>Your options are to think nobody understand you and everyone is working against you, or to take ownership and defend your time accordingly.
I'm not sure if you meant it in this way, but "defend your time" is a phrasing that implies an adversarial relationship between your time and those that are supposed to be facilitating you to do your best work, like a manager. I believe a manger is someone who removes distractions, buffers you from interruptions, and facilitates frictionless coordination with others. Anything less is just making the hard job harder.
I didn’t say “defend your time, from your manager”. The people who will invite you to a meeting in most companies are myriad. Some of these are truly collaborative and for mutual benefit. Many are, as you said, just making your job harder. Hopefully for _their_ benefit but it does come at a cost to you and you can’t afford to give all of your time up for others. Defend your time.
Thanks for clarifying that you didn't mean managers. I was confused because my post was only concerned about managers, and so I thought you were replying to that.
I'm not sure if you meant it in this way, but "defend your time" is a phrasing that implies an adversarial relationship between your time and those that are supposed to be facilitating you to do your best work, like a manager. I believe a manger is someone who removes distractions, buffers you from interruptions, and facilitates frictionless coordination with others. Anything less is just making the hard job harder.