From a generational perspective, you might find some folks who were born before 1975 who would go along with these concepts, but even then, they would be constantly looking for new positions.
For any later-GenX, Millennials, and definitely GenZ in the workplace, it’s not a thing, or incredibly niche.
In your GTA example, people will commonly push hard to meet a deadline, but it is entirely unrealistic to expect that to be the norm. I’ve had projects where I’ve worked until 1am, went home to sleep for three hours, and logged back in at home at 5am; at some point in a corporate career that is bound to happen. The Karoushi culture of not leaving until the boss leaves, or always appearing to do over and beyond isn’t sustainable to US mindsets, and just isn’t tolerated by younger generations.
To your other question about overtime: US labor laws can vary state to state, but jobs generally fit a few wage archetypes such as Exempt, Non-Exempt, Tip-based, or Gig-based. The key here is the Exempt v. Non, since the latter two can technically fit into Non. The exemption here is related to overtime. The standard week is 40 hours and any time worked outside of that 40 hours is considered “overtime” and paid at a higher rate, typically 1.5x a base pay rate.
Example, if you normally earn $20/hour, for any time worked beyond those first 40 hours in a week would be paid at a rate of $30/hour. This, however, is only the case for Non-Exempt employees. The exemption is due to the Fair Labor Standard Act which details the entitlement to overtime pay. Exempt means that the FLSA is not-applicable or just does not apply to the position, so if you are Exempt, you do not receive overtime pay. A Non-Exempt position means that the FLSA does apply, and you must receive overtime pay for hours worked beyond that 40th hour in a 7 day period.
If you’re working a Non-Exempt role, and the boss makes you “stay late”, the boss also has to pay you for every minute of time beyond 40 total hours in a week at a higher rate. If you’re in an Exempt position, however, the expectation is that you are paid “well enough” so that if the job requires more than 40 hours, you are already compensated. Some employers will abuse this by making hard demands on employees and this is where the staying until the boss leaves and sleeping at your desk thing comes into play.
All this notwithstanding, younger generations are generally less tolerant of the demands in Karoushi-style work cultures. We’ve grown to appreciate a proper work-life balance, especially within Exempt roles. If a project requires an 80-hour week for 3 weeks, no one should really blink an eye if you head out at 3pm on a Friday the week after the project completes. An Exempt role may not involve specified work hours, but rather more general availability.
In my position, I prefer to be available from 8:30am-5pm Monday through Friday, but I work with teams around the world, and if the India team is only available at 6am my time, and I need to present on that meeting, the expectation is that I’m up and working at 6am that day. If I log off at 3pm later that same, as long as I don’t have a meeting a 4pm, it’s not an issue. There is more flexibility in an Exempt role than there is in Non-Exempt because direct hours worked aren’t tracked and kept in some timekeeping system to ensure local, state, and federal laws are met.
While Exempt positions can be as open for abuse as they are flexible, a poor work environment reflects on the company, and not only will they regularly lose talent, they will also struggle to recruit talent as well, leaving them with only the people who have no other options to work in their abusive environments.
But think of all the time you’ll save!
Instead of spending useless time bonding over the shared experience of going to the library - a publicly funded entity that is the only place in current society where you can just exist without buying things - and then the tedious time spent talking about and choosing books together, you can now have an AI care for everything. You can even use their AI to voice the story for you to remove the need to interact with your child at all!