by forwardslash

As a programmer in the U.S. for 30 years now I have spent some of that time working more than 40 hours in a week, which is not all that common in this industry, and when I was salaried I rarely if ever got more pay.

No more, I now find the whole idea nauseating.

I am not talking about running your own business, or working at a startup or other business entity where working more hours might get you a big payout. I ran two small software companies from the mid 80's to 90's and we did work a lot of hours; but all of us shared in whatever we made and in the second company worked under contract so the more we worked the more we got. But that's not the point of this post.

If I worked at some big technology company and agreed to some salary, my expectation is that I am being paid to do my best for a standard work week, which is generally considered (at least in the U.S.) to be 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. If they told me I have to work 70 hours a week, or some manager expected the team to show up 7 days a week, I would refuse today. Why?