<b>"Till the break of dawn! The break of dawn! Till the morning day is come! Will you feel it? Till the break of dawn! At the break of dawn!"</b>Ah, how these Happy Hardcore lyrics describe my current engagement.So I ask you all this:What the f*ck do you do when you end up staffed on a project with a bunch of psychopaths who work till the break of dawn, every day, every week?Thanking you all in advance.

Who is the main catalyst of this sort of thing? Is it possible that they&apos;re all doing the long hours to satisfy some overpowering personality? Or is there some urgent pressing deadline you might be unaware of?Or are they a bunch of automaton freaks devoid of any life outside of work?TC

They are automation freaks. The senior guy likes to stay in the office at night and during weekends, and like a bunch of sheep, the rest of them do the same too.

So what happened the last time you left at a reasonable hour? This is a key question - if you&apos;ve tried it and been told otherwise that takes us down one route, if you haven&apos;t but worry about about what would happen if you did, that takes us down another...

Well... interesting question... I don&apos;t think I&apos;ve ever had the balls to leave before 8pm or so.... it&apos;s sort of an unwritten rule, everybody just stays here working at 9pm as if it were 3pm... it&apos;s just that kind of atmosphere.... I wouldn&apos;t want to be the first to be made an example of....

Ah ha. And have you discussed this with any of your co-workers/peers? Do you know for a fact that they are the automaton freaks we speak of...or is it possible that they feel the same way as you, p*ssed off but keeping quiet, hesitant to be the first to break rank?

Well, they are all workaholics and have MBAs - the sort that would spend every Saturday night in a tutorial or on campus. There is also a distinct anxiety culture here.... the office is silent... nobody talks to each other... nobody smiles... and nobody leaves before anybody else has left either. I have no idea how they feel but imagine they, somewhat amazingly, probably aren&apos;t too bothered about the long hours and atmosphere.

If nobody leaves before anybody else, who is the first to instigate the getting up and going?

Well.... nobody! They just all sort of stay there until the boss and a few unlucky others go into a 2 hour meeting at 10pm or something like that, and then maybe a few of us sort of break away from the group and it gradually disintegrates until we&apos;re all gone. Or alternatively a few of us will jump at the opportunity when a meeting finishes (usually around 10pm) and sort of use the fact that we&apos;re already standing up as an excuse to go home...

I once worked on a project like this where no-one wanted to be the first to leave. We worked solidly for 136 hours before someone finally cracked and went.He was made redundant within 3 weeks.

Holy cow... 136 hours straight... even by my team&apos;s standards, that&apos;s incredible

Ah that&apos;s got to be joke, come on!Personally I think if you haven&apos;t got the balls to leave early, you deserve to what you get.

sorry, I was being facetious and now I feel guilty, it never happened.Seriously those hours seem ridiculous, I would leave earlier if I were you.

Understood. However - you say that people in the office are "all workaholics and have MBAs - the sort that would spend every Saturday night in a tutorial or on campus" but then say that "...a few of us sort of break away from the group and it gradually disintegrates until we&apos;re all gone..".Sounds like you actually have some ppl there thinking the same as you. I&apos;d identify them, find out what they&apos;re planning to do one evening, arrange a group social after the necessary work is done and then leave. That then changes expectations and creates social support. It&apos;s too much for one person to do alone, but if you initiate others will follow. Time to lead!TC

Leave the job and leave the freaks to it!

Please let us know where you are working....so I can avoid it like the plague

This is either a joke/fake post OR the people involved are inexperienced, insecure and lacking skills. If you can&apos;t sell something obvious like "I need time to myself, sleep, etc" you are not in the right business.Get organised like TC suggested or just start leaving at a decent time and earn the respect for doing that. Since this situation sounds too bad to be true the other &apos;sheep&apos; will follow.Definitely all manager-material, no leaders.

We&apos;re mostly inexperienced, and all quite insecure. Most of us are either grads or fresh MBAs with not much experience. All very clever but also all very insecure.

I still don&apos;t believe this modern slavery is really happening. If it&apos;s true that everyone is just sticking around and not being productive untill 10pm every single day: just stop doing it. The safe option would be to just start leaving at 9pm. Keep doing it for a week or two weeks and see what happens.Worst case scenario your manager/boss will ask you what&apos;s going on but you can b*llsh*t your way out of it ("family circumstances") or just be honest. Most likely scenario: in the 2nd week other people will start leaving at 9pm as well. Want to show some balls and leadership ? Leave when the work is done (can be 6pm, 7pm, etc).I&apos;ve got about 5+ years of consulting experience and I wouldn&apos;t tolerate this situation at all (working daily till 10-11pm) especially when it is not productive or actually delivering something urgent. I&apos;d discuss the &apos;working late&apos; issue as a project concern: bad planning/scheduling and no room to go the extra mile when necessary.