I have always loathed the idolatrous notion at the rotten centre of this kind of thinking.

I am all for hard work, but within reasonable limits, and without taking the piss. And almost every single person with this idiotic attitude does just that, thinking they own the employee. They don't.

In my previous job (which I had for 23 years) I was in middle management, running a department. I had many arguments with upper management who took issue with me not being on call night and day. But guess what? I wasn't in the emergency services. I refused to be their slave. I turned off phones outside working hours. I drew lines in the sand when they wanted me to cancel long planned family holidays, or ask me to stay late for some interminable and pointless meeting instead of attending my children's birthdays. I refused such foolishness. Every single time.

I have no regrets. No one ever lay on their deathbed wishing they'd spent more time at work. But I certainly would have had regrets if I'd cancelled family holidays, not attended birthday parties, and so forth.

Ironically, those in upper management came to respect the stand I took, and even told me (before I eventually resigned) that they wished they had done the same, as their children were now grown up, and it was too late.