Do you attend meetings?

Interesting article in the NYTimes about.... shudder.... meetings.

As a general rule, meetings make individuals perform below their capacity and skill levels.
This doesn’t mean we should always avoid face-to-face meetings — but it is certain that every organization has too many meetings, and far too many poorly designed ones.

I, thankfully, am not required to attend as many meetings as when I first took the podium, but most of those still on my plate? the bane of my existence.
I think when I leave this place, if I ever "do church music" on any but a volunteer basis, that would be one of the deal-breakers, compulsory attendance at LitCom meetings. (Another is, "do you allow eulogies at funeral Masses? and affirmative answer and I'm outta there.)

I think my problems with meetings are two-fold -- one is that they are often used as a democratic facade for a unilateral decision-making practice. I don't mind being part of a purely advisory body, but don't pretend its members have some power they do not; don't pretend that a decision you, rightfully, made was reached by "consensus" just because those who opposed it acknowledged that it was your choice to make and didn't hand in their resignations when you made it. (I'm loyal enough not to render my dissent in a published paper like a thwarted member of SCOTUS; but I'm not, especially in private conversation with those who have a stronger claim on my frank expression than you, going to take a bullet for you when I think you were wrong.)
The other is its opposite number, the gathering of too many, too uninformed, that goes on too long -- with no acknowledgement that all opinions are not equal, not even necessarily equally entitled to a hearing.