It’s 5 p.m. Why isn’t anyone going home?
John, who is 38, remembers asking himself this question every day during his first two weeks at the consumer products firm in Midtown where he works as a marketing manager.
His co-workers, who had been kidding around and checking Facebook earlier in the day, suddenly seemed stapled to their seats, their noses to the grindstone. They would stay that way until 6:30, when the boss left to catch a train home. Shortly thereafter, everyone would follow.
“I wouldn’t look dedicated to my job if I took off 90 minutes before everyone else,” says John, who declined to give his last name, citing career repercussions. He says there’s an unwritten rule in his department that no one leaves before the boss, even if their work is done.
John is not alone. For many New Yorkers, leaving work on time is as realistic as finding a cab during a downpour.
It’s not just the idea of putting in so-called “face time” that bothers Mary, 25. The investment banker almost never goes home before 8 p.m. and sometimes stays as late as midnight — hanging around “just in case” a golden opportunity comes up. “If I’m not around, my chance to prove myself will be given to someone else,” she reasons.
So instead of leaving the office, she lives vicariously through her friends and checks Foursquare as they head to SoulCycle or happy hour.
“No one will leave before everyone else does,” she adds. “It’s like he who stays in the office the longest wins.”
In such industries, long hours and unreasonable demands are simply a part of the game of making it to the top.
“The people who get ahead aren’t the people who go home,” says Bruce Tulgan, founder of management research firm Rainmaker Thinking and author of “It’s Okay to Be the Boss.” “The hero is the one who stays in the office the longest.”
Tulgan recalls a story about hearing a fax machine go off well past midnight while having a nightcap with some of his buddies who worked on Wall Street. They looked at each other and asked, “Who would be sending that at this hour?” “Then they laughed,” says Tulgan, as they answered the question in unison: “Me, 20 years ago.”
Judith Glaser, a workplace expert and author of “Conversational Intelligence,” says in some cases, the problem may lie as much with your boss or your communications with him as with the culture in which you work.
“It’s a blind spot,” she says, citing a recent situation in which a review of a manager revealed his subordinates believed they couldn’t call it a day until he did. “He had no idea why they were working late.” He’s now made it clear to them that they can leave either on schedule or when their work is done.
This could have happened much sooner if the workers had simply brought their concerns to their boss.
“You have to be willing to have the conversation,” says Glaser, even if it might seem unnerving at first.
“Ask, ‘What are the expectations?’ ” adds Anna Goldstein, owner of coaching firm Self in the City. “It’s better to know than to play along.”
Once the information’s at hand, you might like what you hear, or you might choose to accept it, albeit unhappily.
But not everyone who has the energy to go the extra mile is willing to. That attitude hasn’t been as widespread as it is today with millennials, which doesn’t bode well for employers who demand long hours but care about retention.
“Corporate leaders are beginning to see they risk losing their best people, because they are not willing to give up their lifestyles,” says Tulgan.
But companies are finally listening up. In 2013 Goldman Sachs created a task force focused on improving the day-to-day work environment and the work/life balance for their junior bankers.
“The goal is for our analysts to want to be here for a career. We want them to be challenged, but also to operate at a pace where they’re going to stay here and learn important skills,” says David Solomon, co-head of Goldman’s investment banking division.
But not every company has a dedicated task force. In these cases, employees must begin to implement change in their workplace themselves.
“You teach others how to treat you,” says Goldstein. “You need to work with your boss to create what’s going to work for you in your environment. No one is going to do it for you.”