[Periodic]

Two examples:

You'll find a lot of part-time workers that work 30-35 hours/week, including in IT, because that is the most they can work without being entitled to benefits. The difference in the nature of that work and the benefits may hide any significant differences due to total hours.

There are also plenty of companies where the employees only work a few hours per day but are in the office for 8-10 hours. Take Google, for example. It's fairly easy between gym, meals, massage, sports league, etc to only actually have 30 hours/week allocated for work, even though a person is in the office for 8-9 hours. However, it may be a huge psychological difference to be trying to fill your work day vs. having full control over time.

[mtberatwork]

> There are also plenty of companies where the employees only work a few hours per day but are in the office for 8-10 hours.

I think that pretty much describes every company that's primarily composed of white-collar jobs. Realistically, a company is only going to get ~4 hours a day of actual productivity from an employee at the office.

[mjevans]

Or maybe a number ever closer to the Office Space number. I think I recall the main character saying that once all of the distractions, needless interactions with other employees, and 'spacing out' (I took that as low quality sleep with eyes open) were removed only about an hour of actual, real, work was being done.

Particularly for what are really creative arts, a more relaxed day and better quality of life /outside/ of work are probably important positively correlated factors in performance.