What struck me about the article was how the author assumed that John (the 8-5 guy) would get a raise if he would only work longer hours. But it doesn't seem t

What struck me about the article was how the author assumed that John (the 8-5 guy) would get a raise if he would only work longer hours. But it doesn't seem that John's employer told him that. In my experience, if you've worked for a tech company for a number of years, and they haven't given you even a token raise in all that time, and they haven't explained why, or what you need to do to get a raise, then the issue is not your performance. It's that the company doesn't give raises. If John is working for a company like that, then working 8-5 is perfectly rational. The company is sending the message that it doesn't care strongly about performance, so why assume greater performance will lead to greater pay? Where I would criticize John is not looking for another job in the industry (and perhaps doing the night/weekend studying and projects that would help make that possible).