Despite a few law suits filed by IT companies such as EA, most companies expect IT (and non-IT) staff to work more than 40-hours per week. As payroll laws exempt IT folks from overtime, it is very hard to do anything about it. There are still effects of the dot bomb and most of the jobs have not returned or have gone to offshore. All this has given companies free reign to treat their IT employees however they want. I have seen companies where despite the fact that people are working 70-80 hours a week, when they asked for raise they were told, “You should be thankful for having a job.” There are plenty of companies who think the only way they can compete with offshore is to match sweatshop environment of offshoring and put their employees with 14 hours a day with 6-7 days a week.