Comment by tsss

I also work in the German healthcare sector (as a contractor) and all of my permanently employed colleagues there have at least 4h of meetings per day. Some are closer to 6 hours. I also know people who worked at DB and they report the same thing. Large automotive companies (BMW, Mercedes, VW, etc.) are not much better. External contractors are the only reason any actual work is still getting done there because we have no access to anything on account of all the security red tape and thus don't get roped into as many meetings. Right now the German government is doing its best to destroy even that last bit of efficiency because they can't accept that the self-employed are trying to escape their greedy hands and are essentially outlawing freelance software development.

I, for one, am learning Polish and will leave this shithole country as soon as I can.