[kyllo]

See, if working extra hours at your job will actually make you rich and/or influential, or if you just plain enjoy the heck out of your job, then you have a very good reason to do it.

But I've also seen people put in 50-60 hours at a job where others put in 40 and get paid basically the same salary, without any increased possibility of promotion either. They were basically workaholics for the sake of it, or for appearances, not for any concrete benefit. I think what they got was a feeling of moral superiority for working the hardest (even though they didn't necessarily get more actual work done), as well as a sense of security that they wouldn't be the first on the chopping block when the next round of layoffs came (not necessarily true).

It's not a straw man, I know people who do this in real life. I think of it as cargo culting for career success.

[ramchip]

I work this kind of hours right now, but I think you're wrong about the motives for most people. I don't care about security (not thinking of staying in the long term, no wife/kids to support) and I see no moral superiority in working more. But I do get strong pressure from above to stay late (X is urgent, "you're not leaving the office before Y is done", team calls being scheduled after hours regularly, etc), and there's always the social pressure. It feels bad going home early when I know teammates have to stay behind to finish their stuff.

[kyllo]

Yeah, if it's just the culture of the place, then of course there is strong social pressure and guilt-tripping that compels you to stay late like the others do. If you go against an organizational culture of staying late, your coworkers will likely resent you, your boss will think you are lazy or insubordinate, and you are probably going to be the proverbial nail that sticks out and gets hammered down. Better to just put up or leave.

I was referring to cases where it isn't necessarily the norm of the organization to stay late every day, but a few people do it anyway, for their own reasons.

Another possibility--their home life sucks and they would rather be at the office anyway. Sad, but sometimes true.