Holden,
Cut the horseshit. Going to meetings is not having to work. Going to meetings is time to catch up on sleep you went without last night because you were bending elbows at the Bar and grill.
Seriously. Society has gotten so PC about every damn aspect of our lives, there's no end to their "if A, insert B". Go along with it. Don't resent it. The last few years I worked, they sent me to every damn thing you could imagine. I sat there, half awake, and nodded in unison with my fellow employees and got out of doing a whole bunch of paperwork because I got to enter, "driving school for dummies" in my daily diary and anything that went to shit out in the field was all the fault of their classes.
Don't be offended. Sign up for every damn thing they put out there. My hope was they would send me to so many meeting and classes, they'd forget I worked there and like that VA employee that has been on vacation for the last thirty years, wouldn't remember me until I started drawing my retirement.
I'm not making fun of you, Holden, I'm making fun of myself. At first, when they sent me to those things, I was offended. But I came to realize that if I followed what they told me to do, they left me alone and, in their eyes, became a more valuable employee.
So, sit in the back of the room. Paint pupils on your eyelids and be sure to sign the sign-in sheet. You're giving yourself ulcers over other's idiocy.
Sarg