It is an American thing. In the rest of the world we can happily do 9-5 without feeling bad for it.

Unfortunately that kind of thinking is no longer only an American thing. I see it more and more every day. Employers are pushing fresh college grads to work as many hours as possible for a low wage just so they can have a bigger profit. If they burn out, there are others to replace them.

It's amusing watching Americans boast about working past the norm 9-5 hours and calling the rest of the world lazy. My response, "What are you proud about? After working twice as hard, you have the same quality of life as friends in Canada, and statistically speaking you'll drop dead sooner because of stress."

That always wipes the smug grin of their faces.

"That always wipes the smug grin of their faces."

While I agree with you, nothing could wipe the smug grin off these persons' faces. They are beyond reality, and I'd be much happier with America if something so simple could give the "socialists are universally lazy" rabble whenever labor rights are mentioned in any sense.

Yes, here in the socialist Germany I can enjoy my free time after 4:30 pm and if my boss wants me to stay longer I get paid overtime.

Because you spend 9-noon and 1pm-3pm on meetings and you still need to code.

That sounds like an organizational problem to me if you spend 75% of your time at meetings everyday instead of coding (if coding is actually your job).

And 8hrs is probably too much time to really productively be working on a job at that.