Late from Office

Working in the private sector and that too in IT means that you often have to stay back late which is nothing unusual. Most of it can be attribited to the fact that 65%-70% (if not more)of the clients of these IT companies are from the U.S and difference in time zones is what leads to it.
But why am I writing about it? The reason is, that people take great pride in it which is something which really amazes me. Whats more that even their parents and spouses almost boast about it in public places & get-togethers.
For all of them, coming back late at night shows how precious you are to the organization. As if the organization never existed before them! Coming back from office at 8:30-9:00 PM is suddenly "not in" whereas after midnight or close to it, is.
Now the question arises - is it really that bad working in IT that you have to continuously slog it out throughout the year? The answer is a big "NO".
Most of these offices follow a pattern of 9.5 hours per day which strictly speaking,is more than enough for all the work that we do. Yes, I admit that sometimes during "releases" you really have to work extra hours but that certainly does not happen throughout the year.

Throughout the day some of them play games, talk non-stop over the phone (office phones,which are absolutely free) & engage in "group conversations" best described by the word "adda".
Few others remain logged on to Orkut the entire day and if you check their profiles on weekends (like I do) you would see their every 2-3 mins they would have a scrap on a weekday.
The funny part is you would see scraps like "I am very busy. Have lots of work to do".

You can't help yourself but ask the question "How come have you logged into Orkut then?".
There are some who upload albums containing 40 odd photographs each having captions which even the most intelligent of persons would have to think of for atleast 3-4 mins.

The most irritating part is, if they see you doing any self study, even when you have completed your quota of work, non-stop without indulging in any of the above and have spare time, they would come and tell you that they can't do the same as "they have so much work to do".

Hence this phenomena of "coming back home late from work" can be put to poor time management skills and certainly raises questions on the sincerity of these people.