The art of not giving a ****

I have had to take the view that they are going to pay me for the work I do, so I'm not going to get stressed or go nuts doing more.
The exclusion is if there is something that interests me, then i will do more.

It took pretty much a break down to realise that the employer pays the same no matter how hard you work. So just chill, do what you can do & try not to let incompetence at work annoy you.

It's surprising that senior members of Government are posting here.

It took pretty much a break down to realise that the employer pays the same no matter how hard you work. So just chill, do what you can do & try not to let incompetence at work annoy you.

It’s surprising that senior members of Government are posting here.

All of this. Though I'm only HO grade, not very senior.

If you cant beat em join em. Seems to be an emerging culture of people who will do the least anount of work possible but just enough to not get fired. Be one of them. Unless its your own compamy and your money at stake the work thing is really not worth worrying about.

I take the view that other employers are available, with the caveat that the grass won’t be greener it will just be a different smelling alternate shade of brown.

Unless its your own compamy and your money at stake the work thing is really not worth worrying about.

Or in Sales. Lazy Sales mostly doesn't work, although a few get lucky. It always amazes me how people move from Sales role to Sales role increasing their Seniority but are basically lazy Sales people constantly being let go.

Oh hold on, maybe it does work...

Not to mention the ridiculous company politics and hypocrisy.

Oooh, we work for the same company!
Good people offered redundancy and let go, crap people kept and protected, good people handing their notice in and nobody fighting to retain them, senior management having not one iota about what we do or how we work. Very well-paid management consultants coming in and telling us how we should do things, then realising that their ideas won't work, and leaving. Rinse and repeat.

Agghhhhhhhhh.....

Early in my career I worked with a chap who was nearing retirement. The best advice he ever gave me was -
“ Just keep taking the money, nipper”
All these years later, if work is winding me up, I can still hear Bill’s wise words.

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a **** is on Prime, actually just about to watch it! Apparently there's a book too.

I'm guilty of caring too much about my work and wanting to do a good job, my wife's the same actually with hers. My jobs have always been stand alone roles where I'm responsible for everything for my fairly niche, but publicly responsible role.

Enough for it to make me ill enough with stress that I'm not able to work and any complicated or stressful situation now my head just shuts down, computer says no.

Not sure if the film/book is any good, but I'm giving it a watch...

So come on how do I just let it go give me your tips?

There's a very very short list of things i care about in the world... very.

Corporate environment just do what u need to get by, when it's your own show there's no hiding place or anyone else to blame.

Every paid job I ever did my then colleagues said after, u d never get away with that now. I m sure I would.

Don't take it personally but yr employer doesn't give a stuff about u.

Its your company / boss that doesn't give a flying ****

Or, else, why are they letting it happen?

Don't get down, think about your home life, or cycling etc.

PMI --- Positive Mental Attitude

'ook for "self help singh life coach" videos very inspiring..
youtube, insta et al

think about your home life, or cycling etc.

This for me. Work is a means to earn the £££, and family life, biking etc is what really matters. I do need to remind myself of that sometimes at work, it's easy to forget.

How feasible is it to look for another role (within the same company or elsewhere)?

I've been pi55ed off in past jobs and either found another role internally, discussed voluntary redundancy, or left for something better.

Do a good job to a good standard, but make sure someone else's cock up doesn't affect you. We just 'lost' a half mill contract as someone forgot to ensure the bid was submitted. The work done, just didn't submit on time on the portal - down to one individual. They just said 'sorry'. WTAF. We've lost a big chunk of work.

Good people offered redundancy and let go, crap people kept and protected, good people handing their notice in and nobody fighting to retain them, senior management having not one iota about what we do or how we work.

There's an argument that if someone wants Voluntary Redundancy, it's better to give it to them rather than refuse it and have a pissed off individual who doesn't really want to be there and isn't going to put their full commitment to anything...

I think some places actually don't like high achievers/ competent people because it highlights how shite the rest of them are hence not bothering to retain good people. This is especially true when those people know more than management do!

