In my experience with non-techies they'd prefer you just to say "it's done" (assuming a reasonable timeframe) than go into detail on why it's not. Every new rep

In my experience with non-techies they'd prefer you just to say "it's done" (assuming a reasonable timeframe) than go into detail on why it's not. Every new report is translated to "it's not done yet" with an excuse, which is probably why you were deemed a slacker. Also in my own experience I can get carried away with the side tech -- spending a few days setting up a monitoring system and things like that -- is it really needed or are you scratching an itch? Small companies can't really spare the time to set up the enterprise-grade tooling if it's not one and done. Maybe you are actually slacking, it took me a while to accept the reality myself anyway. To directly answer your question: go to the meetings. Meetings are a way to reset your slacker status to "not a", no matter how boring or pointless they are or how accurate it is (it's why managers love them). They're also sometimes a decent way to share information with the team without relying on having written it up nicely if you get to talk before the snacks come out. Of course this is just one guy's assumptions and opinions. They could just be jerks.