American culture really does expect this. Other Western cultures do not. In France it is now illegal to email employees on the weekend. According to Katie Jgln, “The UK has recently decided to launch a four-day workweek trial.

And so has Ireland, Scotland, Spain, the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. In the last years, several companies — including Microsoft Japan — have also decided to offer a shorter workweek to their employees.”

James retried early because his job was literally killing him. Fortunately, he was able to figure out how to manage to do that, but he was doing three people's jobs (there are now 3 people doing it) and had to always be available, even on vacation. It was insane! His health has improved immensely now that he's not subject to being treated like a cog in a wheel.

We read the other day about a man whose wife was diagnosed with a terminal illness and when he went to HR for advice they essentially told him, you can either keep up or you can take unpaid leave. He stayed, but then they slowly started to edge him out, finding faults with his work and painting him as a "problem" employee. If I remember correctly, he finally took a paltry severance and left. How demoralizing!

Meanwhile, employees who are treated like an integral part of the company family will be more productive, more loyal, more invested in their work - but that isn't how American capitalism works for the most part.

So glad you got out!