“We’ve been noticing that you’ve been leaving before 9:00 PM the last couple days ... Can we please see you in our office? Right now?”

Heh .. I worked for a company like that here in Toronto once. (Yep, got fired from there too -- that's another story.) We were all working like crazy, and at one point I'd scheduled myself to get into work at midnight in advance of a business trip. I arrived just as my team lead was putting down the phone having called my house to see where I was.

I believe my gut feelings about the hours that an employer expects has gotten a lot better in the time since then.

I'm interested in Europe because I'd like a change of scenery, having lived in Toronto for over 25 years. Maybe I won't like it and happily come back to Toronto.

I had a similar experience with a company here in Nashville.   Heh.   (And the gall of it is, they’re right now advertising for another Perl-programmer bone to chew.)   But I guess we could grouse about employers and clients forever, and just wind up wandering far-afield from where this thread is supposed to be going.   I suspect that every one of us has stories like that to tell, in great abundance ...

Well the EU is also not free of problems... Let me give just one example. Currently, the unemployment in Spain is slightly above 20%! This is of course unsustainable in the long (intermediate?) term.