If anything I’ve learned over my almost 20 years of career is that doing overtime, nights and weekends at work is almost never properly rewarded, and you pay triple price for that with your mental and physical health. It is also rarely appreciated afterwards by the management and doesn’t really advance your career.

“But what if this is really needed?” you might ask. Well, one thing you realise at some point of your life is that big achievements are indeed a team effort, but the effort is not equally distributed. Generally, when management fails, the easiest solution is to try and motivate troops to work extra. The fail will never be admitted too.

Last thing. If you refuse to work overtime (paid or otherwise), nothing bad will happen to you or you career or to your relationship with the management. I’m talking about the entitled IT industry here. You career will keep on progressing, and the world will keep on going, even if a feature or a product won’t get shipped on time. Also, there will be one less burned out person to enjoy life.