I have days of anger then days of **** it its not my business.

It's just tiresome. It's not hard not to be a dick in work but so many people fail to realise this.

Then ending the day foaming at the mouth with incompetence of some of the people I work with and the idiocy of the way we work.

Is it your job to correct the incompetence and make things work better? If not stop worrying.

I came to the conclusion a long time ago at work that around 95% of the people (myself included) are just winging it, trying to get through to the next payday without f***** up or being found out. The other 5% are genuinely very good but are limited in what they can do because if you get rid of the other 95% there'd be no company. So we all carry on and muddle through, and somehow the world keeps turning and we all make a living. 🙂

There’s an argument that if someone wants Voluntary Redundancy, it’s better to give it to them rather than refuse it

I wish someone would tell the directors in my firm this. 😀

I think some places actually don’t like high achievers/ competent people because it highlights how shite the rest of them are

It also creates single points of failure. I was talking to one of our technical architects/dev leads recently who told me he didn't want a 'rockstar developer', he just wanted 'a developer' because otherwise everything would hang on that one person who can get everything done, and then when he moves on the team will be screwed.

It also creates single points of failure. I was talking to one of our technical architects/dev leads recently who told me he didn’t want a ‘rockstar developer’, he just wanted ‘a developer’ because otherwise everything would hang on that one person who can get everything done, and then when he moves on the team will be screwed.

Standard operating procedure in the teams I'm involved with. No rockstars, no ninjas, no heroes thankyouverymuch!

No Brents (#PhoenixProject)

I used to work for businesses where not giving a * did help.
But once I moved away from that to a business where everyone did their best, it was much better for me mentally. Going to work was nice, the rewards were not just the pay packet. Makes a massive difference.

So if you are in a place where you are frustrated and realise its not worth giving a *, move on. Move on fast. You don't want to waste your time, its precious. Even work time can be good.

So come on how do I just let it go give me your tips?

Go self-employed. Your 'couldn't-give-a-shit-ometer' immediately goes off the chart. Office politics are totally irrelevant, all working relationships are transient, the buck always stops with somebody else, you can pack your stuff up and walk away from it at the drop of a hat and you'll be working somewhere else next week, so... meh!

Then ending the day foaming at the mouth with incompetence of some of the people I work with and the idiocy of the way we work.

When I was in a 'proper job', for example: someone making pointless changes to artwork just to justify their own jobs, or making huge cock-ups that I would then have to sort out would drive me absolutely mad. Now I'm self-employed its just more hours on their invoice. They can carry on doing it to their hearts content. It just means a bigger bill. I actually want them to be idiots because its financially beneficial to me 😀

I take the view that other employers are available, with the caveat that the grass won’t be greener it will just be a different smelling alternate shade of brown.

I took that view, then got a job at a company near the top of the list of best places to work in the UK, according to Glassdoor. Grass is luscious, green and smelling pretty sweet…

Early in my career I worked with a chap who was nearing retirement. The best advice he ever gave me was –
“ Just keep taking the money, nipper”

I had a similar maxim as a contractor, one which I still lean on fairly heavily as a permie:

"Smile and invoice”

I always think it is worth doing your work as well as you can, but not to the point of exploding yourself.
It is possible to have pride in your work while also not getting pissed off at everyone and everything else

We just ‘lost’ a half mill contract as someone forgot to ensure the bid was submitted. The work done, just didn’t submit on time on the portal – down to one individual. They just said ‘sorry’. WTAF. We’ve lost a big chunk of work.

Not even close.

My company.

We have one large subcontractor, in China, who makes all our stuff and we pay them $ms a year. Anyway, new invoice comes through from them only bank details had changed suddenly after nearly 20 years of being the same. Eagle eyed finance minion spots this and raises it as potential fraud attempt. CFO over rules. Barclays bank stop the transaction as it looks like fraud. CFO over rules. This happens three times. A month later CFO of sub contractor phones our CFO to say your account in in arrears, you owe us $1.5m for last month....

He kept his frickin job!

