On tech field - at least overseas - there seems to be obsession to do insane hours with essentially no compensation (aside possibly some vagues promises of stock options), and even skipping your vacations. In Europe the situation is not that dire, but even then there seems to be some push to do essentially unpaid extra, at least in some places.
When I was still working on salary I felt kinda bad for browsing the net occasionally when I couldn't get anything useful done. Only lately I've actually figured out why that happened (and I mean the part of not getting anything done, not the browsing part). And it only took me ten years or so.
The thing is that I (and based on every discussion on topic I've seen, everyone else too) can work in efficient creative mode for only so long before that precious creative energy runs out. For me the daily upper limit for that seems to be around six hours, after which I am completely exhausted and will not get anything creative done for that day. This covers essentially everything, be it planning, designing, writing code or even testing it. Note the last one there; often people mistakenly think that this exhaustion doesn't apply to that. Not so - you might be able to do very simple testing (like mechanically testing out some already known sequence - which you should have scripted out anyway as part of automated tests) but actually useful testing ("hmm, what happens if I press that button now when that other thing is doing its stuff...") is out of the question.
Above I said daily upper limit. This exhaustion effect appears to be cumulative - working to the limit every day will gradually shorten the daily productive time over time. Sometimes switching to some other, completely different task helps (like dropping software part for a while and doing PCB schematic or layout work) but even then there is an absolute limit. And when that limit is reached, it will take several days before I start to get that energy back.
Considering above the idea of living to work - that is, doing insane hours - is even more insane. Not only are you wasting time at office without being compensated for time lost, you aren't even getting anything (worthwhile) done!
Of course, these days I can do other than creative things, like doing menial assembly or testing work that doesn't really need any creativity, so that time isn't completely wasted either. But there is only that much of that to be done. And of course not everyone can just switch to something different when energy runs out.
Or, you know, since my phone isn't tied to the desk, I can also go out biking or hunting or whatever. I always get my best ideas when I'm out there anyway, far away from the office.
Might I recommend that for you, too?
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