You know what really grinds my gears?!

[Steve85]

When I first started it was it was 8-5 in the office every day with a one hour lunch plus whatever extra time to finish the proposal on time. That meant a lot of longer hours in the beginning. 9 years later and it's work from home with the only requirement to record 40 hours. We have a "general" code that essentially means we are between projects. My schedule also ends up being a few hours one day and then 10-12 the next depending on the stage of the proposal and inputs from the technical team and subs. I've gone couple weeks without really having much to do and I've been in the office until 2AM.

Boss is very good about making sure we take the personal time when it's slow (getting away from office/desk without actually spending PTO). The deadlines are absolute and as long as we are complete, accurate, compliant and on time, there isn't much to bitch about it. I've always made sure to ask for more and more complex projects and put the extra time in as needed to deliver a good product and increase my visibility. It's been good for career development, keeps things interesting and paid off with the most recent promotion (out of cycle) and 10% bump coming earlier this week! I watch those around me and probably have one more level before it's "job ahead of family" in order to succeed and have no real interest there.

And for the uninitiated, here's the math on OT (more specifically "UCOT" - UnCompensated OT) and why your employer likes it especially when competing for business:

A typical 40 hr week over 52 weeks means there are 2080 productive hours per year (this is the "standard"). If you work 45/week there are 2,340. Compare the hourly rate at say 60K/yr: (there is some fudge here, weeks off on leave, you don't typically take more than 8 hours of leave per day, so you're actual average would be slightly less than 45)
60K / 2080 = 28.85/hr
60K / 2340 = 25.64/hr

In order to provide you fringe benefits (taxes, retirement, leave), working space, HR and other support functions, your cost to the employer is the hourly rate x the cost of those things. A reasonable multiplier would be 1.7. More math:
28.85 x 1.7 = 49.05
25.64 x 1.7 = 43.59

Take that $6/hr times say 35 people and over 5 years, the savings is over $2M on the price tag. This is aside from the obvious "less people to do same amount of work" implications of OT.