However, we had to lay off some people to make up for the shortfall....

It also creates single points of failure. I was talking to one of our technical architects/dev leads recently who told me he didn’t want a ‘rockstar developer’, he just wanted ‘a developer’ because otherwise everything would hang on that one person who can get everything done, and then when he moves on the team will be screwed.

There is, unfortunately, a counter point to that and it's when you get someone who is fundamentally a bit shit but is also the only one who can be bothered to do / is capable of doing X so the single point of failure revolves around them and they've made themselves invaluable. To them, it's a way of ensuring their own job security but to everyone else, it becomes the blockage in the company.

I actually want them to be idiots because its financially beneficial to me 😀

'Where there's chaos there's cash'

I took that view, then got a job at a company near the top of the list of best places to work in the UK, according to Glassdoor.

I work for one of the top 10 on the Glassdoor best places to work rankings. One of the things that has changed in the past few years (and moreso since covid) is that working long hours and being stressed are now seen as negatives rather than a sign that you are working 'hard' or are dedicated to the job. I know a lot of organisations pay lip service to the mental wellbeing stuff, but where I work they really do take it seriously. Mrs Daz can't believe how relaxed my job is these days compared to what it used to be like 5 years ago, and I get paid a lot more than I did back then.

He kept his frickin job!

did he have $1.5M in his account...

did he have $1.5M in his account…

Many people did ask that...

I went through this a few years ago.
Went through a warranty failure case, FMEA, interim and "permanent" corrective actions.
Suggestions/lessons learnt to design practices to ensure it won't happen again, blah blah blah.
Finished up by announcing that this is the same presentation i used last time, and the time before, and it's derived from my predecessors presentation. And here are the previous case numbers.
I've just been updating the images, statistics and project numbers. Even the FMEA just gets cut and pasted, because it's all the same shit, every time. We all know that no one is going to fix this, this issue has already cost the company over half a billion dollars for the sake of 2 or 3 million dollars worth of tooling mods/development and about 30c on the piece price. If it becomes a priority case again, i simply won't work on it.

Absolute silence for about 90 seconds.

The relatively new chair (less then a year in the role) of the meeting went utterly ballistic.
I left the room.
And got a new job ~6 months later.

The fall out was immense. People lost jobs. Suppliers had contracts cancelled.

I always think it is worth doing your work as well as you can, but not to the point of exploding yourself.
It is possible to have pride in your work while also not getting pissed off at everyone and everything else

This is where I am at the moment (or try to be). There's plenty of problems with the company I work for, but it's a small company, very relaxed environment, a very long way from corporate. So most of the time I'm fairly chilled and happy despite pay not ideal. It's only tensions with those who like to stir that causes the biggest issues.

i am a world champion at not giving a shyte.
spent all my working life perfecting the role.
never wanted to earn a load of money, never wanted to climb any kind of career ladder, never wanted to impress anyone. never worked overtime, never relied on overtime or bonuses to live. never took a job that i could not cycle to, so never drove to work. retired when i wanted, not when i could afford to.
went to work, did my job, came home.

away from work i have always been the same.
i care about family, friends, bikes and beer. nothing more really.
current affairs and news are wasted on me, i have never taken it in, stuff that dont affect me directly mean nothing to me. and the older i get this is becoming moreso.

the best ethos is something i saw,or read,or heard. it was a hashtag thing.

#lesscashmoretime

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a * is on Prime, actually just about to watch it! Apparently there’s a book too.

Came on here to recommend the book... It really helps to put things into perspective!

Not so much self help as helping you realise everyone else has got their own problems too... Many of which are weirder than yours!

Helps put a smile on the face at least if nothing else...

His 2nd book "Everything is Fed" is more of the same... 👍🏻

@ton

Christ I wish I could be more like you! I'm almost the polar opposite... Spend far too much time worrying about things that I have no control over, it's only now I'm in my 40's that I've been able to start to put things into perspective, but even then, I worry unduly about the situation in Ukraine for example, and was giving myself a hard time last year for not having a spare room I could offer for a Ukrainian refugee when if I'd already moved to a bigger house (with a bigger mortgage), I would have been able to! 🤯

I'm starting a new hashtag...

