As someone who’s been on the receiving end of such edicts, and also tangential to people giving such edicts, my personal opinion is that it’s about posturing.

As someone who’s been on the receiving end of such edicts, and also tangential to people giving such edicts, my personal opinion is that it’s about posturing. Telling your superiors “I’ve had my team working round the clock” conveys more sense of urgency than “we’re working on it, that request will be handled as soon as my people get back from their weekend.” It sucks and is bad management in my opinion. But from what I’ve experienced, people eat that stuff up. Especially people who come from companies that have constantly fought fires all the time. It’s very frustrating. As I’ve gotten older, more eyebrows have gotten raised at long work schedules, so that’s good at least. My personal experience tends towards work/life balance being more available in larger, corporate positions but I can’t tell if that is my bubble, or if that’s the general case.