100% this.

I'm not opposed to the occasional big rush in overtime. I don't work 40.0's either.

I had a project recently where I lived my work though, and it wasn't healthy. I just kept thinking: "I will not be the reason this does not succeed.", and I worked 50's for a month, then I worked 60's for a couple months, then 70's... then I worked 90's+ right up til the deadline. Basically my winter, entire spring, and a chunk of summer was completely gone because of work.

We hit the deadline and everyone involved was so burned out and there was/are still too many things to do. It wasn't worth it. If you work too much, you make mistakes. The most you can do is to do the best you can do. Don't fuck off when it's work-time. Don't stop because "it's time to stop" (maybe acceptable a little bit for beer), but don't keep going so late that you start making mistakes. It's a balance. You need to get the balance wrong a couple times before you figure it out. Burning out creates mistakes and review and wastes more time than doing it right and taking the appropriate time. Sometimes schedule pressure and program pressure kills you though. Sometimes you need to go home, or go out, and meet people and have fun and relax and forget.

I'm still feeling it today. I backed off on my hours the last two or three weeks to try to preserve my sanity. All I can do is tell my leadership that I'm overburdened. If they want to pay me more to coax me into doing more, I'll happily take a bump and chug along a bit harder. I ate a title shift downwards because I didn't like my last job and I wanted to get this experience, but I've got over 6 years solid mechanics analysis experience and a master's. I don't know what I was trying to prove; it wasn't healthy. Right now though, there's a goddamn limit and we have to live our lives at some point. I don't make near enough to lose a full year of my life to work. A half a year is where I've drawn that line and I consider it stupid still. I didn't even get relocation, you know? I sold my whole damn life to come here and lose so much time. Was it good experience? Yeah, a lot of it. But a lot of it was just constantly moving targets and unrealistic deadlines with poor direction. And at the end of the day, I think I ended up looking bad because the program made a blanket statement about lack of "ownership". Yeah right.