Somehow I got pulled in to work on a project with my company’s foundation. Now I’m being pulled into all these meetings and if this project is funded, it has the potential to generate a ton of publicity which will make it a highly visible company project. I hate projects that generate a ton of publicity. Your work gets scrutinized up and ying yang, and you end up going to a ton of meetings to brainstorm and plan a strategy. This project will involve not only my company board of directors but also the foundation’s board of directors. Talk about people breathing down your neck.

Okay it’s not like this is the first time my work has been presented to a company’s board of directors, but I just hate the pressure of it all. I’d rather just do my work and projects anonymously, and not draw a lot of attention to myself. I stopped speaking up in meetings, so I would get disinvited off the meeting lists. And it looked like my no meeting strategy was working until now. Meetings are such a waste of time. If you start volunteering your opinions in a meeting, you end up being sent to more meetings because “people value your opinions.” I know, I know, it’s a compliment to be thought of so highly that people keep requesting you to be part of their projects, but it’s also a complete waste of time. Plus you still have to do your regular job and now do much more extra work. Talk about recipe for spending a lot of nights in the office.

I don’t mind doing the background research, preparing the opinions and briefs for my boss so they sound intelligent and look like they know what they’re talking about when they go to their meetings, but that’s about all I want to do. I don’t want to go the meetings and get assigned to do more work along with my regular job.