Recognise the deliveries not the efforts...

I have been thinking of posting about the work culture in US for the past three weeks. Here I go.
No manager expects you to work beyond regular office hours, which is usually 8 hours. People at higher levels recognise even smaller things done by the teams and reward people accordingly. When I stayed in office for 18 hours in a day to get the reports working for one of those domestic clients I was working then, I hardly heard anything from the client. There was hardly any great response from my boss or employer as well. I can't generalise and conclude that everyone operates that way. My experience wwas simply that. Things are very different here. I am in the process of picking up that energy to work. Once that is done, it is all going to be joyful. It is hard to explain in words when every single task of yours is seen as an accomplishment. That is when you keep doing things right.
People come early to work and leave early to home. What you see in any office back home is very different. Every Indian IT professional I know works for more than 60 Hours every week irrespective of the delivery dates. It is all person dependent. There are few who like to spend more time in office and there are most who are not. But, I support very much when people get to stay late and being recognised for their efforts not for staying late but for their actual delivery.