Actually this was a joke. And yes: If you want to achieve something other than just getting a mediocre paycheck, you should put in the usual extra hours.<p>But afaik there also seems to be a slightly different work mentality here in germany, where you go to work and actually <i>work</i>, not chatting gossip or read facebook... at least some blog post from non-germans claim this (since I&#x27;m obviously biased I can&#x27;t confirm this).