Why does nobody talk about the guilt of logging off early after finishing your work

I hit all my goals by mid-afternoon but felt weird about shutting down my laptop before the official end of the day.

2 comments

2 Comments

My old office in Tampa had this unwritten rule where leaving before 5 felt like a crime. I realized that guilt was really just me giving away free time, like missing my kid's soccer game to stare at a blank screen. That fake presence doesn't help the company, it just trains them to expect you to be always on for no reason. Now I see logging off when done as taking back what I already earned.

the_xena1d ago

Last year, my team finished a huge report by 2 PM on a Wednesday. We all just pretended to work for two extra hours because the boss was still online. I finally closed my laptop at 4 and felt like I was doing something wrong. That fake busy culture is so pointless, it just burns people out. Now I shut things down when my work is done, guilt trip be damned. Took me a while to unlearn that anxiety.