#bemoreton 👍🏻😉

The first rule of contracting:

Never have a shit on your own time.

My problem seems to be the inverse of most of the tales above. I work very closely with a designer who is very passionate about her job and is forever bothering me with the minutest detail of shite I have no interest in...

Is there a polite 2023 way to say "stop bothering me, you're the designer, design it"?

I used to enjoy giving a shit, I had some jobs that were interesting, inspriring even, and when they no longer inspired it was time to do something else or nothing at all for a while. I gave a shit whether it was providing people with safe drinking water or picking grapes. Is it wrong to enjoy doing your best with other people doing likewise? I think not.

Like @Edukator I do like giving a shit and contributing positively. It's great working with people of a similar mind set and you can see the projects you have incepted/planned coming along and bearing fruit.

The trick is to know when to stop caring. I.e. when you are battling insoluble broblems or constraints that you are not empowered to resolve. All you can do then is to report it up, to those who *may* be empowered.

Is it wrong to enjoy doing your best with other people doing likewise? I think not.

No, but you can give too much of a shit...

I literally have to drag my GF away from her work laptop, every single night, and at the weekends too...

Her former employer really took the piss because they knew she would just keep working and working until burnt out. Fortunately she saw sense and handed her notice in and now has a new, better job. But she's constantly looking out for more work to do, because that's the kind of person she is! 🤦🏻

The trick is balancing the number of ****s you give.

I have to work, so I may as well do something I enjoy and get well paid for. So I give enough ****s to manage that, but not so many ****s that it becomes unmanageable.

I've always given a shit about the work I do as I like to do a decent job, but as I got older I tended to restrict giving a shit to working hours only. Now retired it's easy not to give a shit.

I’ve always worked on the principle of doing absolutely the best I can at any given job. If someone raises a query about me taking a bit too long on a job, as one boss did, I replied, “ yeah, maybe, but how often does a job of mine come back because I’ve made a big mistake?”

He looked at me for a moment then walked away. Never said a word.

Where I work now, because of the shifts, I do a twelve hour day, but because of the way the shifts work, I get 180 days off a year, plus I get 27 days actual holiday - 25 plus a day off for birthdays and a well-being day, so 207 days all in. Plus I’m fairly well payed, compared to previous places where I didn’t get as much time off, and one previous place the workload kept increasing within set hours, with zero tolerance for the slightest error or something forgotten. It didn’t start like that, but it got really toxic and I got kicked out because “your performance has failed to meet our expected standards”. A number of other people just left at the same time, because they’d had enough of the ‘same shit, different day/the shit I’m getting isn’t worth the shit I’m getting” situation.

I don’t even want to imagine what my mental state would be like after the last couple of years if I’d been somewhere like that.

https://twitter.com/stukershaw/status/1373035655291412480?t=RUhFiXTBkYNp5E2dd2pCgw&s=19

Like @Edukator I do like giving a shit and contributing positively. It’s great working with people of a similar mind set and you can see the projects you have incepted/planned coming along and bearing fruit.

The trick is to know when to stop caring. I.e. when you are battling insoluble broblems or constraints that you are not empowered to resolve. All you can do then is to report it up, to those who *may* be empowered.

Broadly what I was going to say.

What I will do work to the best of my ability and I take pride in that.

What I will not do is drive myself mental because other people are being shit. Been there, done that. I've spent months if not years banging my head against a brick wall with issues like "this server has a failed disk, it needs replacing; if it doesn't get replaced and we lose another then it will mean catastrophic failure of a critical system that hasn't seen a backup since it was built." But ultimately it's futile. It was out of my control and I didn't have the authority to order people to have it fixed. So all I could do was pass it up the food chain to those who can raise purchase orders, engineering requests etc or can instruct others to do so. If it doesn't get done then, well, I've done all I can in calling it out (in writing). Que sera. Work is a lot less stressful when you accept that other people's problems are their problems and not yours. See also, Monkey Management.

