<rant>So I'm new to the having-meetings-every-waking-moment-of-the-day thing... Just wondering if anyone is supposed to get anything done??
Or are we supposed to gather more and more work to do during each meeting?
The only times I've been able to do work is when I can mute the mic or say I'm in a "lunch meeting"!!
Does this happen to everybody???
</rant>

This used to happen to me. When I approached someone about it, he scheduled a meeting to talk about how we have so many meetings. I've since left (not directly because of that) and joined a company that just has a quick stand-up every day that only lasts 5 minutes. I get so much more done

Yes, and you must put a stop to it, or it will kill your soul. haha I highly recommend the 4 hour work week by Tim Ferriss. specifically ch7 has some great ideas for dealing with this exact problem.

Some company cultures revolve around excessive meetings. Been there, done that, did not like it.

Welcome to the meeting addicted software development world! It sucks really... there is nothing positive about it but all the pms, account managers, clients love it...

I think we can all agree that it would not be much of a problem if they could be productive!
I don't want to talk about lunch! If you tell me it's due by the end of the week, then you need to let me try to finish it by the end of the week!

Three things I do when this starts happening.

1. Tell my supervisor, in kind but clear terms, saying I can't get any work done because j have too many meetings.

2. Start blocking off large chunks of your day, assign each hour to some named project.

3. Fight every meeting request with either the backing of your boss (#1), or with a clear explanation that attending will delay such-and-such project (#2)

They won't like it, but at least you'll get some work done.

Well one interesting perspective I got on this was that meeting cultures only come about for two reasons.

Managers instinctively micromanage due to previous bad experiences or they are micromanaging because they have seen your team without micromanagement. The first is a tricky one because you've got to perform quite hard to change their mind and you have to make it clear the performance isn't a product of the excessive meetings..

However if the micromanagement is a product of poor team performance when you guys are just left too it, then it might be worth looking within the team and seeing it from your PMs or POs perspective. Perhaps it's something you guys can solve to put their mind at ease.

We used to have stupid meetings about what we were going to talk about in future meetings. I put a stop to my attendance when I started filling in a time sheet as follows

0800-0900 prep for meeting
0900-0915 meeting about meeting
0915-0930 meeting notes prep
0930-0935 coding
0935-0945 telephone call about meeting
0945-1300 meeting
1300-1400 lunch
1400-1700 actively planning tomorrow's meeting