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edited Jun 25, 2021 at 23:18

Ertai87

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You may want to have a chat with your boss, not a long one, not a deep one, but make your boss aware of what you have written here: You are working 40 hours per week, but spending 25 of those hours in meetings. Your boss should be aware that you are only able to provide 15 hours per week of programming work, and the other 25 hours are meeting-listening work. Do not push the issue, do not force the issue; simply make your boss aware of the issue. It then becomes your boss's responsibility to determine is 15 hours per week of programming from you is good enough, or if not, then it is his responsibility (not yours!) to make you not be in meetings for 25 hours per week. This is what it means to be a manager, you have to manage things. If your boss is not happy with you only providing 15 hours per week of programming work, but he won't do anything to free up your schedule to get you to do less meeting-listening work and more programming work despite you notifying him of the issue, and you find yourself terminated from the company, this would be grounds under which I would seriously consider speaking to a lawyer (and by that I mean, you definitely should speak to a lawyer if this were to happen to you). However, one of the first questions I would ask if I was a judge in such a case (I am not a legal professional of any sort) would be: "Did you make your boss aware that this was even an issue in the first place, or were you negligent in that you allowed this to happen and tried to "skate by" without anyone noticing?" You do not want to give the wrong answer to this question, so cover your ass by alerting your boss to the situation now.
If you feel like being a meeting-listener is not conducive to your own goals, then you may want to find a job where your role is programming, not meeting-listening. You may want to mention this to your boss, that you are unhappy as a meeting-listener and you would like to be a programmer. It then becomes your boss's responsibility to make you happy, because if you are not happy at this company, then you can (and should!) find a company where you are happy. Which is a long way of saying: Make your boss aware that you are not happy as a meeting-listener, and if he doesn't do anything about it, then find another job.

You may want to have a chat with your boss, not a long one, not a deep one, but make your boss aware of what you have written here: You are working 40 hours per week, but spending 25 of those hours in meetings. Your boss should be aware that you are only able to provide 15 hours per week of programming work, and the other 25 hours are meeting-listening work. Do not push the issue, do not force the issue; simply make your boss aware of the issue. It then becomes your boss's responsibility to determine is 15 hours per week of programming from you is good enough, or if not, then it is his responsibility (not yours!) to make you not be in meetings for 25 hours per week. This is what it means to be a manager, you have to manage things.
If you feel like being a meeting-listener is not conducive to your own goals, then you may want to find a job where your role is programming, not meeting-listening. You may want to mention this to your boss, that you are unhappy as a meeting-listener and you would like to be a programmer. It then becomes your boss's responsibility to make you happy, because if you are not happy at this company, then you can (and should!) find a company where you are happy. Which is a long way of saying: Make your boss aware that you are not happy as a meeting-listener, and if he doesn't do anything about it, then find another job.

You may want to have a chat with your boss, not a long one, not a deep one, but make your boss aware of what you have written here: You are working 40 hours per week, but spending 25 of those hours in meetings. Your boss should be aware that you are only able to provide 15 hours per week of programming work, and the other 25 hours are meeting-listening work. Do not push the issue, do not force the issue; simply make your boss aware of the issue. It then becomes your boss's responsibility to determine is 15 hours per week of programming from you is good enough, or if not, then it is his responsibility (not yours!) to make you not be in meetings for 25 hours per week. This is what it means to be a manager, you have to manage things. If your boss is not happy with you only providing 15 hours per week of programming work, but he won't do anything to free up your schedule to get you to do less meeting-listening work and more programming work despite you notifying him of the issue, and you find yourself terminated from the company, this would be grounds under which I would seriously consider speaking to a lawyer (and by that I mean, you definitely should speak to a lawyer if this were to happen to you). However, one of the first questions I would ask if I was a judge in such a case (I am not a legal professional of any sort) would be: "Did you make your boss aware that this was even an issue in the first place, or were you negligent in that you allowed this to happen and tried to "skate by" without anyone noticing?" You do not want to give the wrong answer to this question, so cover your ass by alerting your boss to the situation now.
If you feel like being a meeting-listener is not conducive to your own goals, then you may want to find a job where your role is programming, not meeting-listening. You may want to mention this to your boss, that you are unhappy as a meeting-listener and you would like to be a programmer. It then becomes your boss's responsibility to make you happy, because if you are not happy at this company, then you can (and should!) find a company where you are happy. Which is a long way of saying: Make your boss aware that you are not happy as a meeting-listener, and if he doesn't do anything about it, then find another job.

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created Jun 25, 2021 at 23:12

Ertai87

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Here's the critical thing about employment that many question-askers on this site do not understand, and it leads to a lot less friction in employment if you do understand it, so I'll give you the magic answer that you need to know:

When you are employed, it is a common misconception that you are paid for your work. That is not the case. If you look at any employment contract, you will clearly see that nowhere in the contract are you actually paid for your work, there is no such claim or distinction made. Rather, in every employment contract, it says that you are paid to work a set number of hours per week, and you are paid a salary for those hours. To be more specific, you are paid for your time, not for your work.

Work often correlates with time, in that you should, in theory, be using that time to contribute value to the company, which is work, but that is not actually spelled out anywhere in your contract, if you actually read it carefully. Certainly, you can be fired if you do not use a sufficient amount of time to produce a certain amount of value to the company by doing work, but there is no recognized standard of how much work is "enough" or what kind of "value" you are expected to provide.

So here's where this helps you: You are collecting a salary. Based on the amount of time you are spending in meetings, and the fact that your boss isn't asking questions, and the fact that your calendar is public and your boss can see you being in meetings, it seems that the value you are to provide to the company is not as a programmer, but rather as a so-called "meeting-listener", to borrow your term. That role, apparently, has value to the company, and they are prepared to pay you to do it. Now, whether you or I agree that a meeting-listener role has value to the company, I agree with you that it's probably dumb, but nevertheless, someone in management at the company decided this was a good idea, and so that's the way it is, you're a meeting-listener. And that's ok. You're collecting a salary to sit in meetings and listen, and that's fine, so long as you're ok with it.

Now, to address a few things that may come up in the future (or may not! And that's important!):

You may want to have a chat with your boss, not a long one, not a deep one, but make your boss aware of what you have written here: You are working 40 hours per week, but spending 25 of those hours in meetings. Your boss should be aware that you are only able to provide 15 hours per week of programming work, and the other 25 hours are meeting-listening work. Do not push the issue, do not force the issue; simply make your boss aware of the issue. It then becomes your boss's responsibility to determine is 15 hours per week of programming from you is good enough, or if not, then it is his responsibility (not yours!) to make you not be in meetings for 25 hours per week. This is what it means to be a manager, you have to manage things.
If you feel like being a meeting-listener is not conducive to your own goals, then you may want to find a job where your role is programming, not meeting-listening. You may want to mention this to your boss, that you are unhappy as a meeting-listener and you would like to be a programmer. It then becomes your boss's responsibility to make you happy, because if you are not happy at this company, then you can (and should!) find a company where you are happy. Which is a long way of saying: Make your boss aware that you are not happy as a meeting-listener, and if he doesn't do anything about it, then find another job.