Re: Up the creek without paddle... @ Don Jefe
I don't know if I entirely understood your post - I think is said "work as hard as you need to in order to meet your goals". If so, I tend to agree. In all my recent work (I used to be a nurse with an on-call rota for some of it), I have tended to do that. I know that at certain times of the academic year I will, in all conscience, need to be available after hours to support students coming up to deadlines, deal with revisions to new coursework etc, and that could be email or phone. It is certainly annoying when, as at a recent employer - a new college - the work was supposed to have been done by a consultant (mate of the manager) for a small fortune, who did the course outlines and then walked away, leaving me and a colleague to write the coursework for the students, for three courses. However, our duty was to the students - those 60+hour weeks of teaching, marking, writing the work, supporting new students and developing extra-curricular activities were for someone else's benefit - and there was something heroic about ensuring the coursework was up on the VLE to meet the students' timetables. There was nothing "life-saving" about it, but it was affirming and useful.
In another job, I needed to conduct telephone calls with a university in California, which meant a week of late nights to deal with lawyers etc - but it helped the project out of a (big) hole. Once again, not life-saving, but affirming, useful, and exciting.
In short, *I* choose when I work. I want the option to put in the extra mile (or ten) to help make something I'm involved in a success. I do not want some legislator deciding that my project is going to fail because of a stupid general rule (that would end in me doing the work unpaid because the audit would show it up if I was paid). I am the one who decides whether and when I respond to any email or text or phone. I know I'm not the only one, and find it hard to understand the mind-set that works like I described above *all the time*. I'm unlikely to send out or answer emails after 9pm, and only by arrangement ring anyone after that time, even friends. So, if this is what you mean in your post, I agree.