An aside to your comment (but not a direct response to you since you're just relating a too common situation): Hard work is not the polar opposite of working efficiently.
No, it's not. But people aren't stupid (at least, if you hire well) and it's often-observed that the simple act of "being there" is rewarded.
An anecdote from my past: two simultaneous projects; I'm the lead engineer on one and another person, more senior than me, is the lead on the other. I work with my team and we deliver ahead of schedule and with features that the product managers had become accustomed to being told, "no, that's too hard" by the engineering teams. The other project fell far behind, had the whole team working in a war room 12-18 hours per day for weeks.
Guess which team got big bonuses and publicly recognized for their work?