What I will not do is run myself into the ground. Been there, done that, made myself very ill. The answer to "if I don't do it then it won't get done" is "well it doesn't get done then, does it." If "everyone else" is working 60-hour weeks and only being paid for 40 then that's their own stupid fault, management is never going to hire more bodies when you're daft enough to put in two weeks' worth of work per month for free.

Another key piece of the puzzle for me (how to give a shit without sending yourself mad) is for the organisation to have a well run risk management framework hat everyone is encouraged to feed into.

Writing problems down in risk terms (impact, likeliood) is a marvellous tool for problems to be surfaced to management who can then prioritise which ones to worry about / invest in fixing, and which ones not to.

Writing a risk down is a very cheap and easy thing to do, shares responsibility, gets the right things prioritised, and takes it off the shoulders of those at the bottom.

but it has to be recognised as such, and put in place by management obvs.

Problems I've encountered when asked for risk management input...

All risks are accepted and nothing done about them.

Reporting the risk effectively volunteers the reporter to sort it out.

People more concerned about maintaining a risk register than doing anything about the risks on it.

All risks are accepted and nothing done about them.

I have the opposite problem. We as a company, waste so much effort on solving "problems" with no regard to likelihood and impact, and it's staffed by a lot of people who don't know how to say no. So everytime a slight (potential) problem is identified or the owner has a bright idea (!), all project plans get ripped up and nothing gets delivered in anywhere near the estimated time-frames.

I give a beep about myself and have tried to in 20 fruitless civil service years without promotion. That's why I'm wide awake at 0130 wishing I could get out. I find interest in my work but that's only through me teaching myself software to keep my brain going. Otherwise especially with my current manager there's no incentive to strive. I hate myself for getting like this. I firmly believe in working hard but when there's no incentive then it's largely wasted.

I use to GAS in every job I've done, and did do here when I started +5 years ago.

But, each little 'nibble' they've taken off me, or each (pointless) reorg has resulted in me doing less & less.

If I'd been younger, I'd have moved elsewhere, now I'm just waiting for the time they really pi55 me off, and I just won't go back (the next day).

What I don't know is whether it's how this company (FTSE100 and 2nd/3rd largest private sector work force in the UK) works or whether this impacts all/many companies, but it is the worse company I've worked at in my 40 years.

GAS helps make you feel that you are making s difference which is important for your mental health.  You have to be able to let go though when the problem is one you can't do anything about. I would love to say that the trick is knowing when to push harder and when to walk away but in the end both are usually valid so do the one that keeps you sane

Within 24hrs of my little quip I return having Hanlons Razor in mind. I was very stressed yesterday.

Having been poached to launch a new software product into the country, my company are not giving me what I need to make it to success quickly. In the Northern hemisphere, I'm the only expert in my field. Yesterday I was really stressed about getting fired for low performance.

However with Hanlons razor in mind I know our equity partner has been parachuted in to sort out many issues left by a former CEO across the Org. Therefore my role will either be relinquished, fortified or perhaps extended with some less aggressive outcomes to allow the rest if the business to catch up and support my revenue targets.

My issues is I do GAS. I want it to be a success which is why I took the challenge. But I realised yesterday I cannot take other peoples competence / lack of knowledge personally. I need to do my job, try to influence the outcome as the expert, yet also give less of a monkeys.

If I had shares in the company it may be different but I don't. I'm an employee so I just need to see where the future lies. And lower the GAS adrenaline...

edit: - I didn't see leffeboys post before I posted, thats a good summary of how I need to think!

I'm well paid and good at my job, but in the last 6months I've got a new boss who is an absolute dick so coupled with the fact my mortgage has is paid off I just don't give a flying **** anymore!

Is there a polite 2023 way to say “stop bothering me, you’re the designer, design it”?

Just tell her you're busy on other stuff and don't have time, and that you trust her to make the decisions.

