That's also a great story! For me it's a lot less about them getting what they paid for and more about me recognizing that my own life matters, too. If we have

That's also a great story! For me it's a lot less about them getting what they paid for and more about me recognizing that my own life matters, too. If we have a conversation as adults and agree that I should work +X more hours per week in return for +Y in compensation/vacation/swag/whatever, then we can do that as adults. But I'm not going to voluntarily put in more time than the expectation, not because I don't care about the business, but because the business doesn't care about me. If they did, they'd recognize it and compensate accordingly. There's a guy who works for me right now who did some work last night (Sunday), and I've mentioned to him a dozen times that he doesn't need to do work late at night, especially on the weekends. He still does it. That's fine. Good for him. I'll be very flexible on time off in the future, but that's just me being respectful of his time. If he really valued his time more, he'd take the weekends and enjoy it himself, and I'd support that 100%, too. It's important for us to realize we're all adults and we're all fully realized human beings with our own wants and needs, and as long as we can all agree on that, things will be fine. What ceases to be fine is when someone -- whether it's the business or myself! -- treats me as an unlimited resource with no consideration for personal time. My advice to anyone is to do the 9-5, do a good job, and don't worry about the rest. If you want to put in a few extra hours because you're passionate about a particular project, by all means, go for it, but recognize that nobody else is asking you do to that. And if they are asking you to do that, then you should challenge it, even if you want to do it. Challenge it and ask for more compensation, more PTO, more swag, more free lunches, more flex time. Whatever it is that you think you deserve. More effort _should_ result in more reward. And if it doesn't, you're in the wrong place.