So, people with hard commitments, such as picking up a child or senior from daycare renders such a person suspect? I know people with medical conditions such that their meal times are forged in stone, and have to take meal breaks on set intervals or they suffer serious issues. Do you check to see if such subjects arrive earlier than others, skip lunch or perform other compensations? Realize that many, many people have rigid time commitments they cannot control.

I worked at a startup where 'staying late' was expected. The best analogy I can give for it is that the technical staff were asked to work on a transport truck's engine as it drove down the highway at 150km/h, no stopping allowed, while the sales team airdropped (from a helicopter?) more and more load on the back of the truck.

I used to get texts at all hours of the night and day and learned to start to ignore them, then I eventually left.

A coworker who stayed a few years after I left told me that I did the right thing. Until you implement 'flow control' the demand side will _never_ get the signal that their incident coverage is not sufficient.

This was a particularly abusive situation, but this kind of experience always makes me suspicious of people who look down on others for not staying late.

All this 'staying late' moralizing indicates management that wants seamless incident coverage but is unwilling to pay for it.

Having said this, I am usually willing to stay a little bit late on occasion, because no one's planning is perfect. But when it becomes habitual, I take it as warning sign to look for another project or job.

That means they are smart enough to value their time and care for their family. The old people depending on the company's success to fund their pension can go starve.