[stinkytaco]

At least part of most people's job is being available, however. If you work on a team or are even nominally in a support role, you've got to be available for questions, meetings, collaboration, and so on. Very few people at places I've worked in the past have a job that can be easily defined by "I cranked this many widgets, now I can go."

Additionally, the 40 hour week protects people who got a difficult task from being held over. I realize there are stories of working 80 hours a week, but in my experience most people leave at 40 hours, which forces managers and sales people to set realistic delivery dates based on those hours.

[WWLink]

I understand the concept of being "available" because my employer has a rule of core hours that one can be expected to be available for questions/meetings/whatever.

At the same time though, sometimes you can learn a lot by not being available. There's documentation that can be written, and sometimes users need to actually read the manual instead of interrupting you to answer a question you've already answered to them three times before.

Sigh. That last one is the worst. Especially if you've written documentation, pointed it out to them before, and been told "I don't have time to read that".