Caring too much nearly killed me . It created so much stress I couldn't cope ...so ,(as many will know), .. hit the bottle hard for 30 yrs to be able to let go . I left my main career as a BT engineer in the nineties due to stress related illness . The only ones who survived the constant demands/changes etc were those who were thick skinned/ didn't GAS or both . Very hard to change if caring and integrity are your default traits ...our society makes such people unwell if they are vulnerable . Over the years I told numerous bullies/ managers/ even CEO's truths about themselves they didn't like ..just couldn't help it .Needless to say my work history was extremely varied as a result!
Being diagnosed with Attentive ADHD at 58 perhaps explained why I couldn't keep silent when these people mistreated myself or others ..impulse control isn't too refined!

One of the best methods I've found for not getting too invested in something and getting stressed by it is to simply do nothing for a bit and see what happens. In the vast majority of cases no one notices and the world doesn't fall in. Works well in meetings too, I simply say nothing until someone asks for my opinion, even if I have to fight the urge to say something because I disagree with someone else. Quite often I go into meetings with the simple goal of not saying anything at all. 🙂

DazH - the meeting thing is a great one. I am now at the point of taking in our social team meetings and any meetings i organise. Otherwise i try to keep quiet now, it does feel better but it's hard for me

the meeting thing is a great one

Trouble is everyone else does it too. It's pretty funny being in a meeting where no one wants to say anything, and often results in the person who called the meeting thrashing around trying to fill the time by talking bollocks. The best one is when after 5 or 10 minutes of bullshit someone suggests that the meeting should be wrapped up immidiately on the grounds that it's not productive. 😀

GAS helps make you feel that you are making s difference which is important for your mental health

For yours..... mine, not so much 🙂

Not giving a **** is not about having no pride in your work or no desire. It's about recognition of 1.boundaries, 2.accepting that things go wrong and 3.emotionally detaching yourself from the things that have gone wrong.

1. Boundaries of responsibility and boundaries of your sphere of influence. You can't expect to sort everything.

2. Stuff goes wrong, all the time. It's stupid to expect stuff not to go wrong. Except that things have gone wrong and it's a task. Inform who need to be informed and start in it. This new task may mean other task will not be completed. Accept.

3. Do not place value / judgment of yourself on the success of the project. We know from 2 that things fail. This should not be taken as an insult. Get over yourself, you are not as important as you think.

Or in Sales. Lazy Sales mostly doesn’t work, although a few get lucky. It always amazes me how people move from Sales role to Sales role increasing their Seniority but are basically lazy Sales people constantly being let go.

Oh hold on, maybe it does work…

Oi! I resemble that remark!

Although I'm not in Sales 😀

Previous to my last job role I was at risk when another business director asked me to take on a project. As soon as I arrived, the director who hired me put in her notice so I effectively had no sponsor for my project and my assigned line manager was too busy with other stuff. I was also assigned to a customer contact who had recently been promoted into their role and didn’t have a clue about what they wanted. After 3 months of effectively banging my head against a brick wall, I resigned myself to the fact that it wasn’t going anywhere and just spin it out for as long as I could. I was given the use of an office at the far end of the site, at the end of a corridor in a building few people visited. The land line phone wrang twice whilst it was there - looking for the person previously assigned that number! Good thing there was a decent gym on-site and I being central Portsmouth I could run all the way along the esplanade and back - including some times where it was high tide and waves breaking over the sea wall! Eventually, they announced a formal redundancy programme so my role got wrapped into that and I was let go 20 months into the role having done the sum total of bugger-all in that time. Biggest achievement was reaching level 1,000 on Candy Crush.

I was given the use of an office at the far end of the site, at the end of a corridor in a building few people visited.

Ah yes I've had an office like that. Affectionately known as The Departure Lounge.

Sounds ideal to me!

It’s pretty funny being in a meeting where no one wants to say anything, and often results in the person who called the meeting thrashing around trying to fill the time by talking bollocks. The best one is when after 5 or 10 minutes of bullshit someone suggests that the meeting should be wrapped up immidiately on the grounds that it’s not productive.

