I'm not satisfied with my job if I'm not being consulted and decisions I should be a part of are made because the five out of six people in the team "had a chat over lunch", no.
You're not working on a team if decisions are made by 5/6 of the people most of time without even a consideration that the other person might have input. At that point you're a weird internal contractor, and to your point, if they wanted me to be a contractor and just deal with whatever choices the team makes without input, I'd expect to be paid as a contractor.
Sometimes people use face to face as a crutch.
I was told the look into another language was part of "a bake off" between a couple options, and I assumed they'd have a more general meeting/decision before picking. I'd made my general opinion known earlier, but I didn't want to clutter meetings that weren't about the relevant decision by cramming my opinion on the matter into them.
I have no idea if my opinion would have changed things, but I never got the chance to find out. I'd have rather lost an argument where my point of view was heard than just had any objections overridden by default though.
I've asked about the decision later on, but that was after tens of hours of work had gone into the system I disagreed with, so making the case for throwing away most of a week of a couple dev's work is a lot harder to make than pushing to not "waste" that work in the first place.
I've been working remote for 2 years, and the team has been mostly good about it. I bring this up specifically because it's a good example of the pitfalls that can hit even a team that is otherwise doing a good job of remote inclusion.
The whole point is that not having folks as looped in to meetings and choices when you're remote makes it a lot easier to intentionally or accidentally cut people out of important decisions. In this case, now I have to be the disruptive jerk that's going "I don't like this. Stop." if I care, or I just have to go along with the decision.
If an employer is not willing to accomodate remote first and payme well as a contractor, I'll find another one willing to.
It is also about being able to be effective. Because if they don't tell you things, your productivity goes down.
Sure, for a reasonable amount of time until either you are able to be once again, or they let you go.
> Productivity is the company’s problem, not mine.
I know this can feel hard to believe when you're stuck in a crappy situation, but there are many folks who value their output for its own sake.
You might also choose to care about your productivity because it can correspond with your ability to get promoted, earn more, etc.