Not only does overtime not give you a linear increase in performance, but in my personal experience overtime it decreases overall performance. I work at a smal

Not only does overtime not give you a linear increase in performance, but in my personal experience overtime it decreases overall performance. I work at a small programming company where gratuitous overtime is the norm as a project closes. By the time things calm down again, we're so stressed out that our productivity probably falls by 50% or more for weeks to come. And the cumulative effect after years of this is even worse. I don't think the boss (also an overworked programmer) has yet to come to appreciate this daunting reality.