Silence sounds like a really nice way to contribute and help the person who called the meeting get something done.

Well done you 👍 how very productive.

Work is just a task that pays the bills. Real life is outside of the walls of work. I do my job well enough to have a good review each year. But there's no point in going above and beyond when that only results in extra work and higher expectations.

The trick is to know when to stop caring. I.e. when you are battling insoluble broblems or constraints that you are not empowered to resolve. All you can do then is to report it up, to those who *may* be empowered.

I've been meaning to post, but this is the point I have reached effectively. The only drawback is when those who might be empowered to resolve issues, don't. If you're the project lead and have to front up to clients/contractors/industry peers every week with a whole bunch of stuff still unresolved it takes a toll.

I'm leaving my current company largely because of this, and as a final act of rebellion am actually just taking the time to deliver one particular item properly, rather than dancing about trying to put out fires and doing a terrible job of it.

One of the best methods I’ve found for not getting too invested in something and getting stressed by it is to simply do nothing for a bit and see what happens. In the vast majority of cases no one notices and the world doesn’t fall in.

Similar to above, I've resisted the urge recently to try and fix everything and meet expectations, as the only way to do this would be to work nonsense hours. Whilst it hasn't been pleasant, the project has gradually moulded itself to this approach, I think because all other design team members are under the same stress. Project managers will bang tables and complain, but the work is just getting done when it gets done. Has been an interesting exercise in reality exerting itself on expectations.

Silence sounds like a really nice way to contribute and help the person who called the meeting get something done.

The majority of meetings I attend are pointless. Basically they've been called by a manager who's job it is to have lots of meetings. I remember my old boss (the one with an MBA) used to organise millions of meetings and I complained that I wasn't getting any real work done. His answer was 'this is work'.

If you're not happy in your job you should leave and find one where you can be happy. Life is too short and we spend a lot of time at work.

I've worked in corporations with anywhere between 10,000 and 150,000 employees, and startups with between 30 and 300. In my experience it's the corporations where the life gets sucked out of you. If you are the type of person who takes pride in their work, wants to do a good job, and gets frustrated by process, bureaucracy, and politics then a corporation is probably not for you.

I work for a small company of just 40 people at the moment and am the only person in Europe. It is chaotic and there are a million things that need to be done to get us to where we want to be, but I love it. We are all very different people with diverse skills but a very similar outlook. We are also all, ahem, mature enough to recognise the need to find the right work/life balance - there will always be things that need to be done, so working yourself into a breakdown won't help.

Personally I am not suited to corporations. I can operate there but will not thrive and will end up frustrated and wanting to leave. I do think that corporations are great if you are one of those that is happy to just grind along (plenty are and I take my hat off to you). I've done just that when life circumstances required it (I coasted for about 5 years when my kids were born) but am too restless to do it for ever.

The majority of meetings I attend are pointless

Fair enough - that did not come across to me in your original post.

We have some repeat offenders at our place who can't plan/prepare a meeting to save their lives (no clear objective, no preparation), which just results in a load of aimlessness and burned time.

Planning a good meeting is a skill and definitely needs effort.

Love the comment above that 40 is a small company. Tis compared to what other the poster has worked for. For me thats huge. Never taught in a school with half that. All different.

Not giving a ****? I couldn't manage it. After a couple of years of trying and time off work with stress, the solution I've found is finding another job where giving a **** is encouraged, enabled and rewarded.

The majority of meetings I attend are pointless

don’t go then.

No agenda or an optional attendance invite and I’m not attending.

Think I'm getting the hang of it.
Got to set objectives for the year next week, decided I don't really want to set any, I'm busy enough. If they really want to push me for an objective it will be to reduce the stuff that is really above my pay grade that they are failing to support me on.
Only other objective I can think of is putting the problem manager through the wood chipper, but probably best not to put that one on the form.

Think I'll read more books this summer too.

It never used to be like this, used to be a good place with good managers where to give a **** was effortless and rewarded.