[fgdelcueto]

A dear friend of mine that works at a very large tech company has frequent (many times a week) meetings at ungodly hours (such as 7am AND 11pm) because of time zone differences with other teams in different parts of the world. My friend says that he's not surprised in today's global framework, especially with large enterprises and claims that looking for another, less-intense job would be futile because it is probably like that everywhere, especially with large tech companies. I claim that he's gotten used to this abuse that it is not as widespread as he thinks.

I think some of these meetings might be important enough to warrant having one occasionally, but not as an almost-daily phenomenon.

Any similar experiences? I'm not in the software dev/engineering world so I'm not as well informed in the matter; however I'd be very surprised if a majority of people would accept such working conditions that are very adverse to a healthy work-life balance.

[ashfernandez]

I had the same. It was almost like an obligation to join and show face. But I think what needs to happen is for it to be ok to drop early, or only show up for you piece and leave if you think the rest of the meeting is not applicable to you. This is particularly true for meetings with many cross-functional groups.