One of my past bosses had a very clear metric to evaluate your commitment – how long you sat in the office at night. In fact, he himself used to sit till 9 pm every day.
A very hard-working guy he was. Except that when he was transferred out, his successor found that my boss had kept some 200 odd files pending for almost a year or two. Normally, these files should have been disposed of within a day or two.
That makes you wonder – what was he doing in the office till 9 pm every day? I have no idea.
All I know is that he did zero focused work. He was just distracted, talking to people, or whiling away his time. He was busy. And just being busy is no good.
If my boss had been focused, he could have finished all his work and left office at 5:30 pm. But that would not have shown ‘commitment.’
Sitting late and burning electricity on the office AC is not commitment.
Just focus, do an outstanding job, and then go home. That is commitment.
– Rajan