yeah you guys figured out what I meant by 40.0ers. My company is heavy engineering and lots of engineering jobs (at least in the USA for the discipline I am) tend to work you for 50+ hours a week for salary compensation (no OT payment). At our company different levels are required to give "free hours" before OT becomes paid. So for example a Eng I would have to give 5 hours free before being paid for OT (so worked 46 hours, would get paid for 41 hrs). For a supervisor its 10 hours free before OT becomes paid. Its expected that you dont watch the clock, so 40.0s are considered clock watchers and minimum workers (our time is measured in 6 min increments and you have to clock in/out so some people do time it down to the minute for leaving). It has no bearing on amount or quality of work done. Sometimes it is true that a 40.0er is a slacker but its not always the case so to me the metric isnt useful unless you have other performance issues with the person. At the director level they are looking at Sales performance and the "free hours" are very useful to the company for making profits so they would love a ton of 45ers. Just a part of being at a MegaCorp. Since having kids I usually work 40-42 hours a week but now thats down under 40, haha.
Ah, I don't miss those days. When I was in my 20s and 30s, I averaged a lot of hours every week. I think my first year at this one company it was 47.5 hours a week. That meant for every 40 hour week I had, I had a 55 hour week. It was a pretty brutal schedule but doable at my age. Those hours only decreased over the years. I remember the boss telling me that 45 minimum was expected, because "you know those last 5 each week, or 1 per day are productive, because you aren't sitting around just waiting to go home!" Um, it was actually in writing, which was illegal here at the time.
In any event, I'm old now. I don't do that anymore. When hours are needed, I do them. When not, I don't. We are understaffed and sorry, but your inability to staff or properly select the number of projects that are doable is NOT my problem. Of course, plenty of studies show that increasing hours actually decreases overall productivity. But hey, it's all about the numbers, amirite?