As an employee that has been working 50+ hours per week for many years, my thoughts have evolved on this. Corporations are abusing their employees for more hours. I now tell my boss, my computer shuts down at 6pm, work done or not. I let him tell me what his priority is, so he can decide what isn’t done.
I had a job decades ago. My first year I busted my tail. My boss then told me I was ineligible for promotion because we had too many white male managers.
Next year my attitude was “you pay me for 37.5 hours and that’s all I will give you”, until I found a better job.
I think the whole situation depends upon the nature of a particular employer/employee relationship. Work is at its core just a transaction, so many hours and/or such and such a product in exchange for so many dollars. A company that only treats its relationship with its employees in a cold transactional manner should expect that the employees will reciprocate and take a strict “9 to 5” attitude.
However, good companies that go out of their way to balance their employees’ personal lives (otherwise known as “lives”) with the needs of the business will generally find that those employees are willing to be flexible themselves and go far beyond the minimum required. I’m not talking crazy Google-level coddling, just basic respect for the fact that work should not be the be-all-end-all of a person’s existence (with the acknowledgement that money is necessary to exist and work is necessary to acquire money). Make no mistake, as an employee it is imperative to make sure that the business’s needs are always met, but a well-managed business will ensure that personal sacrifices are not demanded arbitrarily, but only when truly necessary. I’m not sure if I’m saying what I’m trying to get across very well. It’s a complicated topic, because besides what I said above there then comes into play an employee’s work ethic, which should be consistent no matter how well, or how badly, they are treated. I am retired now, but I always tried to approach work with gratitude toward my employer and dedication to ensure that their needs were met. But I can understand why many employees become rigid in their attitudes when met with an autocratic employer who doesn’t seem to care about the unavoidable conflicts that sometimes occur between work life and “personal” life (I really hate the dismissive “personal life” term, as if nothing outside the workplace matters).
That said, the employer is purchasing a product (your labor) and has every right to expect that it will meet their expectations, and if it doesn’t he has the right to terminate the arrangement. It’s just that wise employers will think a little more deeply than that. And wise employees are smart enough to realize this basic reality and respect the reason that their employer hired them in the first place.
I’m retired now, but I’ve worked for total autocrats, “touchy-feely” employee-first types, and those in between who balanced both approaches. In my experience, the autocrats and the squishy types both achieved some measure of success, one by instilling fear and the other by turning the workplace into a playground, but both generally produced inferior results compared to managers possessing the awareness and finesse to balance both needs without significantly compromising either. The autocrat’s downfall usually comes from the resentment and “us versus them” attitude that they instill in their employees, plus the fact that their tendency to “shoot the messenger” when receiving bad news eventually causes underlings to just stop informing them of anything at all. As for the squishy types, it’s obvious why they fail: While a few self-motivated employees will thrive in a hands-off playground atmosphere, and can even carry the business on their shoulders for a while, most will by nature see how far they can push things and productivity will inevitably suffer as a result.
So there’s my “on the one hand, but on the other hand” diplomatic response. Take it for what it’s worth.