> ... because my time is constantly taken up with and interrupted by "meetings"

...

> ... perhaps i'm just grumpy

You're only reacting to what you experienced as _reality_, which I believe because i've worked in kick ass engineering cultures with super lightweight management and zero meetings (Apple engineering, Motorola Labs) as well as laughably ridiculous bureaucracies with meeting galore squelching the smart engineers and their attempts at momentum (Amazon, for example, and Qualcomm less so).