BACKGROUND:
I started a new job 2 months ago. I am very invested in doing well at it. They hired me as a contractor, though they are providing me with "training" and company resources (such as a corporate laptop).
I work on a team with 3 or 4 other people. We are in different countries and time zones. We have daily scrum meetings and before them we do a daily report. The report includes what we did yesterday, what we are going to do today, and any obstacles. We are not software developers. It's hard to put a label on what our team does, but a large part is production support.
QUESTION:
In general, I find meetings difficult. Especially when they involve more than 3 people where everyone is expected to talk. In the scrum meetings I find that either I have no clue what someone is talking about (e.g. they are working on a product I don't work on), or I worked on the issue with them (as parting of training) and I just repeat what they already say when it's my turn. I know this is a strange question but what's the theory behind meetings? I guess there's an inbetween zone from not knowing what someone's talking about to having done it with them, and in that area it's useful to share knowledge?
Something happened the other day where the "highest ranking member of the team" asked if I'm using a very strong password for a superuser account. It wasn't clear which account he was refering to and I asked him to specify. If he had said the username I would've understood but I wasn't able to make sense of his reply. I told him I use a password generator to randomly generate passwords. He was very unhappy with my unaswer. I'm very confused why someone would think a password manager is bad to use? Latter my boss talked to me in private about mistakes I made in the meeting. He said I gave too much info and I should have just said yes when asked if my password is strong. In general, is this good advice? In general I have trouble knowing if the person wants a short answer or explanation (though is your password strong is a pretty stupid question either way). Another time he commented (online) about my report "not enough sound". I thought he was making a joke but my boss said that means he wants to see more details. Is this passive aggressive? I searched online to see if "not enough sound" was slang for something and couldn't find any.
In general, how do I get better at daily reports and participating in meetings? I have trouble understanding when I ask a question and not given a direct answer. For example I asked if we're supposed to ask questions in the scrum and was told "not really but that's changing".