I'm guessing that most of the people who see long hours as a badge of honor are salaried employees or people who manage salaried employees. One thing I noticed

I'm guessing that most of the people who see long hours as a badge of honor are salaried employees or people who manage salaried employees. One thing I noticed when I switched over to contract work is that once a company has to pay for each hour you work, they are a little less enthusiastic about you putting in long hours. In fact, some of the contracts I was on had caps on the total number of hours you were allowed to bill. Long hours are seen as a sign of passion when companies don't have to pay extra for that time, and seen as a sign of poor time management when they do.