planning sessions" doesn't do anything for the fact we need to get work done boss.