The Unbearable Lightness of Meetings

I was stuck in hours of committee meetings today, sometimes offering information but mostly sitting there wondering if chewing my own leg off would help me escape.  I have little patience for committees at the best of times but today presented two textbook examples of Why I Would Have Been Better Doing My Research.

Meeting 1: A research group meeting (less than half membership in attendance) on business/administrative matters rather than sciencey stuff.  My agenda item, that involved passing on information from another committee about performance indicators, was continually interrupted by irrelevant comments from our logorrhoeic research group leader.  The meeting was scheduled for one hour but ran over time so much I had no time for lunch before going into ...

Meeting 2: A high-level meeting (most of the senior members notably absent) that the chair had decided to schedule in her building (a maze of interconnecting corridors, funny-smelling carpets, and non-sequential room numbering) instead of in the usual meeting room (located in the building normally considered to be departmental HQ).  We spent two hours, plus 10 mins extra time, achieving 15 mins work.  I am new to this committee and still not sure if it serves any useful purpose.  Today's meeting - my second - did nothing to persuade me of its usefulness.

What made me think about my wasted committee-time today is the poor attendance.  The most research-active members tend to be the ones who frequently skip meetings.  There are lots of wonderfully plausible excuses - I was away giving a talk / hosting international collaborators / meeting the Dalai Lama, etc. - but the real reason is inevitably I had better things to do.

So had I!

Right now, I have (to be done asap):

• 2 sets of data to analyse
  
• 2 papers to write with said data
  
• 2 papers to revise (pending feedback)
  
• 1 experiment to finish designing
• 1 grant application to write
  
• 1 grant application to review
• 1 paper to read for journal club
  
• 1 student to select to interview for a PhD position
  

To say nothing of (to be done in next week):

• 6 essays to mark
• 2 student projects to finish designing
  
• 1 ethics application (for student project) to chase up

So why am I wasting my time sitting in pointless committees?  Could it be because I'm an early-career researcher and hence don't have the cojones to stop turning up in case there are consequences for career progression?

Or would anyone notice, never mind care?