[simmons]

Let's not forget that work is a vector quantity: direction is as important (or more important) than magnitude.

Also, it's important to understand the relationship between work and productivity. I knew a wannabe programmer who once bragged about how much "hard work" he put into an 8-hour day of manually tweaking data, when he could have written a program to do it in a half hour.

[resnamen]

Yes. There are also the superstars that just put in 8 hour days but manage to get more meaningful work done than anybody else in the office.